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.

If your children are preschool age (which I am presuming they are means you mentioned about being too young to read and do crafts) you have likely saved money from the cost of childcare over the summer holidays. We have saved £600 on childcare for our youngest 2 over August.

This last week or so I haven't really spent much- we have done a free cooking class at the children's centre, play park, swimming (costs £6 for me under 5s are free), our local farm shop is doing a children's craft event once a week which also has a playground so that's half a day for free- and I haven't spent on the extras advertised. Add in a couple of playdates with their friends and that's a couple of weeks for much less than the cost I would be paying for childcare.

If out for the day I generally take a picnic (you can make pasta/wraps etc to take with you rather than a sandwich)

It depends where you live. We live somewhere with lots of nice parks so just do those on rotation and don’t eat out. A “treat” is buying a meal deal each. That’s how I grew up so it’s completely normal for me, expensive days out were once or twice a year, not every week.

We live somewhere lovely though and all our money goes on just living here. Lots of tourists also just come to hang out because we have lovely parks and spaces. It must be very tough if you don’t have that.

U don't have to entertain for the full 6 weeks it's actually beneficial for children to get bored and make their own fun it's called letting them use their imagination!
A zoo trip a picnic or bike rides their still having fun u don't need to spend a fortune to spend time with your children !

The issue with my DC is what she would DO left to her own devices! I preferred to have a bit more control of the situation...

We have spent a fortune this summer. I usually pride myself on not having spent much over the summer and being quite good at finding free events and days out, but this year it just hasn't happened as my kids are older and don't want to go for walks, feed ducks, picnics or parks.
To get my kids out the house it now requires bribery and going to something they want. A walk now involves having to go via arcades or for food.
Yes my kids would be happy at home and are old enough to entertain themselves but all they want to do is go on screens which is a whole other issue. My daughter will do crafts and has made lots of lovely things, but this has also cost a small fortune in supplies!
We have had lots of fantastic days out and I think I just need to now be aware of budgeting differently for the summer for next year (although there is potential that my son will be at the age of doing his own thing then and I will be moaning he doesn't want to do things with me).

Don’t get into the habit/expectation that you need to entertain them. They need to learn to amuse themselves. Do you have a garden? Just playing outside together with the things they have at home, invite some friends round, go for a walk, take a ball or a scooter, look at the trees/nature with them (I have just been looking after a 9 yr old who loved the woods and hugging the trees checking they had healthy bark!!?? Very random). You make a rod for your own back with the expectation that they need to be constantly amused and entertained. If they are young still, you can keep it as simple as you like. Make housework fun and get them to help, do some baking together (my son loved to help when he was 3 and then found that the flour was much more fun to drive his cars around in. It kept him amused for hours! Made a mess but that’s ok), encourage a camp under some sheets. There are endless things you can do that cost nothing. Just be more imaginative and refuse to sign up for kids = spending money ethos.

Lol I didn't say leave them alone u can still be with them whilst they use their imagination!
It's obviously easier for some people to have a firm plan in place so they know their child is being kept occupied but this isn't always good constantly entertaining a child !

I hear you, it's very easy to spend, but honestly when my DC were younger and even now we have many no spend days.

We're lucky to be in walking distance of 4 different parks. We play a lot of ball games or go to the park with friends rather than do organized (paid for) activities.

Having said that I have found plenty of genuinely free things to do. Museums, farms, one-off events and free fun days, even got bowling free this summer. We don't do kids eat free type deals any more. There's always a catch and it always costs more than you think (with the exception of a Premier Inn breakfast!).

I manage expectations on ice cream ahead of time if I don't want to buy. I usually have a stash of lollies in the freezer. "We're going to have a lolly now because we're not going to have an ice cream out."

I think you are lucky that you don't have to work in the holidays so are saving money there. I just took mine to different parks around the area. Having picnics. Walking in the woods and making dens. Playing in the garden. I never took them on paid days out we have Thorpe Park Chessington and legoland near us but we never went as we couldn't afford it.

Yes, it never went well with my particular child though whatever I did. She's lot better outside of the house tbh.

It costs as much as you let it. Walk, cycle to parks with a picnic and a flask of coffee, free. Buy packs of the mini fake lidl magnums for treats rather than ice cream from the ice cream van. Museums etc may mean a bus fare but they are capped at £3 each way for adults and free for kids. We have 3 free ones here, all big enough for more than one visit. I’m coastal and the local little kids spend hours rock pooling and fishing for crabs, older ones all seem to have proper rods, there’s already a couple of dozen set up for the day, even got flasks!

free fun and games are organised on the big green here each lunch time, it’s grass roots organised by local families, you can do too

We went to Chessington yesterday (first time ever and for a specific reason). It's well organised and maintained but Christ...what a money pit! Charging to park in a dusty field!!

