To think she could have offered some money back

[crazedupmom]

Ds aged 11 recently went on a sun holiday with a friend from school and I offered £40 to the mates mother to cover a meal a day although she said she wasn,t too fussed.
Ds also went with £90 pocket money.
It was for a monday to friday stay.
Anyway ds is a bit of a anxious sort long story and it was a question of whether he would settle with them whilst on holiday.
We did end up collecting ds on the tuesday evening and I sort of thought that I would have been offered at least half of my 40 back.
The time they was there from what I can see ds and his mate spent all of their time in the arcade where ds managed to spend £40 of his pocket money ds also tells me that he spent at least half of this on his mate down the arcade as his mom had only given him a couple of pound.
I had told her to just give ds a tenner at a time but she let them both go off with ds carrying £90 in his wallet.
What do you think am I been mean or do I have a point.

Who paid for the actual holiday? who paid for the petrol or train ticket? And you are quibbling over 20 quid when you sent 40 quid for food and 90 quid 'pocket money'.

Here, have my grip, you can grab it.

£90 pocket money for an 11 year old for only 5 days!!?? why are you quibbling about £20?

did he miss school if he went recently?, if so you are BU

Firstly, I find £90 pocket money obscene. Sorry, but that is way way way way too much
Secondly, yes, you asked her to give him £10 at a time but that would have meant she would have felt she had to give her ds £10 each time too which perhaps she could not afford to do. So she felt that if your ds just had his own money she could try to ignore this in front of her ds and not feel she had to give him any...
Thirdly, the £40, she would have perhaps put it towards the food bill for the whole group, so now can't physically give it back?

If I had been the other mum I would have told you NOT to give your ds the £90 pocket money as I would not be able to match the amount for my ds.
I would have gratefully accepted the £40 and kept that money separate from my budget and used the £40 to give little bits of spending money to both boys, buy them icecreams / treats, use it for activities for them. I would have then given you the remainder back when you collected your ds.

But the responsibility fo someone else's child and his £90 pocket money would be a stress too far for me, sorry...

YABVU.

You are talking about 20 quid. £20 from the people that took your son away and are now dealing with their own dissapointed child because your son didn't want to stay.

If the reason your son didn't stay was because of them or their child, you might have the beginnings of a point. As it wasn't, you are being awful.

YABU.
Maybe she thought the £40 was towards the holiday as a whole? Surely it cost her money for the holiday, travel etc. I also think she will probably have added it to the food budget for 5 days, and probably bought everything at a supermarket (cereal, milk etc). Did they eat out at any point? A full english, lunch out and tea out(plus snacks and drinks) can burn through £20 easily.

£90 pocket money for 5 days is far too much for an 11 year old.
Is it possible the mum didn't think before she let them go to the arcade as she was too busy doing something else? (as in the boys said "whilst you clear up can we go to the arcade?" and she said yes and got on with cleaning).
Or could she have said to him not to take all his money, but let him keep hold of it?
I wouldn't want to hold on to that much money for someone else to be honest.
I would let any money you think she owes you go, that or ask for your cut of the cocopops and bread?!
She tried to do something nice for your son, she welcomed him in to her family for a holiday, and however brief it was is not her fault.

£40 is nothing really when you think about breakfast, lunch, dinner and the endless snacking that a lot of kids do.

Then there's the price of drinks...kids are always thirsty and holiday places take the piss royally with the price of drinks.

At 11yrs old, if you told him to spend £10 pocket money per day then that's what he should have done....and if he decided to spend it on him and his friends wasting it on arcade games, that's a lesson learnt for both of you.

But the £40 'meal money' was probably mostly spent in the two days he was there.

You let someone take your child on holiday for a week and only offered £40 for food expenses? And now, after your child ended up bailing, probably making them feel bad and upsetting their child, you expect money back?!!!!

Just think of the price of an ice cream, can of coke, snacks etc in these places. Let alone meals out, little treats etc.

And you should probably have checked with her how much pocket money she found acceptable as it was pretty unfair on her child and probably made her feel bad again, that yours had so much!

