To think the price of days out for kids is excessive?

[Niniope]

Looking at planning days out with DH and just turned 2 year old DD and a bit shocked by the prices!
We earn decent wages but both work part time and have quite a few outgoings.

For context we live in greater Manchester and have been to pretty much every museum in the area, as well as regularly going swimming, soft play, parks, and farms - a lot of days out are free or under £15 for us all.

I was trying to plan going to an aquarium and as DD is over 90cm it would be £72 for us all! Looked at sea life and that equally would be £52 as they've changed from under 3 go free to under 2 go free!

Cbeebies land would be £105, which although not feasible for us to spend I can rationalise more as a big day out, but an aquarium we will spend a couple of hours at before she naps!?

I was also looking at visiting a WWT site but that would be over £30, which is also a bit excessive when we can walk around numerous bodies of water and nice countryside for free.

I know these places have got to run and meet overheads but the prices mean they are just inaccessible to us. We just can't justify it to then not be able to do anything else for the rest of the month.

Am I being a skinflint?

I love how people are like ‘they need to cover expenses’ etc like a lot of these places aren’t owned by millionaires on their 5th holiday of the year 😂😂

Its mental but as long as people will pay it they will charge it.

You can save a ton by taking your own food and drink. I took DC to Greenwich last summer (we live 25 miles from London): their train fare was £2 each (weekend fare); museum was free; we took packed lunch. I bought a coffee (could have taken my own) and ice creams for kids. Absolute bargain. There are loads of free things to do.

She's two. Take her for a walk. It's free and she won't know the difference.

Also definitely scale back the frequency of these days out. We're comfortably off but don't do these things monthly. Maybe 4-5 times per year.

NT membership is great

Around 10/12 a month for a family with is 2 adults and up to 10 kids so can add friends kids/grandkids

Without it can cost 30/40
A visit

Many have castles /venue to explore plus woods /playgrounds

In holidays they do trails for £3pc and they get clues and a prize

YANBU but they’ve always been expensive. As others have said, the zoo and theme parks used to be a once a year outing for many. Walks were the regular days out for me as a child. Soft play wasn’t a thing!

Now on local pages people during a week long half term are asking for recommendations because they’ve exhausted all the soft plays, farms and other activities in the area before the end of the week!

The price of the cinema never fails to shock me - £50+ for a family of 4 around here, for a couple of hours entertainment.

I used to do something for the year - EH or NT and go loads, or we did Beamish (outdoor museum) and try to do many visits. But there’s still petrol and treats on top.

I spent a lot of time in the holidays planning in free activities I could find and super cheap ones like morning cinema visits, and just doing the odd big day out. So it meant we were out a lot but not spending.

It gets harder when they are older, there are really no free activities with teenagers!

Single income household here (single parent). My DC are much older, but "big" trips out are only occasional (birthday treat or maybe in one of the longer school holidays). I always check Tesco Clubcard vouchers and my bank account rewards before booking anything. Bank account has rewards you can trade in for Red Letter Day vouchers, which increases their value. Blue Peter badges are also worth getting as DC get older.

I've also had both National Trust and English Heritage membership at different times in the past. Then we went to as many as possible in the year to get the most of it.

Noticed recently that Octopus (energy supplier) has NT passes as a reward and there may be things on the O2 priority app. If you use any service that has a reward scheme, it's always worth checking what's on offer.

We have english heritage membership, i think its around £60 per adult per year, but you can bring upto 6 children in for free with you. We're lucky that we have a couple of castles/historic places locally so really get our moneys worth. Often i let the dc invite their friends along so they all just entertain eachother and get some fresh air.

When they were toddlers we had annual zoo membership but they've grown out of that now.

When mine were tiny I did toddler groups 4x a week - either free as I was on the team, or at most a couple of pounds, including a cuppa and a snack for the children. Walk to and from the group, plus perhaps a detour to the greengrocers for extras for a snack filled quite a lot of the morning. In warmer weather would go home via a picnic in the park, in cooler weather less likely to want to sit around for a picnic but definitely a good run round or a further expedition in the afternoon. 'Transport day' was always a hit - I could buy a day rider for bus and tram for me, and u5s were free. Bus to town, walk round free museum, tram to shopping centre, watch trains for a bit, eat picnic, train back to town, choose a treat from the bakery, bus home. Story time at the library - either an organised story time or simply me reading a pile of books in the children's section. Soft play was maybe once a month, trips to cinema or farm park or whatever were very infrequent, usually saved for on holiday. Saturday mornings DH took DC to a dad and kids toddler group at the local church. Lots of walks and park visits, might go to a further afield park at a weekend which involved a drive rather than a walk, and a weekend park or walk was more likely to involve an ice cream or hot chocolate stop, but not always. I think doing the same walks or visiting the same parks is fine for little ones, it is the adults who get bored... I often tried to arrange to walk or park visit with another family so I had some adult conversation while the kids played. Decent travel mug of tea made every park visit so much better!

Yep everything is so expensive nowadays. I was having this same conversation with my husband the other day that for a family of 4 its easily £60 and thats not including food.
There is a new play barn open by us called Hockerhill Play Barn that looks amazing but entry fee for adults is £8!! Kids are £12 which i dont mind paying but this is just for 2hrs

These things have always been expensive.

It's only recently however that people seem to think they're weekly essentials.

Sounds like Chatsworth. Parking is a flat fee of 5quid. Whether for a day or an hour. Then you have to pay entry fees on top of that.

You both work part time?

You can get a train in to London for £2?!? I live a similar distance outside London and an off peak return is about £30. Once a child is 5 I think they might be half price. Plus the tube on top…yes lots of free stuff to do in London but getting there isn’t cheap from where I live.

Why the need for days out? Does a 2 year old really want to be in a museum, what the heck do they get out of it? Most children are either in daycare or at school, they need to rest and be in their own space playing with those toys that were given to them, or reading, watching tv or just doing nothing. No wonder our children have tantrums, they never get to rest, they must be bloody shattered.

It's the weekend rate for kids when travelling with an adult. Some kind of family deal. I was surprised too but we've done it a few times now and it's always been £2 for them.

The OP mentions 2 part time working parents and needing to fill 5 days, so I suspect the DC here isn't in childcare much if at all. In that situation, there's a lot of time to fill and it's important for the adults as much as the child to get out of the house.

Brilliant

We have started asking some of our relatives for annual passes for kids birthday and Christmas presents rather than toys

But how much is the adult rate? My daughter is currently under 5 so free, but the adult ticket being almost £30 means that’s not as barginous as it sounds!

YANBU. I wanted to take my daughter to see Hamilton at the theatre, but the price was astronomical!
I know theatre's a bit different, but it would be nice if it could be made more accessible.

I joined local playgroup met other parents abd arranged to go to each others houses.
DC playing with other children was enough. And when hosting cost only the price of the tea and biscuits.
I get the going out bit for own sanity and you've made use of all the nature and parks locally. But why does it have to be a spend activity?
Is it you or the DC who is bored here?
Surely it's setting a routine and rinse repeat....
Swings, park, swim, feed ducks, soft play , friends house, repeat.

We tend to do 2 paid outings a month at the
weekends and then 2 spend free weekends.

1 paid outing is something like cinema / bowling / trampoline park / somewhere local

then 1 is a family day out somewhere like Paultons / Chessington etc

the 2 free weekend we spend no money at all.

then each child also has 2 choices a year of something they want to do as their solo activity for example

DD - Taylor swift and west end show. But only twice a year.

Maybe it’s down to your part time incomes ?