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?

These things were always expensive! I never went to any of them as a child. A trip to something like legoland or a big theme park happened once in your whole childhood.

Just to add, as a child my parents had national trust membership. As an adult I really have no desire to visit another stately home or garden again. I feel like I have seen them all.....

My kids like a trip to Costco for the " try stalls" and a look at giant tents and inflatables. They are also fascinated by the walk-in freezer. When they were little, they loved sitting next to each other in the giant shopping trolley and going in the giant lift to the basement (fun times). We then go to the café, a £1.50 hot dog and soda, and a gelato so big that 3 people can share.

I think the Ikea day trip is a similar thing, although I've not done that. Have also done the local Chinese wholesale supermarket, let them see the lobster and crabs in tanks and the butcher preparing the meat. We have a small budget for Asian treats that we've never tried, and we're coming home for a tasting session.

Another memorable one was going to Manchester on the bus, just walking around the city to get used to it, then went to Hard Rock for a massive brownie dessert and 3 spoons. no starter or main, just dessert.

I literally said in an earlier comment that ‘everyone has different preferences’ and I truly get that. But, on a post that was started about people finding lots of big trips out prohibitively expensive, it’s okay to point out that simple, free activities in nature are a great thing for kids. If they would rather read than that’s totally okay to - I like reading but I would rather be out in nature on a sunny day, that’s a personal preference. But parents breaking the bank to entertain their kids with elaborate days out doesn’t seem okay to me.

I don’t think I have said anywhere that parents should go to the same park on repeat for 6 years. In fact I said the total opposite in a previous post. All I was pointing out is that simple, cheaper activities (as you do with your kids and I do with mine) are fine and doesn’t make you a bad parent.

I was a childminder when mine were young and in summer would set up a reading tent in a corner of the back garden, beach tent with cushions and baskets with books in, it gave them the chance to go chill out if they wanted to, but the rest could play in the sandpit or scooters etc and we all got fresh air.

Well we still end up at the park sometimes, don’t worry, but I’m blimmin bored of the sight of it. As a person in my own right as well, I enjoy taking the kids to interesting places I’ve not been before.

Get a national trust family pass £14.50 per month, free days out all year. Bring a picnic and a ball.

I used to make my children walk round whatever we were at twice to get our money's worth 🙂

Yes i think special days out are expensive, but i think they probably always were.

We would go more /go really bc we don't do anything over £15 pp currently. My issue is, we have a bouncy 3 Yr old, but if we travel 30mins+ to a venue, he's likely to be asleep in the car. So we wait 30 mins for him to wake up and then pay to enter. Then after 2-3 hours he might decide he's had enough. Meanwhile we can't really go on any rides or enjoy much of the attractions bc we are supervising a small person..

If venues offered half price entry after 2pm or something we might be tempted to try more, but I'm reluctant to shell out £100 for maybe 3hours of toddler entertainment.

Soft play costs around £8-10 here for 90mins but adults are generally £1 or free and thats much more reasonable.

I'd like to give a shout out to Sherwood Forest Miniature railway in north Nottinghamshire which has free parking, an outside play area and miniature railway train rides cost £5 adult, £4 child. Makes for a relatively cheap but pleasant afternoon..
Swanley Park near Dartford is similar but has more facilities. Fortunately we all love trains.

Power and overheads have gone up because energy is privatised and shareholders are making big profits. Facilitated by the government who refuse to nationalise key utilities:

Wages have stayed stagnant.

Demonise those above, not those below.

How does a picnic cost more than lunch? Sandwiches and crisps can’t cost more than a lunch at home?

High cost Switzerland our local zoo costs the following:-
Adults (20+): £21
Youths (16–19 years): £16.–
Children (6–15 years): £10.– for the first and second child; £ 5.50 for each additional child
Children under 6: Free

so family of 4 with two in primary school is £62

I voted YANBU because everything does feel
flipping expensive. With that said, I remember my dad complaining about the cost of a trip to Legoland in the 90s 😂 things like the zoo or the aquarium were maybe once a year as a birthday treat, not just random half term days out. We had a national trust membership, so we mostly did that, museums, swimming, parks and soft play. And actually all those things are still free or relatively low cost.

Maybe a NT family membership would be worth it? I have a CSSC card because we’re fairly close to Kew Gardens, and it also gets us into English and Welsh Heritage sites.

Also, fwiw, National Trust quite often does vouchers in newspapers, worth keeping an ehe
out. I got three last year - bought the papers specially!

I've also had a few of the NT vouchers plus I don't know if it applies in other areas but over the last couple of years Northern Rail, who run a good proportion of the trains across Northern England and the Midlands, have run a regular promotion where you can get unlimited train travel for £12 for adults and £6 for children for a day or £20/10 for the whole weekend. You just need to collect two or three tokens from a wide selection of newspapers.

I've worked out that the cheapest way to do this is two copies of the Daily Star and I have become expert in buying said newspapers at the supermarket self service till and then extracting the tokens without seeing any of the trash content before hiding the rest of the papers at the bottom of the recycling bin.

This has allowed me to have several relatively cheap days out by train without having to plan around cheap advance tickets.

Use Labour’s ‘Great British Summer Savings’!

Happy days!

I mean, we all agree that its expensive. However, you call yourself good earners - so I think its all relative. If you would spend £150 on a pair of shoes without blinking - YABU for not just paying the money to do something nice each half term.

I have a friend who will go out for lunch with her DH and spend £250 - but refuses to pay for trips out for her kids because its "crazy money" - its like she just doesnt think they're worth it rather than not being able to afford it.

You just have to choose days out carefully - go for places with a years free entry - lots of places do them now and if you are local.visit regularly you really get your moneys worth. Lots of cities have free museums too. Choose smaller lesser known beaches if you can with free/low cost parking. Always always take a picnic! And don’t do the gift shop at the end!

We use annual passes as much as we can.

our biggest cost is our Merlin passes. But after renewing in February we have already broken even on the cost. Think I worked out it was 9 attracrions to do so.
it’s just fuel then as we take pack lunch. Off to London today. Just spending £44 on train tickets. The attractions are on our pass. And taking a picnic.

we don’t do fairs as it works out at £60 for 3 rides each. My children don’t ask because they know we can go to a theme park instead and do a lot more rides.

swimming we get free access with their swim lessons. But it also includes free soft play and a discount on the climbing wall. So we do make the most of that.

It is expensive but I feel it was always expensive to do these types of days out. We tend to get the kids to special days out like this but we always pack lunch to make it cheaper and the kids don’t mind.

When I was little (80’s) we just played out and occasionally went to a park or funfair if there was one. And a yearly trip to the beach for a week.

I try to do a mix with my kids we will do a lot of parks, interactive museums, splash areas that are free. Then throw in the odd swimming/ cinema/ trampolining/ farm / mini golf that might cost around £20 for a couple hours. Very rarely we do a theme park or similar that’s £100+ for a whole day.

If you're going to get the use out of a monthly NT subscription it's really a phenomenal deal.

It wasn’t. You used to be able to do a beach day for a tenner. Now it’s more like £25, minimum.

well actually if you wanted you could do a beach day for totally free!

Parking - now £10 minimum for a day.

Ice creams - it used to be £1.60 for a single when I started working at the beach ten years ago, now it’s £2.50 for a single.

Chips/food - it used to be £1.20 for a small portion of chips. Now it’s £3.20 minimum.