To not go on any paid days during the summer holidays?

[gobananasgo]

So I would like to go to a few places, but I've looked and some are limiting the time you can spend and yet the price is the same. I'm not an early morning person, as I have a baby and a dog to get sorted too and by the afternoon sessions it's hot hot hot. It's always been eye poppingly expensive to go on days out

Will my 5 year old miss out after all this time at home? I do feel bad it's more of the same. Maybe I need to force myself to get out early on a day out once a week and stick it on a credit card?. We do walks with the dog, picnics and play at home. Weekends can visit GPs.

Do what you can afford and feel comfy doing.

It is not unreasonable not to go out to expensive places and you don't need MN to tell you that. As the pp said, do what you can afford and are comfortable doing.

I suppose I just feel I should be making the effort for DS, despite the cost. I'd love to invite one of his friends to come with their mum, but it's hard to know if they will want/ have the money to spend.

We never did anything as kids as we never had the money and I suppose I don't want that for him too. He doesn't ask to do things particularly, but he's still young enough not to know what other people do. He did ask to go on holiday bless him, but can't stretch to that. He does enjoy the outdoors, so we are doing that locally.

Kids dont put a monetary value on things at that age.
An afternoon playing in the woods, building dens, finding insects etc etc is as good as a session at the soft play.
Dont get into debt for the sake of some days out. Find the free stuff that is about. Weve been to the beach (£4 parking plus petrol), several parks (free), paddling in the bit of the river that is shallow (free), billberry picking on the moors (petrol). Weve never gone for more than half a day, so had lunch at home. I thunk the most expensive thing we did was went fruit picking- but we all enjoyed the raspberries we'd picked! What is about near you?

We can afford days out but just realised that we haven't been on a paid day out since pre COVID.

We went to the beach yesterday. Parked up free, walked along the pier, went on the beach took a picnic got a bag of chips and went home.

If you want to do something special things like mini golf etc are a good activity that's relatively cheap to do with friends as opposed to the whole theme park/soft play thing. Make the most of the good weather, grab a picnic and go exploring

There are lots of free things as your child gets older too like geocaching, Pokemon hunting etc.

I've been on one paid day out since lockdown, but only realised this due to your post! We've done loads that have only cost parking/lunch eg beach, coastal walks, play park, park, forest, nature walk, farm...

We never did anything as kids as we never had the money and I suppose I don't want that for him too

Me neither and it really got to me at times when friends shared what they did in holidays etc.

As a consequence, i have chosen completely differently as a parent and mine have had many experiences as I don’t want them to look back at their childhood and wish it had been different.