AIBU to feel fed up about how much summer holidays cost?

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Summer is nearly over thank god and despite trying we’ve spent an absolute fortune. Free things never actually are, there’s always a catch. I got fooled by a kids eat for £1 the other day and it still cost £40 for two adult meals and an hour in a tiny soft play my eldest was bored with after ten minutes.

Has anybody managed not to haemorrhage money? Have had some subtle criticisms from DH and I’m tired of it.

What has DH had to say? If mine were critical of how I use funds entertaining his DC, it would become his job.

How old are your kids? I think it's easier to do free or cheaper stuff when they are small, me and a friend used to take ours up to a recreation ground near us and we took a coffee and chatted and the kids ran about and played for hours! Now mine are 10 and 2 teens they cost me loads for entertainment I am afraid! 🙈

How old are they? I agree it's easier when they are younger. Our local library runs free classes for little ones. Also it can work well to buy annual membership to a local farm / theme park / the national trust - if you go there a lot it ends up being cheap per visit.

We went to a free festival put on by uni yesterday. Cost me 9 quid and that was bus fares and a biscuit ! Round here kids go free on buses in the summer. They have library activities for free too ie lego club. Swimming theyre free so thats about 2.50 for an adult. Depends on ages.

Do you work? Why is your dh commenting without solutions? Ask him what his solution is every time.

How did you misunderstand a kids eat for £2 and spend £40?!?!

They cost as much as you want to spend? I don’t buy into this whole ‘having to be doing something because it’s the holidays’ rubbish that is everywhere now, we go on holiday (which we save all year for and some years can’t afford to do) and then go for walks (we love coastally so lots of nice walks) take a picnic (food we’d be eating at home anyway) or at home.
If it’s a year we can’t afford a holiday we may do a zoo trip or a big day out, but I’m not wasting money on meals out etc just cos it’s the holidays

edit to add, my oldest is 25, youngest is 7 with 3 in between so have a wide age range

we had 4 dks, and did a lot of "free" stuff. Taking picnics, food garnered from the fridge. later on to the beach. sometimes a picnic in the garden when they were small. Now it's grandkids, different ages. Going out for a meal is an occasional luxury now (pension) I remember my dgs (now 15) on a cold March day when we were walking the dogs on the beach, saying "nanny, can we have a picnic"? why,not,in the car then!

Nope. I took my son on the bus to the seaside the other week. A sandwich in a local cafe and a round of mini golf in a park still cost £40.

It’s childcare that kills us over the summer though. My son’s holiday club is £180 a week and my daughter’s childminder goes up to £240 a week without the 30 free hours.

It’s so true. I’ve taken my DC out on one “big day” per week, we also do a smaller local trip out once a week and obviously go out somewhere at the weekend with DH too.

Every single time I’ve taken picnic foods and lots of drinks (3 drinks each x 5 DC so carrying 15 bottles around) and every single time I’ve had them whinging about being hungry and thirsty when they’ve demolished it all. I don’t want to carry the entire kitchen around on my back all day. We’ve been getting trains to these cities so not like I can stash extra in the car. Then have to get more drinks and snacks, even though in my mind what I had brought out was more than adequate.

I always plan free or inexpensive trips out so for example used clubcard vouchers for The Deep this week which was lovely, but then the snacks and drinks… We’ve visited a few new cities and just went to their free museums and galleries but snacks and drinks.

Your local facebook page might have a post on free activities for children. Libraries and museums often have events.

I find the more planned I am, the cheaper it is.

Most days I managed to entertain the kids for free with a picnic in the park. a different park every day for variety. When the weather is good, summer holidays are cheap.

I never ate out with them so that saves hundreds really, over the course of the 6 weeks.

i used to have mine carry little backpacks with their own lunch. And always have bananas.

now, we stop off at the supermarket and they choose a meal day for days out. Easier.

The heat hasn't really helped, because more days than usual it's been hot enough to restrict outside activities. Also means, as a pp said, they neck more drinks and complain about being thirsty!

We've had mostly free days out, I'm strict about bringing our own food everywhere and we're in London so there are different and interesting places to go for free every day, usually with some organised activities in the holidays. We haven't had to go back to the same place all summer, there is such a variety. I'm fortunate not to pay for tfl travel due to a Freedom Pass,
and dcs travel for free here. We've had one meal out through the holidays, and that was because it was a family birthday (we only really do meals out on birthdays).

London is a different ball game entirely. For starters kids under 11 have free travel. There’s absolutely loads of free or inexpensive activities and always something going on. We went down to London for a few days and had a whale of a time, even in the heatwave.

We live in a shit village with rubbish connections so when we get the train we either have DH drop us at a better connected station in the morning or we have to get 4-6 trains to get anywhere. The trains also cost a lot, even with my family & friends railcard. No chance we’re getting a bus anywhere here unless we want to sit on it for 1.5 hours when the train would take 20 mins.

