AIBU to think family days out have become unaffordable?

[ThisAmpleCritic]

Half term. Trying to find things to do to keep the kids occupied. Why is everything SO expensive?! We’ve exhausted the local free activities including various walks, playgrounds, splash parks, travelled to the nearest beach. We want to do something a bit more special and have looked at more “day out” type activities, including children’s theme park, zoo, steam train, castle, national trust etc but it’s just unaffordable. It frustrates me how as a family we’re considered good earners but we just don’t have enough left over to justify £100+ for one day out, not including travel and food and the inevitable ice cream and gift shop visit.

Is anyone else struggling with the cost of family days out or AIBU?

Boundless Plus membership is worth getting if you live in / near London. Covers the royal palaces, Kew, Art Fund, wetlands, and I think also English Heritage sites. We don't bother with theme parks and zoos generally, too expensive and commercialised and I generally find them quite overwhelming.

That's cheap! Our local zoo which is still over an hour away
Adults are £25 and children aged 3 are £18.70
Mind you I do have 4 children. I am in Scotland, seems everything is much more expensive

How many people did you take?! jesus!
Cinema tickets are £5 by me! and I still think mcdonalds is a pretty cheap meal to buy when out.

Well £5 is super cheap. Odeon cinemas can be £15 a seat if they’re the fancy reclining seats. Some of the London ones will be more. Everyman cinemas and similar will be more expensive also. You’ve then got the popcorn / drinks on top if you don’t take your own snacks in.

We only have one cinema here and its 9.50 a seat, the 6.99 seats are the ones at the front and you end up looking up at
So 3 seats thats 30 pound straight off

We do a lot of free things like the beach, galleries, museums etc, you can use clubcard vouchers for things like zoos, there are quite other cheaper prices to be had for other attractions by using sites like picniq, we did bewilderwood in Norfolk recently and that was BOGOF £45 for 4 and take a packed lunch I think that's not bad per head, we never pay full price for cinema, we use octopus two for £8 or prime 2 for £10 you just have to shop around

See, I don't understand why people would buy drinks and popcorn at the cinema, then complain about how expensive it is. My options would be to take drinks and snacks with me, not have any, or perhaps go somewhere else cheaper before or afterwards.

I wouldn't pay rip off stupid money then complain that going to the cinema is expensive. Nor do I think that it 'adds to the experience' to buy my Coke and M&Ms at the cinema instead of a supermarket/bargain shop on the same retail park.

Or you can buy the Lloyds bank cinema tickets off eBay - there's a certain bank account that gives free cinema tickets and lots of people sell them instead of using them themselves. Cost about £7 each and it's just a code for online booking you're buying, so you can get them pretty quickly.

Yeh but if you are trying to make it more affordable then you wont waste money on buying popcorn, drinks in there or bothering with fancy reclining seats. You can also do 2 for 1 or one of the other offers that is always out. Even at £15 a seat, if you did 2 for 1 then that's £7.50 each. Can of pop and a bag of popcorn from the supermarket is about £1.50. That's £9 each even at an Odeon.

No one goes to an everyman either and would expect it to be cheap.

Just pay for the £6.99 seats and then sit where you like.
That's what I do... every single time.

Obviously I wouldn't do that if it was a brand new film out but I don't tend to go straight away anyway. I wait until screens are less busy and crowded.

Everything is very expensive - I'm not sure if we're all perhaps just feeling it a bit more now the cost of living crisis is at the forefront of a lot of people's minds. Here's how I try to keep costs down in the holidays:

• We have NT and English Heritage memberships and use those regularly - free parking, outdoor walk/playground usually available, easy to meet friends with other children. NT have their Summer of Play activities on over the summer holidays and that's always been brilliant and usually no extra costs involved
• If you're going to buy zoo tickets, look out for ones that will let you return multiple times over the year without having to pay extra
• I pack a picnic, including our own ice lollies/ice creams - you can put them into a Thermos flask for lunchtime and they won't melt
• If we get a coffee when we're out somewhere, I take a reusable cup which usually knocks 25p off the price of your drink
• I don't promise toys/gifts from the gift shop. It's OK to say 'no'. It's not always easy and I feel like the Grinch but I don't want my DC thinking they can just get a new toy every time we go out somewhere
• I have brought summer passes before for soft play - nice and easy once a week to break things up without having to pay each time you want to go
• Look at your local museum service/historic houses - if they're run by the local authority they're often much cheaper or free and do some amazing events
• Keep an eye out for the cinemas that offer £1 films through the holidays
• See if there is a cheap holiday club near you - my local church runs a brilliant themed holiday club for £5 for 2 days at the end of summer (4 hours a day for £2.50, full of crafts and snacks is AMAZING value in my books)

Where's the OP gone, one wonders...

Tickets are £17.99 near me!

Probably 'just wanted a moan' so not interested in suggestions for NT membership, council run craft events or special offers on ice creams.

DH and I get 12 free cinema tickets between us through our bank, so 3 trips for our family. You can use them for the isense screen and premium recliners, which are normally £15 at our cinema. I don't think I could go back to shit cinema seats, it's soooo nice having recliners and a table and loads of space.

I’m another who’s of the opinion that it’s always been so, with these big days out. When I was a kid, we maybe went to the zoo once a year or so, the cinema next to never and a very local farm park quite often… but only because we got in for free due to a family member working there! We’d have gone very rarely else. Ma always packed a lunch for us because buying food there was too dear, we never got anything from the gift shops and didn’t opt for any offered extras.
I look at my life now with my young children and consider how different it is. I can’t help but think we expect more from our wages and our lives, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but with increased attendance to such days out etc comes increased cost!

They used to be four times when they first started!

I remember this! Now its hardly worth bothering with.
Some places still do x 3 on a offer

I think they still offer better velue than just using them against your shopping however, nowhere as good as they were and some of what we used them for are no-longer on offer.
One of the first days out we did with them was Legoland when DC were probably about 4. Made the mistake of getting lunch whilst there. It was a pretty poor offering, and none of us really enjoyed it, so thereafter I just packed a picnic for our days out.
We used to have a Tesco account where you paid in a monthly amount and got double points on your shopping so that was even better value. Had lots of lovely days out that I wouldn't have wanted to pay full price for. We even took 7 children (with 3 adults) to Drayton Manor for a birthday party one year.
One good offer that they have at the moment, if you have a Cineworld Cinema near, you can get a Clubcard ticket on a Tuesday for £5. That costs just £2.50 in Clubcard vouchers.

Agree, I still figure they're worth using on days out if it's somewhere you genuinely want to go and might otherwise pay for.

Look out for free passes with English Heritage and National Trust

It's expensive but the expectation to have to do something is the problem. I didn't even grt to gp to the park during the holidays. A day out was a long walk and a picnic. If I was really lucky we went to the seaside for the day, also with a cool box picnic, but that was twice a year max. If I got a holiday for a week to the seaside this was also a rarity. I just had to occupy myself in the holidays. No devices, no on demand TV, just books and toys, I'd spend hours just riding up and down our street on my bike or rollerblades. My mum didn't work and we were beyond skint as a household. I was fed, clothed, warm and loved.

Sounds just like my childhood, only not many toys, but plenty of books, thanks to the mobile library. I did envy friends at school who always went on holiday, often more than one.

We also bought food at legoland and Alton towers once, never again.

Vue near me has tickets for £4.99 and do 2 for 1 on tuesdays and wed.