About mil and fil's wedding anniversary? V long, for non drip-feeding purposes.

[bibbityisaporker]

My inlaws are celebrating their golden wedding anniversary at about this time next year and dh and his brother have already started planning their celebrations. This is actually mainly down to bil ... he likes to plan way ahead.

Anyway, there has been talk of us all going away for a week together, to which dh and I have said a plain "no thank you". This is because we do not get on particularly well with bil and sil and their children, can usually tolerate about 2 days in their company, but after that it all gets A BIT MUCH iykwim. Also, dh is self employed and never but never takes more than 4 days off in a row (and that is only at Christmas) except for our 2 week family holiday in the summer.

Right, so we are not going to go away for a whole week, so now the proposal is a long weekend but mil has got her heart set on this extra special cottage which is going to cost £3,000 for 4 nights - partly because it will be in the Easter holidays next year and I guess we have to pay for the full week

Mil and fil are very very low income, infact they are both living on state pension and a few top-up benefits. So bil proposed to dh that they share the cost of the accommodation (£1500 each).

Now am I bu to think that £1500 is a lot to spend on your parents golden wedding anniversary present??

To put it in context, dh is a highish earner, but not 6 figures, and our budget for our family holiday is about £3,000. We spend about £50 - £100 on each other for our birthdays, about the same on the children. I have a very significant birthday coming up this year and dh is going to buy me a laptop, I have never had one. So we are comfortably off but not rolling in it.

I am miffed that mil and pil would think this is fair and reasonable too, tbh.

Over to you lot.

Op How do you know the holiday will cost £3000 all in ?
Have you seen info on the deal ?

Sorry to be nosy , but I've got a sinking feeling that the bil might be trying to get you to pay for the whole shebang. May isn't exactly peak season , I just don't understand the high costs.

Is the cottage in uk ?

I don't know about you, but I would be very ashamed of myself if I could spend £3000 a year on a holiday for myself and dc, but on my parents golden anniversary could not adjust to make it a holiday with them instead.

And it is not a £1500 gift towards accomodation to PIL it is £280, as the rest is spent on OPs own family. It is not like you go to a wedding and spend £1000 on travel and hotel and say I made a £1000 'gift' to the married couple.

Also at the vitriol towards BIL and suspicion that he is trying to fleece his brother. Glad that I am not related to you lot.

I don't know about you, but I would feel very ashamed of myself if I thought my hard working son and his family went without their annual 2 week holiday in the sun, to pay for 4 days grown up accommodation in rainy UK at Easter.

Especially when I could have had a huge party or a romantic night away with my spouse, or a weekend in family friendly accommodation for a fraction of the price.

It is a £1500 gift towards the PIL because the entire event is being done as an anniversary present to them.

What you would be ashamed of, Flatbread, has no bearing on what anyone else should do.

Some people are more into spending a lot of money on presents than others. It doesn't make their love more valuable.

Gifts should always be given freely - people should not ever be handed a bill for a joint "present" in this way. It's a dreadful way to treat people.

The BIL and PIL ought to be ashamed of their grabby rudeness in coming up with this plan and informing their brother and son that he was expected to pay up.

My parents hosted a BBQ-it was great.

I don´t get on well enough with my ILs to want to spend my main holiday with them.

As I said earlier, I regularly holiday with family, but if I was treated the way the OP's DH has been - my money requisitioned through putting me in an embarrassing situation that tried to force my agreement - I would say an absolute no.

No way would I set a precedent that my family money was up for grabs whenever my brother felt like being generous.

LtEve - exactly.

FWIW both sets of my grandparents had parties for their golden wedding anniversaries, and my parents and their siblings were very generous with gifts - but not to the tune that is being talked about here - and it certainly didn't impact on the family finances in the way that this trip would for the OP and her family.

Different strokes and all that. Very surprised that so many people are against this. Fwiw, most people I know treat their parents to special holidays, golden anniversary or not.

Just last year I flew halfway round the world and my sis and I treated my parents to three days at an amazing spa. No occasion, but just wanted to thank them for help with managing a rental property for us ( in OP's case it may be help with babysitting?). Dsis decided the place and I was fine with it, it was about treating our parents, not about me.

Every couple of years or so we try to do something special for the parents. Treat them to a cruise or a special family holiday with all of us together. My friend hosts her inlaws for two weeks every year and books a resort in Bali because she knows that pil love it. Another one pays for inlaws to visit her in Dubai every year. And loads more such examples.

Just wanted op to know that there are many people who do special holidays with parents/pil but somehow do not seem to post on MN

Flatbread perhaps you and your friends have more disposable income than most? Just a thought.

I wouldn't treat my parents to something in this way, they are very well off and would be horrified at me spending lots of money on them.
And I don't know anyone who does this in RL either.

Hmmm you're not really being unreasonable. But I think I would do it for my in laws, because we can afford it and I love them to bits.

it's not that the OP shouldn't 'treat' her PIL. They could be made to feel special, to be 'thanked' for a lot less, or evenfaith something better, for the same amount.

I think that £3k for something that only lasts 4 days is a ridiculous amount. To put it into perspective last year DH and I spent £9K on a caravan in an area my parents love so that they could get away whenever they wanted. We use it in school holidays and the odd weekend. My parents pretty much move in, only going home when we want to use it. They will be able to do this as long as they want, as long as my dad is happy to drive there, be it a year, 5 years or 10.