Spent £100 on a family ticket to a zoo yesterday. Took lunch with us. Thought I was being clever by researching quiet times so we arrived at 3 pm. All the animals had had enough by that time and we turned up at each section to see nothing because they were clearly asleep somewhere. A young couple next to me, the woman said ‘We’ve just paid £40 to stare at grass’ 🤦‍♀️

The only thing we did see were elephants and giraffes because in my kids words ‘they are too big to hide’

It was our one big day out of two weeks off 😭

Yea. I think it is what you make it, but it's easy to get out of hand. I always have a loose plan of what you want to do before the school holidays as I find it helps with budgeting.
We've done lots of things at home, like making pizzas, cress heads, obstacle courses in the garden, plus movies, board games, tablet time.
Our local library have done a summer reading challenge, which my DCs took part in - one of the perks of this was that we got a free pass to a local National Trust property, plus I got about 5 vouchers for National Trust out of the paper at the start of the holidays, so we've been making out way through those.
Playgrounds and bike rides are always free - travel further afield to go to different ones/routes.
I'm perplexed at how you managed to spend £40 with the kids eat for £1 offer though. I did this with mine at the start of the hols, went midweek lunch time (so just me as DH as was at work) and it cost £10. But I only had a main and a soft drink.
Our local buses have also offered free bus travel for kids, but we haven't used that to be honest.
And agree with PPs, we always take food and drinks out with us, to save on costs, but also because I hate queuing and waiting for food when I've got 2 hungry kids 😂

Why would you pay £100 for a day out and arrive at the end of the day?! Surely it would have been quiet at opening time?

I used to have annual passes to my closest zoo and found that very cost effective.

I think a lot of it is heavily dependent on where you live and what’s going on in your local area, plus access to a car. National Trust is great, we pay £14 per month and go once a month usually to a local site (we have 3 within an hours drive), but you need to drive to access them. Free museums and galleries are great but exclusive to cities so you need to either drive or fork out for trains. The beach is nice but most people live 1-2 hours away from it. Free bus travel is cool but villages like ours have shit bus services and as I mentioned, it takes 1.5 hours to get to the nearest big city by bus but 20 mins on a train.

I’m glad it isn’t just me.

@LizandDerekGoals i do work but since I’m a teacher holiday childcare is on me <sigh> I remember being pregnant and thinking how wonderful it was I would get to spend holidays with a child. Now 😬😬

Mine are only young but as much as everybody says it’s easy to entertain them when they are young I am not so sure … yes to a point they don’t need laser quest and expensive shopping trips as maybe tweens and teens do but equally I can’t just leave them to their own devices, they can’t read themselves yet, crafts are a non starter. It really is those things you don’t expect. I was all pleased with myself as I found a place offering a pebble painting session with a fairytale walk - £3 each, bargain I thought. But then at the end of the walk there was a bouncy castle which mine shot towards with a cry of delight. £5 each, absolute rip off so that’s £10 down. So what I thought would cost £6 was closer to £20 (there was also an ice cream shop.)

I know I’m going to get a lot of replies about needing firmer boundaries and my children would never but equally have to think of my own sanity in this!

@risingup i think it depends on the type of park. The smaller ones (like just a playground really) are hard to spend a day in and the bigger ones do tend to have those catches: the parking charge, the food to feed the ducks, the train that’s £2 each so we’re £6 down … just examples, I know they aren’t all like this.

Picnics are tricky as well as my younger DD just eats the filling from sandwiches and will only eat ham so if I pack a picnic no matter how lovely and healthy and tasty it is she will eat ham and a packet of crisps obviously not ideal for every day! I know some people will say to just let her but I don’t like them having a bad diet and it can lead to other problems with hunger related tantrums and even poo. So food is a big outlay just at the moment.

@Sartre we have one really good national trust place near us but they seem to have removed the playground which is a bit of a shame. I don’t know why. And there’s a really good summer of play there but I still have to think about food, mugged for an ice cream. It’s definitely a cheaper day out but not free and I guess this is it, every single day has cost something - sometimes loads and sometimes under £20 but still a lot when you tot it up.

Yes

we used to call it the annual summer overdraft

We always spend a fortune too.

For us about £1000 goes on 3 weeks of holiday clubs. Then a week abroad, the cost of which I won't share 😅
Then we'll do a few days out on the other 2 weeks. Cinema, bowling, maybe a theme park. We went to mini golf the other day and it was £53.

The holidays cost a lot but we expect it.

I do think your DH can stick his beak out if he's not actually doing the task though. That's not helping. Have a quick Google of what say 4 weeks at holiday clubs would be for your kids' ages and point out to him that if you both had year round jobs you'd be paying that. I seriously doubt you've spent that on mini trains and kids' meals out etc!

My daughter's a teen now but she was a right pain at the ages of yours because of food restrictions and a love for novelty.

What you could do is repeated visits to places you're familiar with which will cut down on getting blindsided by stuff you're not expecting to pay for.

I'm a teacher too OP and agree it's the little charges - parking, bus pass, a very occasional coffee - that add up when it's 5 days a week for 6 full weeks. However, there is hope! Mine are now lower primary age so friends are old enough to come and play without their mums. It's pretty mind-numbing being in the house so much but it's my children's favourite sort of day and doesn't cost more than food. I host more than they get invited back as I'm obviously off work and also proactive in organising things but that's okay. The children also are easier to reason with now. Mine have chosen a big day out each (£15+ entry type thing) and I keep reiterating a lot of days just need to be library/park/home. So maybe in a year or two you might find it slightly less painful!