How much spending money?

[Jemma478]

My DD (year 7) is about to go on a 3 day school residential to London and I am trying to work out how much spending money is reasonable. Activities and meals are paid for, but they do have free time for shopping, may need theatre drinks, snacks etc. TIA

I would give her sixty pounds if it were me.

I was going to suggest £150 as a starting point, £50 a day doesn’t seem wildly out of touch for a very modest amount of shopping, snacks and drinks in London.

Id agree with above atleast £50 a day. If you can round it up to £200. Drink and snacks in the theatre will be atleast £20 x

How much can you afford?
Ask how much others are taking. Don’t schools usually suggest an amount?

At that age are they not always in activities? Personally I would not be giving a child in year 7 £50 per day. All the meals are provided for. It may they need 10-15 quid for an extra drink or thing of popcorn. Do you really want them coming back with loads of tat?!

It's what you can afford isn't it? If all meals accommodation and activities are paid for £60 would probably suffice for snacks and a souvenir, depending on age and type of shopping I'd probably give at least £100, I wouldn't for DS as he'd just come back with something like Pokémon cards

Year 7, so the child is 11-12

Do they get pocket money and can save before going or is the trip soon?

I would have expected my child to save some pocket money for such a trip and then added £50 for fun money and £15/day for drinks and snacks.

Is lunch really covered? I always found that DD had to ensure she has money for lunch as they were always out and about unless the accommodation provides a packed lunch.

£50 a day sounds very reasonable to me. Central London is very expensive.

Normally, the school sets a limit. I know when we’ve had week long residentials, they’ve said things like no more than £60 or the French one was €20 just enough to buy a few trinkets. They won’t be off going on shopping trips. It will just be a stop as a group in a shop with some tourist tat. I personally wouldn’t send more than £20 a day. That’s plenty for snacks and drinks. Will they need to buy food for the coach or train? I know our trips always involve stops at services where they buy lunch or other things. They don’t necessarily say this. They will say bring a packed lunch or packed lunch is provided. But they always stop and they always spend money there and lunch at a motorway services is at least £10.

Yeah this is nuts. It isn't a shopping trip and there will be designated stops to buy a drink and maybe a trip to a museum gift shop and that's it. There is no way they're going to need £50 a day. The school will probably set it as £10 a day max, in separate envelopes that they can dish out each day. You'll be asked to provide a water bottle and probably a packed lunch for day 1. If you imagine 120+ kids dithering over what to buy with loads more money than they usually have you can imagine that it just wouldn't be workable.

Mine went to Belgium in year 7 for 3 days. I think we were advised €50 spends and we left her 50 in her Monzo account

£25 a day would be my starting point. Plus a bonus £20.

No guidance from school?

Come on, it's not £50 a day expensive for the sorts of things the OP is talking about. Even £20 a day is likely to be more than enough for drinks, ice creams and bits and pieces from museum shops. It's not like they're going to be going off to cruise the luxury department stores for trinkets and a styling session are they?

If she takes £200 like some have suggested, it's likely she's going to lose it, spend it on utter crap, treat all her friends, which could be a good or bad thing, depending on how much money you have. Or might possibly bring most of it back.

But don't schools often give guidance on this sort of thing, to avoid situations where some turn up with a fiver and run out before they've left the first service station and others with hundreds of pounds that then needs looking after to avoid the abovementioned problems.

Thanks for all the advice! No, school haven’t said an amount, not up-to now anyway, her primary always did, which was much easier.

Hasn’t the school given a guideline? They don’t want one kid rocking up with £200 and another with £20! Some of these figures seem extreme.

When DS went on a similar trip a couple of years ago. They were told to bring £5 for lunch (they got Tesco meal deals mostly!) and no more than £15 spending money a day. They were so busy, DS didn’t spend most of it.

I would think £25-30 per day. Given their age I would expect shopping experiences to be reasonably controlled rather than a free for all in Central London.

I'd go for £25 a day so £75 altogether, but she's got a revolut card, so presuming she has a phone she could request more money if needs be or if there was an emergency. Edited to add, as long as the emergency wasn't loosing her phone 😂.

£100

Do they have their own bank card that you can top up if they run short?

I'd start with £60 (£20pd) and see how they get on and they can get in touch if they need more.

Do you have other parents in the class you can ask? Often we'll decide amongst ourselves how much were giving the kids so they're roughly the same.

£50 a day is madness. There are unlikely to have much free time as you won't want 11 year olds wandering around London solo.

Surely it's lunch, ice ream, popcorn over a few days plus snacks when on travel stops. I would give £20 per day, use a Post Office card or similar and top up if needed.

If it's £50 a day, what do you think a student living away from home would expect??