Skint in summer holidays

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If you have young kids and you’re skint how are you getting through it? Today we’re having a movie day with snacks but no further plans for the rest of the holiday. Everything is sooo expensive 😢 feel like I’m drowning and trying to keep the kids entertained until they go back to school

How old are they op? When my DC were little I could keep them pretty happy with endless park/playground trips...I know it gets harder as they get older

It is expensive. Especially when you have more than one child. We just went to cineworld to their £1 films. Take your own snacks and drinks. A bargain morning! There are a few events if you check your local Facebook events page. I spend a lot time of looking for local free or cheap says out. We have a lot of picnics, as food is so expensive to buy out nowadays. National trust card pays for itself over the holidays and have activities for children and sometimes play areas. I have teen dc and that is where is more difficult to find free/cheap events. They spend a lot of time in their rooms 😔

How old?

parks, beaches, lakes etc. picnics are pretty cheap (you have to eat anyway).

bus somewhere new?

walk and explore near you (geocaching?)
most churches have some kind of camp of play scheme over the summer.

practice sports at park - running races, can you get some cheap second hand tennis or badminton rackets? Mine used to spend hours playing “tennis”.

It’s so tough when they’re older too. My tween is happy to go for a walk and thankfully happy with a Greggs treat but the days of running round a playground are over (unless it’s some amazing outdoor playground)

Can't they entertain each other.
Do they.not have any friends or family?

Do you have a garden? When mine were younger, they used to enjoy an obstacle course that I made out of anything we had around, to climb over, balance on or crawl under. If the weather was warm they had to carry a cup of water and be the quickest to fill a bucket at the end.

Thanks all for the ideas 🙏

They are 3 and nearly 7 they do love the park, might need to find a new local one

Noooo 😭 this is the thing, if I had a garden I wouldn’t feel so guilty about not going out all the time. I would let them take their toys out, eat their dinner outside and let them play out. Maybe a little paddling pool when it was hot. I have so much guilt about not having a garden

I can imagine it’s an expensive age!

Do you not have any local galleries or museums with dedicated children’s spaces, either indoors or outside? They were a brilliant resource when I had small people to entertain. And all free.

I can only speak for us but while some things are free, the parking, the fuel (or public transport), etc isn’t. It really does add up so I sympathise. I’ve gone way over budget!

Have you got any outdoor space at all?

google parks near you - go to all the parks you’ve never been to before. Take a picnic.

look at the local library - lots have free events on during the summer holidays.

download a treasure hunt online. Go and find them!

camp in the living room.

baking!

We went to all the parks, we invented a game to find all the new parks and tick them off and rate them.
Pond dipping.
Buy a cheap kids metal detector and find stuff in the woods.
Ball games
Get some tennis rackets and use the park tennis courts.
Free museums, many have childs play areas.
Cafes with play areas, google which ones have kids play areas, buy a cup of tea and let thrm play.
Librarys have free activities.
Cheap cinema hours.
Our go to has been the science museum, its free to get in and has a huge play area.
Also your council might run free activities for low income families. Ours has a program of summer holiday clubs.

This was in the pandemic, but we used to do an 'urban safari' where everyone had a list with items to check off eg postbox, cat and we'd go out for a walk, ending up at the corner shop with sweets for the winner ( and runner up of course)

It's hard but not impossible. We're lucky in a way because we live in the back arse of nowhere and my youngest is into nature bug time. If you're able to then go out with an ispye book and look for nature stuff but they also do cars and all sorts. We have no money at all but spend our days out eating a 'picnic' basically exactly the same as we'd be eating but in a bag and head out looking for insects and even snakes. My older one hates all this so I drop her off on a bike and the local kids just bike between the villages all day and come back a d do gaming all evening. They know I've got no money so they don't ask!

Mine are in the older years of primary school and this year has definitely been harder trying to do free/cheap things and avoiding screens if we stay home.
At home they still enjoy some craft activities, baking, and board games.
When they were the ages of your kids at home we would have done things like junk modelling, playdoh, painting, jigsaws, Lego, tie dye.
When out they would have liked going to different parks - even the small ones, going for walks to feed the ducks, scooters rides.
We still go to the free museum and the library and see if there are any free activities (for your children there is likely to be more things).

