Days out- how do people afford them?

[lovelydaffodils]

Went to a local attraction.
Coffee was £2.90
Pizza was £12
Entry was £30 for the three of us.
Activity was approx a two hour max

We have kids pass so get in to the cinema for £4 each , national trust members ( Xmas present from my mum for all of us ) . We went to Manchester on the train the other week - £22 for the train return , science museum ( free) then football museum pay once that's entry for the year we had a brilliant packed day. We have a dog so a lot of our days out involve walks -visiting Abbeys , trails etc

Yup, you would have saved 33% of the days cost by taking your own food.

When ours were little we never went anywhere without a pack up, eating at an event or centre was prohibitive cost wise.

These days I could afford it but I’m too tight to pay rip off prices.

@BuyBuyBuyBuy

We can afford lots of days out plus lots of holiday because we prioritise that rather than a big house and 2 cars.

There you are OP; sell your big house and one of your cars, and Bob's your uncle!

The day out which includes an expensive entry place and/or lunch bought there is very rare.

Lots of days out, but to places where we have a membership and then spend less than £10 having a coffee/ice cream. Because the days out are regular, there’s not such need to splash out on full scale meal, gift shop etc. Picnics are definitely your friend.

The odd big ticket day out is often funded by Tesco ClubCard or similar. Would rarely have a meal there too - expensive and often not very good.

A lot comes down to being an adept ‘day-tripper’ so none of it is a big deal. Lots of people can throw together a packed lunch or picnic very quickly, keep a picnic blanket in the car and have reusable coffee cups and maybe a flask. They whizz off and don’t go to the really expensive places, but regularly visit the same place or group of places. Like this, they often don’t need to go for the who,e day as ‘value’ isn’t so important, so arriving after lunch and leaving by 4.30 can work.

No-one needs to regularly do zoo trips, theme parks, safari park, expensive entry places and also eat out whilst there. The key is to be getting out regularly.

We luckily were gifted family life membership of the National Trust, but even the annual fee is cheap compared to the number of times/places you can go, it's cheaper to buy the Scottish one. And you can go as often as you wish. There is no need to suffer the inflated cafe prices, take drinks/flask, and picnic, huge playmat to sit on and it's great. But agree with @beetrooted it can be a pain with no car, although there are quite a few in London you can get to by public transport that can be a big cost though.
Lots of museums are free/voluntary/quite cheap, and many attractions you can go again on the same ticket that year.

Our favourite day out with young kids was to a local river where there is a ford and a beach area you can dip for fish etc. Big country park next door where you can bird watch and walk round lakes., loads of blackberries to pick in the summer. All for free.

We have a "days out" account that DP and I put money into each month ( we have 4 DC between us)

We look to do sonething at least every other month and take all the money for the day from that account

We’ve got a Merlin pass this year. I figure we will only want it for a year so we will focus mostly on those attractions.

Next year we will do something else.

Didn't bother with days out much when ds was small. Overrated, expensive, overcrowded and too many kids (and now there would be too many dogs, too). Different when on holiday.

I agree, much nicer to go out for a walk in the local woods or go for a bike ride and come back to cake and tea at home.

There are plenty of free activities if you look for them. Have a look in a library or local Facebook groups for ideas. As an example, a local park is doing a family sport day in early April near me. And there are lots of parks where you only have to pay for parking and can maybe stretch to an ice cream if there's a van?

Merlin passes are really expensive!

We went to a local medieval Hall today, 4 adults and 3 children. It was free entry and free parking, there were several kids quiz sheets to work through on the way round. Afterwards I let the 3 children buy something in the shop to help support the running costs, and put £10 in the donation box. There was a park over the road so we took the children over there and they played for a good hour before having a picnic. I would say I spent £40 all in and 3 generations had a lovely time. We were lucky with the weather which helped!

@lovelydaffodils

Went to a local attraction. Coffee was £2.90 Pizza was £12 Entry was £30 for the three of us. Activity was approx a two hour max

I use vouchers for entry when possible. Or online if cheaper than on the gate.

Always take food and drinks with us.

I also plan what activities I want to do throughout the year and try to spread things, so that there's not an expectation on organised attractions over other activities, usually free other activities!

Activity 2 hours max … so could have been less than that??
I too don’t understand why you’d have food and coffee on a 2 hour excursion
I try to make any day out last .. a day!

His old are your dc?

Yes, one pass a year works well. Then you can do half day trips and it doesn’t feel like a big deal. We’ve done NT, RHS, EH and some local farms.

Some like to do Merlin or other theme parks if they’re nearby.

They then form the basis of most days out. Only occasionally would you go elsewhere and even then probably with a picnic.

But actually lots of people don’t really do lots of these kind of days out. Instead they prefer a day at the shopping centre or on a leisure park doing bowling, cinema, etc. Going on a day out to the countryside just doesn’t appeal to lots of people or it feels like real hard work. Lots of people have never really made a picnic and can’t contemplate a flask or something that doesn’t involve buying food. People are different and different tribes like different things. For some, the pizza at the stately home is the bit they’re interested in, not the grounds or the house.

How about kayaking/canoe hire or even buying an inflatable kayak?

I must be a privileged princess, because that doesn't sound like a lot for a day out for 3 people.

Generally I avoid buying food and drink at attractions. Either take food with us or eat before/after if only a two hour activity. £100 for a whole day activity for five of us is about normal. I would tend to avoid short and expensive activities eg go karting, would rather do something that is a whole day out, or stick to cheaper things.

Big trips like the zoo or a theme park are probably once a year occasions or something we do on holiday in the UK and we just accept that we need to factor it in to the holiday budget.... they're bloody expensive but some take Clubcard vouchers which has helped us a lot and to be fair we've got nice memories of those trips.

For regular days out we have membership to the National Trust and also to our local farm park (paid for by grandparents as part of DDs' christmas/birthday presents.) We REALLY cut down our spending when we started taking packed lunches on these days out so I usually make some sandwiches and a thermos of tea. To be fair a couple of times when it's been a more spontaneous trip and I've not had time to make a packed lunch we've swung by a supermarket first and bought some sausage rolls and fruit to take in with us then maybe buy a coffee or an ice cream there. It's still way cheaper than eating at the restaurants or cafés on site and the food at these sort of places is usually mediocre anyway. I don't mind paying a few quid a head for ice creams or some tea and cake but the £10+ for some bog standard lasagne or something just was getting way too expensive with four of us.

Go to places such as the beach or a local park type place where there is a lot of space to play about in but nowhere much to spend any money. Take a picnic, some bottled drinks and/or a flask and something for the dc to play with and just enjoy the outdoors.

Yes I often wonder how people manage to pay for days out with children, it must cost a bomb! Last week we went to a country house with gardens with free admission tokens. We took a flask, homemade cake and.packed lunch. This saved £40 admission and about £30 for lunch, coffees and cake.

Season passes for birthday and/or Christmas presents.

I also dont mind paying for a meal out if it's decent.

Boring answer but we don't really bother. We go out for free days out, like picnic at the beach etc. We save the money for holidays. After going to Orlando the DC aren't interested in theme parks in the UK.

27 pound a head to visit a farm bloody hell

No idea.

We can’t. We’ve got a great museum and a zoo in our town. Tickets for just me and two children would be over £60 to get in. I can’t do that.

Such a shame as we pass them daily.

Spotted this Lottery days out scheme last year: www.visitbritainshop.com/gb/en/nationallotterydaysout Buy your lottery ticket for £2 and you get a £25 voucher to spend on an attraction in the UK.