AIBU to think that children don’t necessarily cost less to feed on holiday?

[CookieDoughJoe]

I’m asking after a discussion with a friend who has been asked to subsidise relative’s children on holiday. She’s declined to go away on a group holiday because she isn’t happy to cover their food. There’ll be 10 children aged between 5 and 14 and her family want to split the food costs between the adults only.

I had a similar situation a few years ago and declined for the same reason plus deciding that group holidays with multiple children are no longer for me.

Last time I was on a family holiday most of the kids ate far more than I did. I don’t eat breakfast and often only eat 1 meal a day. I also don’t drink alcohol and I’m happy with water 99% of the time. Obviously children don’t either but they often look for constant snacks and understandably want regular meals and more expensive drinks like smoothies and slushy drinks plus some of the older children in my family can eat bigger portions than I do.

AIBU to think that it isn’t necessarily cheaper to feed children on holiday and that splitting by adults only isn’t necessarily fair?

After you said you wouldn’t join, did they say you didn’t need to pay for the kids share?

On holiday? Um….

When my two were little my DSis would come on holiday and we’d split food costs 50/50, which was very kind of her. Now I have two teenagers who love eating out and trying different things, I’d never dream of her paying half, that’s an utter piss take.

I bet it was more like we’d really like you to come so you can pick up a share of the food bill…

I can understand splitting the cost of accommodation but not food, no way.
You pay to feed your own children.

Your friend is correct.
My 4 children eat far more than us and even more so on holidays.
My bill when my children were all away last summer for several weeks was about 15% of what I normally spend.
As for my electricity without their multiple lomg showers every day? Plummeted.

My children on holiday snack endlessly, multiple ice-creams.
The idea of sharing that bill is ridiculous.
Oh and the same with going out for meals.
My children love their food and when they get the chance to order on someone else, they do.

As someone with kids, I still wouldn’t do this.

It's horses for courses. The kids in our family have grown up now, one has their own.

When they were little fil insisted on paying for everything. We all knew he could afford to and that sil would have weltched out of paying anyway.

Now one of us will pick up the whole bill if we're eating out. One of our nieces moved in with us for 6 weeks because she was working nearby, she offered rent but because we can afford it we declined.

But if you've got 5 kids per parent and you've only got 2 or none i think it's bloody unfair to feed them for a week at a time especially when eating out a lot.

YnBu

We quite often go away with our close friends & all of our children and we tend to just all split the cost of food shops & then split the bill for meals and everybody is happy with that BUT we all have 2 children and they are all the roughly the same age (all age between 6 months and 4) so although there are lots of snacks etc they are all the same really and there isn’t any having 3 course meals etc so it doesn’t work out any differently really than just all paying for our own families. If a single person or a couple with no kids came with us I wouldn’t expect them to do the same though as obviously they would be worse off chipping in for kids when they don’t have any, and I would feel differently if someone had 5 kids!

We went on holiday with my sister and family last year, to one of those hotels where you order food and drink through the day and pay your tab at the end of the day. We were using one tab on the first day but my nephews were constantly going up for cans of drink, crisps, ice creams, milkshakes etc. They'd order a milkshake, drink half, go in the pool and then complain the milkshake was warm and order another one.

The milkshakes were €7 each! (A glass of wine was only €4.) My sister is fine with this, which is her choice, but after the first day we stuck to our own tab.

I think it’s ridiculous. We rented a house as a large group a few times and did a massive joint food shop. Kids counted as half when they were tiny but full people once they were eating proper meals. My 13 year old daughter eats circles around me - she’s an athlete and is hungry all day, every day. Whatever the history here, teenagers eat as much or more than adults so the cutoff surely has to happen at some point.

Is it self catering?

We go away self catering with my extended family every year - 9 children of varying ages, one sibling is child-free.
Each family buys their own favourite breakfast cereal, snacks, drinks, fruit etc etc - though of course it actually gets shared between everyone that wants it.
We then have a kitty for evening meals. We have teens, so count them as adults when paying in. Younger kids don’t usually join in the evening meals and so nothing gets paid for them, their parents usually cook them pasta or something for an early tea, which they bring themselves - young children tend to prefer familiar food anyway.

If we go out to eat, everyone just pays for their own family.

DS is graduating off the kids menu to the main menu. I don’t expect anyone to subsidise him when his meal costs the same as mine!

Well of course you wouldn't get worked up about it, you have 2 kids.

depends what you're splitting. If it's splitting a supermarket shop, just easiest to split evenly between families. eating out is different, each family should pay for themselves based on what they have had.

I thought the holiday would be a big food shop for self-catering, that's what I was referring to. If it's eating out in restaurants every day the extra costs would be huge so I could completely understand someone finding that unaffordable.

We have always done this as a family, works fine for all of us.
There are some people who come without dc, they don’t contribute to any of the extras, eg admission to places we are going, extra food and drink shop top ups, firewood if we are away during the winter, whatever else.
I went for a pub lunch with both my sisters the other day, we just split the bill by 3 even though one sister had come with her husband and 2dc, one had come with her husband and I was alone.
I figure it all comes out in the wash with family.

With friends I’d still be happy to chip in for dc if I didn’t have mine with me, and if I did and others didn’t I wouldn’t mind if they didn’t want to. I hate getting aggy over money and am happy to overspend in the interest of harmony.

Depends on what the kids eat. If main meals then maybe 1/2 cost of adult (excluding alcohol). If they eat a never ending supply of yoghurts, smoothies, cake, berries etc then it is not a fair split.

I disagree. Before DS (or any of our nieces or nephews), DH and I went on a large family holiday, after the first couple of days I put my foot down on splitting the bill equally because we just couldn't afford to subsidise everyone else having multiple courses and alcohol when we weren't.

Nobody was bothered, they all saw that it wasn't fair that they would get slightly cheaper meals all holiday at our expense, they just hadn't realised that was happening.

@frozendaisy tell me you have a bunch of kids you expect people to pay for without telling me that you have a bunch for kids.

Kids cost a fortune to feed in the holidays. I think they are naturally grazers. I have four kids and I spend a minimum £10 a day just on snacks and that’s just a basic fruit bowl from Aldi bananas , apples, wonky grapes and oranges. Oatcakes, cream cheese , carrots and houmous, massive tubs of Greek yoghurt, crumpets , peanut butter and honey type stuff. Around £15 more a day on proper meals but we eat a lot of fish / meat and veg.

I’m sure there’s some economies of scale with ten kids but I especially with buying holiday treats, it could easily cost hundreds over a week.

Big group holiday with 30 adults and 10 kids mostly under 10 then the amount would be minimal spread between the adults and is fair enough. Say 6 adults and 10 children with the children being mostly over 9 then the additional would be excessive. It's down to individual situations, I'd agree in situation 1 but wouldn't in situation 2 as it would triple my food bill for the holiday

We’re not talking about a child, it’s 10 and it’s a piss take to expect your family to subsidise you

I don’t think it’s about them costing less… it’s about them being smal members of your family who don’t make their own money and whose parents you love and support. Because they’re family. I really don’t begrudge paying a bit extra so my nephew eats and my sister doesn’t have to pay more.