What do you spend on your child at the weekend or holidays for a typical day?!

[OrigibalPie]

Just wondering after seeing a bit of a pile on with another thread and poster spending 150 on weekdays!

We work full time so dd in nursery Monday to Friday. We tend to spend a lot at weekends on activities and also holidays…mainly through guilt tbh! DD is 3.

Just wondered what others do and whether we have succumbed to consumerism!!

We probably spent a lot when DC were younger but tried to alternate with cheap/free days out.

We had annual passes for a local zoo which, whilst they were £££ upfront meant that we could pop in for a couple of hours rather than having to spend a full day so we got our money's worth. We'd also take DC out for meals at the weekend - we enjoy eating out so would spend on nice pub lunches when yes, we could probably have taken a picnic and a bottle of water. DS2 was really into Thomas the Tank Engine so we'd sometimes just take him to the station on a Saturday morning to watch the trains going in and out which was cheap entertainment.

With the hike in prices for everything I would say it's very easy to go through £100 on a 'big day out' for a family if you have to include entrance fees, food, parking, icecreams etc.

The weather also plays a part - it's easy to say you just need good waterproofs/wellies but when it's tipping it down (again!) it's easier to throw money at soft play and other indoor activities.

My rule of thumb has been one paid for activity a week, like free play arcades/theme parks/trampolining etc.
Then I have £10-15 a week for spends for the rest of the week and we make the most of free things.

Term time weekends we barely spend on weekend activities though.

Hardly anything. DS has always preferred to be outside at the beach, park, woods, lake etc rather than doing organised activities. Not free though because we buy wetsuits, body boards, fishing nets, masks/snorkels, petrol money.......

He also does rugby, boxing and sailing which are super cheap, but he's older.

We’re in London so pretty much hard not to spend as there’s just so many amazing things around which all cost money.
My kids get bored of the park/playground and I hate that too, so my toddler prefers a soft play and my older child is into activities.

Weekdays is can be 20-30 or nothing, but weekends are about 150.

I really admire people who go out and just spend £10. An ice cream here is about £4.50 alone so that’s even before we started the day.

Not too much.

DS gets one paid activity a month during school term months which is usually a trip out and some dinner. Usually costs about £100 all in for the day. For the other days its minimal spend - maybe £5 here and there for some ice cream etc.

During summer months, we increase this to 2x paid activity but this will be slightly less than during school term, e.g. we will still do a trip but take a picnic instead of eating dinner out.

It really depends tbh. We did soft play the other day and stayed for lunch so that was £45. But some times we go and don’t stay for lunch and it’s far cheaper. It’s the same with most stuff, sometimes we do the more spendy option, sometimes the cheaper one. I do tend to decide what we want to do first and then consider the finances, so we don’t often not do stuff we want to because of cost, if that makes sense.

We budget around £500 a month on family ‘stuff’, so day trips, activities, going swimming, out for cake/lunch, one-off activity classes etc. But how that’s spread can be very variable and isn’t always the same month to month. I’m taking DD1 for an overnight trip next week so that will cost about £500 for the stay and activities alone.

We do spend a fair bit on holidays but I view that as a bit separate. We probably spend about £7000-8000 a year on holidays.

Hardly anything on weekdays during school holidays - we will use the splash pad at the park for free, we also have free access to the community pool on the military base my DH works at. We take the scooters out, go bug hunting etc.
The things that cost money are reserved for weekends. Our summer break is almost at an end, but at the beginning we bought a summer pass for an activity we all love. To book one session is usually $60 an hour….but we paid a couple of hundred dollars for the pass and have been able to go as many times as we want, for 2 hour sessions since the end of May, and the pass is valid until beginning of September. So within 3 visits, the pass had paid for itself, and we’ve easily used it 12 times since buying it.
We also have a membership with our local cinema that costs us $9 a month, which gets my DH in for free for 6 movies a months, gets us one free child ticket with the purchase of an adult ticket, it also gets us 30% off snacks & drinks, free parking, a free novelty cup or popcorn bucket when a big movie release comes out - so we go to the cinema quite a lot too!

Please can you link to that thread?🤔😀
Ive got into bad habits since I’ve gone back full time. One takeaway a week, weekends tend to be eating out once but try and go for walks, free trips out. School holidays I try and take snacks with me, use our annual pass, look for free things to do but as my children are getting older they naturally want to do more, go out with friends and I need to manage that!

What ever is needed

To add, I try not to go too crazy in the summer because it’s easy to do free activities when the weather is nice. I tend to stop myself buying lunch out by reminding myself I’d be better off saving the money for October half term.