I mean, £40 to feed him and £90 pocket money? And you want paying back

kotinka im sorry your having a bad day and i would use my own fucking brain but i have autisum so to me a phrase like that is hard to understand especially when its not in the context of something that most people would find to be contraversial.

i just didnt understand why you said that and what it ment.

but its ok to be a compleate twat or just fucking rude because your having a bad day,i hope it improves somewhat tomorrow

You should offer her about £100 for being so kind to take your DS on holiday with her.
And then take the whole family out for a meal for all the hassle your DS caused by insisting on leaving early.
And buy her a huge bunch of flowers for considering your son.
And a handwritten note for her kindness to you and your son.
And book a holiday for next year for your family, including, of course, taking her DS with you.

then im very impressed,i allways mess up when i try to use sayings like that never get them right i once told my kids cats and dogs were flying and couldnt work out why they didnt understand what i ment,it was 6 years befor one of them decided to tell me the real way is raining cats and dogs

and i really do hope tomorrow is better

Nonno How about a couple of gold engraved watches and perhaps the OP could also plant a tree in the Mum's honour.....

Lovely idea, Worra. You seem considerate and kind.

OP leave it, it is not worth the hassle at all.

Socknickingpixie If you open a can of worms, you do something that will cause a lot of problems and is, on balance, probably going to cause more trouble than it's worth.

She's probably so pissed off that her DS has been left without a companion having thought he had one for the week that the last thing on her mind is what percentage of 40 quid she should give back! Think of it as some compensation for the hassle.

YABU and very petty. And £20 a day pocket money is obscene.

My son (on a day trip) blew all his money on souvenirs and had no money left for food, the host mom bought them all pizza though and laughed it off. I learned never to give my son all the money again, and to give the host mum the money for the food separately. (I just gave him 50 dollars for the day, that was to cover anything he ate or drank and activities, it was a renaissance faire)
So I say live and learn and not worth sweating the small stuff.

I assume his travel and board were free?

They'll have been inconvenienced with him coming home (probably spent time chewing over whether to contact you / wait it out / jolly him along etc). They'll also have had to arrange to be in when you collected him etc. Yabvu to expect money back - I'd not have mentioned the £40 and if it was brought up by them / offered I'd have said 'Oh gosh no, treat yourselves to something nice for your troubles.....'

Presumably the DS wants to stay friends with his pal? If he's an anxious type then for his sake I wouldn't kick up a fuss or risk the friendship. He may already be a bit embarrassed about having to come home early. I think it's a chalk it down to experience situation.

Hopefully he enjoyed treating his friend though. At 11 a couple of days on the arcades sounds ace.

You have seriously got your priorities wrong if you are happy to give an 11 year old £90 pocket money but quibble over £40 towards the costs of the holiday.

I thought my DH was spoiling my 11 year old when he gave him £10 pocket money for a week .

I don't think YABU actually.

So you sent £130 for just about 5 days.

£40 direct to the mum and £90 for 'spends' to dole out as and when.

£90 would be a lot for an 11 year old to have access to but honestly all the crap kids like on holiday it all adds up!

Your son stayed for what 24 hrs?

She got £40 to keep and her son got £20 spends from your sons spending money? I've been on one of those sun holidays and I'd say you've paid a large proportion of their accomodation costs so you shouldn't feel bad at all.

If I were you I probably wouldn't do anything about it though.

YANBU

Ragwort read my mind.

DH, DS and I are going on a camping holiday for a week and I am planning to spend £250 on all food, drinks and trips (but not including accommodation and petrol).

DS is only a baby so that works out at £17.85 each per day for an adult. I think that's more than enough.

You gave your son an average of £18 for each day, not including food and drinks, which is way too much for an 11 year old.

You really can't complain that over two days (Mon and Tues) he spent £40 in the arcade. So he only went £2 over his daily budget, £4 over for the two days.

I remember going on holiday in my early teens with my grandparents and spending my entire holiday money in the arcade in one night (in one machine)! It was £7 for a week and that was in the 90s.

Putting the maths aside, did you ask the other mother how much pocket money her son would have?

My parents would have been absolutely mortified to take a friend of mine on holiday and see that he/she had £90 to spend for a week. They could in no way have given me that much and would have been massively embarrassed. They would also have been very annoyed to be offered £40 for food by such extravagant parents to then have the same Loadsa Money ask for it back! It would probably have been better not to offer than to ask for it back!

YABU.

Amberleaf - when you take out her DS's accommodation costs (usually £9.50 for a sun holiday), she actually gave £31.50 for the week.

But you then have linen costs on top of that, so she probably had about £25 net. Not going to pay for the rest of the family at all.