Now that is value for money. £3k for 4 days is not.

Ali, how do you know they would be horrified? May be they would be secretly very happy that you did something special for them!

The thing is, I do go to spas, so why not treat my parents to a really special one? If I can afford it for myself, I can do it for them too. Similarly, if op does have the disposable income to spend £1500 a week for her own holiday, why not spend that on something that includes parents as well?

Flatbread , are you in Dubai ? . Lovely there ...income is better than uk , as is standard of living. I'm actually a bit that you and your friends can afford to buy holidays for your parents ....but that's easy to do if you have money.

I think for myself , due to financial obligations I could never do that for PILs ..even though dh earns quite a lot we don't have disposable income .Almost every penny is needed for bills and living costs.

Most people are the same at the moment.

Blimey.. YANBU definitely not!

I think that is far too much to spend - and that the anniversary couple wouldn't be comfortable if they knew just HOW expensive it is.

Funnily enough it is my IL golden wedding anniversary today. They are having 20 family/friends to a nice 3 course meal in a local hotel - and are paying for it all, and an open bar! I am NOT driivng today . Then we are inviting guests back to our house later for drinks/cakes etc so that they don't have to do any catering etc.

They don't have tons of money to spare - but wouldn't have been comfortable letting the 'kids' pay for them.

Oh, and I also hear whatyou say about not wanting to spend a week with them all. ;)

just had a look at it, tbh it looks a bit grubby inside.

i really don't get it, it's a lovely building yes, but much nicer to view it from the outside. I'd go and look at it and go 'aww' then book into a top hotel where I could be cooked a meal and drink cocktails in a posh frock.

If you have the disposable income and live a lifestyle that is pretty luxury yourself, with regular holidays and spas, then of course you would treat your family occasionally. But how many families really have that kind of hard cash lying around?

Day to day living expenses are so much more than they were before, and the majority of families have some kind of debt, that it just wouldn't be sustainable to continue on with such a spendthrift 'I want I get' attitude.

Besides any of that, I think if the op was in a position of a lottery winner indulgence, she still wouldn't actually want to be there for the four days. Why should she grin and bear it, when it's probably going to be a pretty uncomfortable weekend of being on top of each other, forever having to get your wallet out and I would imagine a blinding headache. Fun for who exactly?

Flatbread, you sound like you have lots of money. Lucky devil! But many don't.

Also for many working people, they don't get much holiday so time with their spouses and children is rationed and special.

Op also has a significant birthday this year, maybe she had other plans for her 'disposable' income, which would be more than slightly hampered by blowing 1.5k on someone else's anniversary. I don't think that is fair at all, presuming no one else would be treating op to what she had in mind, she would be paying for her treat with her own money.

it has a really small kitchen for a house that sleeps 10!

bibbity stand your ground, offer a few other suggestions--Afternoon tea at the Savoy/Ritz with whole family the you shout PILS dinner, theater, one nights stay at the hotel?

Flatbread - how dare you. For your information, DH and I did buy them something verging on the extravagant once and they were extremely uncomfortable.

We don't do extravagant gifts in my family, it is viewed as flashy and show-offy.

We can all earn our own money to pay for the things we want to do.

Just because you and your family do it, doesn't mean that everyone should.

Winky, no we don't earn that much at all, ever since we moved to one income. Really lucky that dh is so easy going about money and doesn't mind my spending on my family.

And I would happily spend on his parents to travel and holiday with us, but they just don't want to leave home

Flatbread I genuinely don't understand why you would spend your money on your parents, rather than your children and your future.

Well, this thread has taken on a life of its own. Have found it very amusing to read Flatbread's wildly escalating descriptions of me as the villain of the piece - apparently I am "tight" and should be ashamed of myself. Heh heh. I also should be happy to forego half of my annual holiday (in a Eurocamps caravan in France, btw, that's what £3000 buys you in peak season) to satisfy pil's requirement for us all to go away together for 4 days.

When you speculate that my dh is happy to do that - the going away bit - you are quite quite wrong Flatbread. Dh works very hard indeed, often travels abroad and generally only takes two weeks off per year. As a family we have never been away for an Easter or half term break. He works most weekends, so our family holiday in the middle of the summer is extremely precious to him. When you factor in the fees he won't earn while we are away on this 4 day break then that more or less doubles the cost to us.

As I said, dh and bil do not get on. The cousins are not particularly close. We do not live close to each other so pil have never helped us out with childcare. We went away for a week's holiday with them for Mil's 50th birthday, we went away for a week with them when the two oldest grandchildren were babies, we went away for a week with them when they both retired, we had a big party at their house when she turned 60 and he turned 65. We are generous as far as we can afford to be and their Christmas and birthday presents (laptop, satnav, digital camera, tickets to a West End show) are way more money than we spend on my Mum (book, bouquet of flowers, clothes, bottle of perfume) - they seem to have an expectation of big spending. As I said earlier, I don't think mil is greedy or grasping - I think she just doesn't really get what our level of income actually means on a day to day basis.

At the big family meeting at Easter I intend to put forward some alternative ideas ...

Fair enough, bibbity If your dh wants to prioritise summer in caravan, then it is his decision and I take back any implication that you are tight

Does it really cost £3,000 to camp in a caravan in France . I really should start renting out our house in France. That kind of money would allow us to take our family to seaside cottages in UK every year and more