Tired of fighting this nightmare.

[Dreamer3688]

Sat here at crazy o'clock in the morning just wondering how I got here. Its the summer holidays, 2 kids and a husband in tow and after the most stressful 2 years of our lives trying to keep our heads above water and working every possible hour under the sun to maintain our overheads for a business we very nearly lost, our 2 kids (aged 6 and 9) have been beyond incredible throughout. If anything, they have put up with us. Now we are here, working ourselves silly yet again, just to try and recover from this nightmare and I'm still not even sure that we will. After promising the kids that we would have a great summer, we are trying our best to exhaust the free things we are surrounded by like the beach etc...but we're running out and trying to work every given hour to stay adrift. My eldest in particular is watching all his friends go away on trips across the country, some (crazily!) abroad. We've managed to get bank holiday weekend off as a family, initially got them all excited but I feel like I've trawled the internet for hours (days!), trying to find something, anything to go away to but the cost, just...how?! Both kids have talked about London many times but costs with train travel is coming out at over £500...that's before food and tourist attractions. They deserve this weekend more than anything and yet we absolutely cannot give it to them at these costs. And whilst I know they will be empathetic (to a degree!), they will be devastated if we end up staying home that weekend.

I'm just feeling like such a massive mum failure right now and I'm so tired of fighting this nightmare. We work so hard and yet here we are, struggling through another month with the risk of more empty promises.

Could you get the coach to London? Would that be cheaper. I was shocked at the cost of a trim ticket to London recently. I hope things get easier for you both OP financially and that you keep your business afloat.

Bank holiday weekend will be bus replacement due to engineering works so avoid train if you can. Does it have to be london?
I generally found that last week of school hols was a bit cheaper to go away (might not be this year) and sometimes you have to go with what you can afford rather than would prefer. Have you looked at something like PGL activity holiday? They often have last minute offers and depending on your dc interest they may enjoy just being away with things to do.

If you can just get to London, many of the e best things for kids are free/cheap.

Go on the river buses/shuttles using oyster cards, Natural History and Science Museums, The Royal Parks, the red buses, the statues and lego shop in Leicester Square..

Where do you live? And what's your budget?

Does it have to be London? And if so can you stay further out and commute in for the sightseeing?

If not London, tell us vaguely which major cities are in a two hour max journey to you and maybe other mumsnetters can recommend things to do there and places to stay?

It maybe worth looking at Premier Inns - you could do one on outskirts if can drive down. I just looked up a family room for one in Buckhurst Hill, zone 5 central line and that is £79.50 for one night. Breakfast would be about £19 for 4 of you.

From there can get tube in and you can do free museums (may need to book some things) and things like the river boat is exciting for kids but not that pricey and can see lots of the sights. You could also get one of the buses that go round the sites, some of the regular buses do that. You can get off the boat at Greenwich and there is a lovely park there with a playground and I think pedalo boats, the observatory etc, maybe take a picnic or kids are normally delighted with somewhere like McDonalds which is cheap.

Stick it on a credit card?

Do NOT "stick it on a credit card". How does that help?? Then you just have to pay London PLUS interest... and more. And every month long after the weekend has been forgotten, you'll still be trying to scrape together the minumum payment.

The kids are young - they don't need that.

nightmare = can't afford to go on hols to London? ??

Anyway, youth hostel for 4 person family, Cambridge, < £300 for 3 nights. I haven't tried London YHA yet. Cambridge is commutable to London for one or more of those days.

I think your 6yr old and 9yr old should be ok with not going on a holiday?!

Depending on where you live maybe you could just do some day trips. Just spending time together as a family will be nice.

Have you got any Tesco Clubcard points? You can use those for days out and often get three times the value of the points to swap.

Where do you live? Why is the travel £500. That can't be right.

Have you checked the train prices using a family travel card, £30 for the year and it gves you a 1/3 off adults and even more off the kids train tickets.

What about the bus?