Averaged out across a year it's probably a lot. We're in London so there are lots of interesting things to do and places to visit. My dcs like the theatre so we can spend hundreds on a 2 hour show in one day, and we do day trips most weekends in the summer, so things like theme parks, activity farms, or funfair rides at the seaside, plus train fares. But we even it out with free days out to museums, galleries, splash parks, library activities, festivals and playgrounds, and we have a zoo pass. In term time they do small group swimming lessons and dance class each, so that is money spent every weekend (though paid as an annual fee).
We spend money on ice creams when we go out, but most of the time we bring a homemade packed lunch - more for convenience as much as saving money, and we don't buy other coffees out or spend money in gift shops.

It depends how much money we’ve got at the time tbh. Some weekends we have most meals out, go shopping or soft play, drive a distance for a day out (petrol), buy DD a toy. Others it’s meals at home, free parks / walks / bike ride for DD / visit friends / grandparents. We do have a nice garden and hot tub at home so enjoy that for no extra cost.

This summer holidays (my DDs second as she’s Y2 at school), I’m trying to do as much free stuff as possible which luckily there’s plenty of in local areas. Picnics for lunch so no extra cost for food.
But today we’ve had a cheap lunch out, bought a pool noodle and body wash for DD, a cuppa at a local splash park which has cost in total around £15. I expect I normally spend average £30 / week max during school hols (excluding weekends) on a couple of ‘spend’ days / week.

Virtually nothing day to day but i do splurge on specific activities that the DC really enjoy. Last week we went to visit family which was just petrol costs, we did a walking trail around our nearest city which cost my bus fare (kids go free) and the price of a round of drinks. We also had 2 days hanging around the local park, garden etc with friends which cost nothing. However on one day I paid for DS (10) to do a sports activity which was a lot and while he was doing that I took DD (14) clothes shopping and for lunch. In total the day cost me about £160. I don't fritter money away on coffees and bottles of water. 90% of the time our drinks and food is brought from home.

Approximately £50,000 a week on Roblox. Well, that's what it feels like. Guilt money.

We do probably spend more than average on days out etc in the holidays and at weekends but both my children have severe learning disabilities do they don’t get parties/hobbies/expensive presents because they aren’t interested in or able to do these. But they do enjoy going to a theme park or water park.

We pay for swimming and guitar lessons regularly. Other than that it really varies, I've spent nothing today because the weather is nice so easy where I live to go and do things for free. (Beach, walks, parks, blackberry picking...) If at the beach I will take a picnic. Paid for cinema last week though with popcorn etc.. as it's the summer holidays and weather was bad.

With regards to days out, not much.

We have an annual pass to a local nature park so we go there a lot. Helps that we also live in a town with a great outdoor pool and loads of activities.

We do live abroad, so free entertainment is quite easy due to the weather

Sometimes nothing, depends what you’ve got planned for the day surely

I budget around £50 a day for family spends on weekends and holidays

Week to week nor much at all except dc activities. I always take water from home etc.
In the hols a bit more and I don't worry about spending money on lunch if we wanna have it out etc. It's not a weekly thing though, we can't afford it.

It feels like less now that they’re older and dh and I are working most of the holidays, just one teen now and the others are adults and working but part time.
If the teen doesn’t have plans and both parents are at work one of his siblings will usually take him and do something with him. Climbing, top golf, beach for fish and chips and arcades, paddleboarding, whatever they fancy. I just transfer the cash across! Probably in the region of £40-£50 each time, more if they’re eating there.
last week I took 2 of them out for lunch when I had a slow day and it was £60, then we stopped at the bookshop and I spent £30 on a book for each of us. And another £20 in the bakery back to the car.
But then days like today he’s been out at the park all day with some friends playing football and cricket, no money spent.
Weekends we tend to do loads and spend a lot or do not much (and still manage to spend a lot to be honest!). We love eating out, usually will go out for breakfast/brunch over the weekend and maybe a dinner one night too.

At 3, nothing really.
At that age they just like being with you. You can go to the park or just for a walk round the block to watch some diggers, or go to the library, or feed the ducks, or go and visit family, or go to Church, or watch the local football or cricket team, or they enjoy "helping" you wash the car or do some gardening, or some cooking, or just playing. Taking a picnic to a local park is an even in itself.

Probably very little week to week - he gets £20 a week pocket money and he does make that last. He tends to knock about with friends day to day. We spend a lot of time in the outdoors at the weekend which is free. We spend money on holidays though. We tend to go away abroad 4/5 times a year and do a lot whilst we are there.

Gosh. I was expecting 13 not 3!.

Library trips, ball pools, swimming, farm pass trips, Eureka annual pass for the year, nice parks.

At 3 I didn't find days out overly expensive.