To wonder how people afford to do anything much these days?

[Bouncingavocado]

I’m working most of the summer so have my dc with family / in childcare which is costly enough.

I’ve had a couple of days off this week and because I’m not getting much time with my dc I’ve taken them out and about and basically just burnt through cash.
I don’t even feel we’ve done that much?! I mean we could have gone cheaper but my older dc is 12 now and a bit old for the park / a picnic.
We’ve been out for lunch, been to the cinema, a trampoline park and to a local museum.
It is just as well I’m back as work next week tbh.

I don’t know how anyone affords to do anything these days. Everywhere we went was very quiet too which makes me worry that a lot of places aren’t going to survive because actually people cannot afford to go out in the way they used to.

I wouldn’t struggle with a simple day out or cheap holiday and I am on a below average income and a single parent simple answer I have very low outgoings minimal mortgage no finance etc

these threads are constant at the moment , some people have more disposable income than others as has always been the case I genuinely am baffled by the confusion

I have 3 kids and have them every day of the summer.
we have so far burned through around £500 on days out.
We will probably do another £2-300 I reckon.
Most things now are paid for as our free park days are almost behind us.
I just make sure I save some money for the summer or be a bit more careful when September rolls around

I'm in Edinburgh and you would never know there was an issue. Places are as busy as always. There is so much wealth in this city.

Yes I only work one day aweek so four days to fill!! This week we wento a splash park Monday (free, took a picnic just bought icecream) visited grandparents Tuesday. Went to beach Wednesday (hour drive spent about £40 on rides/parking/lunch) worked Thursday. Tomorrow it's a park again. But I get it's harder with older ones. And cinema,swimming , ice skating etc is expensive.

I don't think the reality of the cost of living increase has really hit yet.

We are a high income household (or at least higher than average) and we only take th.ojt for a meal once a month, and most times it's just to KFC. Pizza Express last time was £200+ Last time went to the cinema was December. Those things are expensive so I just avoid them

I expect places were quiet because people are either out making the most of the sunshine or are currently abroad etc. Also mid week lots of dc will be in childcare and their parents at work. There is certainly no shortage in my city of people out spending money. For me I do struggle but am good at finding deals, I don't have any childcare costs. I supplement my income with bar work when dc are at their dads, lucky to live somewhere where there is tons of free stuff to do so don't really do expensive things like cinema/trampoline parks often especially in summer. Last week I paid for a meal out by cashing in the tokens I earn by photographing my receipts throughout the year.

Things are much more expensive I agree. We spent 100 quid on a trip to the cinema after snacks and tango ice blasts etc.

£100 . How many dc do you have? Our last cinema trip cost under £20. You don't need to buy all the cinema snacks so it doesn't need to be anywhere near that expensive

@HorribleHerstory i want to bottle your summer and make it my blueprint for my kids as they get older. It sounds brilliant.

question: (apologies for derailing thread) - what kind of scavenger hunt works with early teens? Wondered if you made one up yourself.

OP said 'cinema and dinner' which would quickly add up. Not just cinema.

@HeartofTeFiti

Make it as much like TikTok as possible.

So for little kids it’s find an acorn, find a penny, all that stuff. For the teens it’s all photo based so they use their phones to enter, and just show you their entries at the end. So you might ask for a photo of one of you higher than the other, a group photo where everyone’s legs are at least a metre off the ground, photograph a famous painting made out of twigs and most recognisable wins, get red white and blue on the same photo, the spookiest shadow, aerial photo of a local landmark, ten green bottles sitting on a wall, something furry with teeth bigger than yours, someone we all know disguised (least recognisable wins), something with more than four wheels, best lens flare, a star, someone in jail…..

You can make them summer long events or just enough for a hour at the park, whatever you want. You can take part or you can just let them do it. You can make it open ended eg - something forbidden and photo best matching brief wins. Or give them all a point if they get that one.

@GoodVibesHere you think tango ice blasts and snack are dinner?

OP said 'cinema and dinner' which would quickly add up. Not just cinema.