Check out National Express. Much cheaper than the train. Look for a Premier Inn/ Travelodge/Air B&B outside the centre and travel in. Lots of free activities in London. Go to a supermarket and buy snacks and drinks to save money on days out. Have you any Nectar/Clubcard points to cash in?

Please try not to stress about holidays on top of everything else. Work out a budget then find what you can do for that. London is expensive at the best of times, forget it.

My advice would be to look on the map, find a town or city a short distance away that isn't particularly a tourist attraction, find a cheap Airbnb or budget hotel then just enjoy the free parks, museums, pizza hut etc and maybe one treat like a paid attraction. Splash out at the charity shops and get a few new games etc to play together.

You're not failing your kids, this could be a time when you teach them something valuable about resilience and determination. But freaking out about not seeing Big Ben won't do it. Good times are spending time with each other plus a change of scene.

Have you looked into railcards to get 1/3 off fares? Where are you going from?

Where do you live OP?

Possibly stupid question but have you looked at alternate stations?
My nearest city one is £70 return for one adult to london. Drive to another town a short distance away and it’s £30.

However as others have said, public transport is often a nightmare on BH weekends. So if you could drive then park on the outskirts and get the tube in that would help.

Loads of things are free that are good to do but also look up packages. For example if you book online for The London Eye you save 20% and you can book packages through them to include a river boat cruise or tickets to Madame Tussaud’s or the London Dungeon which would come to £177 for the latter which is pretty good for basically £22pp per attraction.
www.londoneye.com/

£500 seems a lot unless you’re coming from Scotland or somewhere remote?!

Play around with driving to a closer station and then getting the train from there. Look at railcards to get discounts. Earlier / later trains etc etc. It’s amazing how much you can save when you play around with these things.

If you need to stay overnight look at staying slightly outside of London and getting the train in. Premier Inn family rooms are very cheap. Or even two Travelodge rooms.

Loads of free stuff to do in London - museums, parks, just walking around. Take packed lunch.

I know this isn’t the answer to everything but you can definitely make it cheaper than you think. We live in South Norfolk and managed to do it for 4 for about £200 last year and that’s including train travel and museums etc. We still could have spent less than that.

Have you looked at friends and family and advanced tickets. The f&f Card is 30gbp and then you get 1/3 off all tickets.

Megabus? Universityrooms (lots have self-catering facilities so you don't have to eat out)? Hostels (there's a great family-friendly one right next to the Natural History Museum)?

Honestly they won’t be devastated. They will be mildly disappointed but will take their cues from you, so if you are jolly’ ‘oh let’s have a takeaway choose what you want, eat it sitting on the floor’ they will be fine.
It seems that it’s more about you feeling you have let them down.
I mean this in the nicest way but you are being ridiculous, millions of children around the world don’t have holidays and do just fine.

London hotels are cheap at the moment. You might find a Hilton, IHG or radius on cheaper than a travel lodge or premier inn

Thank you for your responses. Honestly though, it's not about the kids 'not getting a holiday' at all. For me, probably more so, it's the empty promises. I haven't promised them London but I know it's what they would want and honestly, they deserve it all more than anything. We were on such a knife edge last year that the kids ended up on the free school meal plan, we were using food banks and making excuses as to why we were biking to work because we couldn't afford the fuel and then why Dad was never home because he was working all hours...

I was so sure I could pull something great together - we have just under £350 saved and hoping to pull together a little more and based on the devon/ cornwall border. Just one weekend of, away from home, away from us talking about work all the time, fun! I looked at a family and friends railcard to bring the costs down of train travel down and the cheapest hotel seems to be a travelodge. But with breakfast, it's still coming out so expensive. Potentially may look at staying outside of London to bring costs down - should I be anxious at the thought of using the tube in the evenings with the kids? I've been told i can get tube travel cheap. Surprisingly, London is actually the cheaper of the UK options. Travel time is about 4 hours on the train - by bus its around 9 Which is too much for a weekend break.