Tell me about it, £35 to take dd to sealife, and thats with me going free as her carer, as she is autistic. Absolute insanity

All we have done is go swimming. And to the park. Then swimming 😭

As long as the kids are fed, happy, and have access to some green space, youre doing alright imo xx

Go to the park or a walk or splash about in a stream ... costs zero

@mumofoneAloneandwell I totally agree, also when we were kids parents were never entertaining us or taking us out on trips.

You just played at home or out nearby until you were about 9ish and then disappeared all day with your mates. They weren't responsible for us having fun so we made our own fun. (I sound like a right old gimmer in my 30s 😬).

We had one thing we did at the end of the hols which would be like any of the pricey stuff they expect us to do daily.

At that age it's very easy to hype up simple things. An indoor picnic, movie night under a 'tent', picnic in the park with friends. One of mine loved a 99p fishing net and we'd look for fish in puddles and small streams. Never, ever caught anything but it kept them occupied. I had an expensive activity based childhood, but my favourite memories are eating ice lollies in the car and going on random drives.

We had a skint couple of years when my dc were around that age.
We went to every park and woods in the area.
I copied out scavenger huts, let them throw stones into a lake, asked them what they thought might be living in the woods or in the lakes and made up stories with them.
Bought pens that worked on stones and went out to collect smooth big stones and used online images to inspire us.
Built little homes out of twigs for woodland animals.
played dodgeball or catch in the park with them
Had lots of picnics.
How far is your nearest beach? Lots of fun building castles and paddling.
Do you have Tesco clubcard? I collected vouchers and did a trip out to a zoo.
Look up any council run activities in your area.

I’m on a tight budget with dd and am doing the following:

Walks with favourite toys / scooter / bike whatever
Picking blackberries / flowers / go to woods & explore / spot squirrels etc
Library - ours has a free summer reading challenge for kids to collect stickers, Lego club, toys, colouring, jigsaw
Picnics all the way - just bag up snacks and sarnies for all of you b4 you go out so you can stay out for a while & don’t have to spend on food
Parks / splash parks / stream / beach - whatever you have local to you
Baking / cooking (there are some good recipes online requiring hardly any ingredients so you don’t have to buy anything special in)
Get them to help you with chores like cleaning out cupboards etc at home (my dd loves going through our bathroom / food cupboards etc 😅)
Tesco Clubcard points can pay for a bigger day out or cinema / bowling
Drawing / painting / reading / playing with toys at home
Loads of cafes / eateries do kids eat cheap or free in the summer - Tesco are doing a free kids lunch if adult eats, if you can stretch to something small for yourself
Free events run by local council
Wander round any big shop just looking at everything (dept stores, supermarkets, shopping centres - it’s amazing how kids can entertain themselves in these places 😅)
Cheap showings at cinema &, for eg, we can do cheap swimming sessions as part of my dd’s term time swimming lessons

I’ve found it helpful to have a rough idea of something to do each day and it usually involves going out for at least a few hours with a picnic, so dd gets fresh air and exercise to tire her out. Also I’ve found it helpful to have a rough routine like library once a week to get a new sticker, splash park once a week etc.

I'll caveat that I don't have children, but friends children love making these types of things:
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/playdough-recipe
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/how-make-slime-without-borax
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/how-make-salt-dough-recipe
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/how-make-paper-mache
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/kids-summer-activities

How much is the local bus or train? And is there one which stops near you? At that age, mine loved public transport and we didn’t use it in our day to day life so summer holidays often involved getting the bus or train somewhere and then walking to a park local to that train station. We always took a picnic. The best days out in their opinion was the train to the local interchange, sitting there for half an hour or so to see if a goods trains or fast train came through and then getting a connecting train somewhere. I had no interest in trains whatsoever so took my book! The DC travelled for £1 each I seen to recall so the whole day out was that plus my ticket.