But I wasn't responding to OP @GoodVibesHere I was responding to the poster who I quoted who did indeed spend £100 at the cinema alone - as you can see from the quote I highlighted

Planning is a major part of keeping costs down. We went to Chessington during the first week of the holidays. 3 tickets cost me about £24 in total. Got 2 sun tickets in February (£10 for nine papers for codes) lottery were doing a deal in March where buy a lotto ticket (£2) and get £25 off a day out, so paid £12 for the difference. We've been to the Commonwealth Games but tickets were a) cheapest category b) bought ages ago so costs already covered. And by the second event we had a "things we need" bag and a full snack ruck sack. (£8 for 2 99 ice creams and £9 for 3 bottles of drink, hurt!) I've got theatre tickets in September but I bought them presale last November so £36 to see Joseph (think Jason Donovan is in it) plus keep an eye out for Groupon and Wowcher deals. Just remembered I've also got wrist banda for the local theme park. £24 for 2 instead of £40.

About 5 years ago I took on an extra part-time evening job to pay for the summers as I found it so expensive but the cost of living has caught up again so i feel back to where I was.

I agree plenty of people have plenty of money so they dont have an issue and should carry on goIng out.

High earners, 1 child, spend less on other things?

We don’t. We go to things that might not interest young children, like places from a Gardener’s World magazine, that are free. NT properties and RHS properties too. We wouldn’t go if they were full price.

Simple we have been prioritising for a few years now. We don't drink or smoke, we haven't had a holiday in years and work hard. We have deliberately been replacing all or white goods for high efficiency modes although these do cost more. Fitting new efficient windows and doors with thermal blinds and stone floors down stairs and carpeted up. Some might say and we were told alot of the time we had no life, or boring.

But what we have achieved is a really nice small house done up as we like, with lovely garden with very low bills, nice cars, an enjoyable standard of living, and able now too start caving up for future plans to do the fun things we always wanted to do, which provides us some thing to look forward to.

But the biggest win is low stress.

We are not big earners but we deliberately planned a path of pain for a number of years to get us in this position, life choices.

Anyone else feeling a bit silly for chosing a disabled child over an energy efficient appliance.

We save money for the summer holidays. We have a generally cheap lifestyle - no holidays abroad (UK camping), cheap second hand car not on finance, I don't really buy clothes, make up for myself and don't have hair cuts, manicures etc. Kids generally have second hand toys and things from the charity shop. Tend to buy a lot of food from the reduced sections and have small portions.
That's how we afford it. But I'm not saying anyone else does anything wrong by having these things, nor that it is easy to afford things by taking such steps (I know not everyone has the same income we do). Just sharing my experience.

We also do cheap things - paddling in the stream, beach trip, swimming etc.

Similar here. I've been working in a pub when I can most of this year on top of my day job to bump up my money so we had spare for treats. For the first few weeks I was actually a bit better off but now it's just being absorbed in to price rises of day to day stuff and am back where I was if not worse

Your choice to have children full stop. We have not had children either as other posters due to weighing up the cost on environmental impacts for the time being.

Sorry yours is disabled, but I'm pretty sure you did not choose a disabled child, It`s a risk all parents take.

I'm not sure that many people ever did do loads of activities the way you recall.

I'm in my thirties and my memory of summer holidays is that they were mainly spent outdoors, just playing as a child then later on meeting friends and riding around on bikes etc. There was a rec area near town with a tennis court & basketball nets and we would go and play. There were occasional trips swimming but as teens parents didnt come and young peoples admission was much cheaper.

My parents were fairly well off and we didnt do any pricey day trips like theme parks etc, nor did we buy coffees or lunches out. This was quite normal, I dont remember feeling hard done by compared to peers, no one did much.

Its not easy and I have certainly noticed that everything is more expensive. We afford things by having a big age gap between children so only one fulltime childcare place at a time. We have doubled our joint income in the last 5 years but keeping our fixed costs the same (ie not upgraded to a bigger house, bigger car, fancier holidays etc). We use the extra money for family experiences, paying off debt and savings (we are behind on pensions).

We also have benefits through work that makes things cheaper ie cinema passes, supermarket cash back schemes, dine out discounts etc.

We budget v carefully and plan things in advance but appreciate you have to have disposable income to be able to do it. Sometimes if we go out for ice cream and its been an expensive week then dh and I would give the ice cream a miss. We might go to zizzi or Nandos for lunch rather than something fancier etc etc.