I think if you have close access to a beach that is a very different situation to if you live somewhere more suburban tbh. Sounds lovely though!

We used to research like hell on the run up to the holidays, making notes of cheap/free events, activities, pub gardens with free bouncy castles, play parks with splash pads or paddling pools etc. Then I got together with other mums and we compared notes and set up a communal calendar for the summer - play doh afternoons, Lego sessions, den building, scone baking, bike rides, kite flying, glo worm evening walks, blackberry picking, moth trapping, bat walks, fetes, fake beaches at shopping centres, library storytelling, open days at the Fire Station, Police HQ, free puppet shows at the local museum etc. We had very few empty days and didn't spend much at all.

@Donimo and @Phineyj i have pointed out that just two days of nursery a week for DD (age 3) is around £900 and then two days at holiday club a week for ds (age 5) would be around £500. So that’s a very good point!

@Franjipanl8r to be fair I think it was the same for me but I don’t know because I only have a tiny handful of snatched memories of my life at this age and I am sure that if I was able to ask my parents (they are no longer with us so I can’t) how much they spent in the summer they’d give a different answer! When I think about it I do remember my mum pleading with me to eat some french bread and melon on a French holiday and I was refusing (I like both now mum! Sorry!) and many drinks bought at service stations so I’m sure we cost a fortune too. I think it’s just the nature of little children, you’re in survival mode.

@Girlwithavibe i don’t disagree it’s important for children to have unstructured time to use their imaginations but little children aren’t going to do that for hours every day. At nursery and preschool the free play time is usually at the beginning and end of the day with other times given for snacks and meals and for outdoor play and story time, crafts etc. No child under the age of about seven is going to immerse themselves in a complex and imaginative world for eight hours plus a day; they just aren’t. (Even for eight plus I think that would be a stretch.)

Plus, an important point is that you have to find out about the world in order to use your imagination if that makes sense. My DS’s current favourite thing to do at home is Race Track which is based on the monster truck show he saw with his dad a few months ago (DH isn’t all bad but he’s annoyed me today!)

We are as far inland as it’s possible to be in the UK, literally. I sometimes wish we could have location in our profiles here as the beach always gets suggested.

We have friends in Northern Ireland who can literally walk to the most beautiful little deserted beach. I mean …

It is absolutely rammed at opening time and it was also scorching hot. It was much quieter and more pleasurable at 3 pm because a lot of the toddlers and younger children were going home. I just had no idea the animals would be more absent at this time of day. Although I suspect it might have been the same earlier and many animals were staying out of the sun.

I splashed out on season passes for our local activity park- it’s like highropes, zip lines, trampolines in the trees kind of thing it was 160€ for the two children for April to October when it’s open but it’s saved my sanity- I never go around lunch time and they have gotten used to the “we will have ice cream at home” line I always trot out when they ask. We go a few times a week and usually my older dd who’s 5 bumps into school friends there.
We also do a woods walk or bike ride every morning as our activity it’s free and no opportunities to ask me to buy anything.

We live relatively near a beach and rarely go, so despite the idyllic views people have about having access to a beach it doesn't make a difference if your kids aren't into it.

Same as a lot of suggestions. My son never really liked going to the park. Would get bored quickly and only if you went with a group would he be ok for a while (as they would chat and he would get them to play some other imaginary game).

Just because you actually have the kids in the holidays doesn’t mean your DH shouldn’t do his share of planning and thinking of things to.
If he has an opinion on the money you’re spending, he can share his own ideas for spending more wisely. Or butt out.

DC 7 & 9. We do a mix of

• a family uk holiday away - 2 weeks
• childcare - 1 week (this is expensive)

DH and i each do a week off. This bit is cheaper. We dont eat out etc. We do a mix of:

• rotate round every local park
• walks in woods etc
• activities at home - baking, crafts, badminton or basketball in the garden
• swimming at local leisure centre
• having friends/cousins over to play really helps
• visiting family eg grandparents
• we have an apple tree in the garden spent ages one day picking loads and making crumble and juice & apple sauce. We also go blackberry picking & make jam.
• go on long bike rides - i have a bag on the back of the bike & take a picnic.
• visit free local stuff, theres a free museum & an iron age hillfort thats open to just walk round

I went to London Zoo in high temperatures last summer and it was as you describe - animals all hiding in the shade...barely saw any. We had at least gone on the Network Rail 2 for 1 deal though (that's well worth looking up).

This is the kind of stuff very few dads do, and they therefore have zero idea of the effort that goes in.

I've been fortunate to not have too many money worries but I always start planning the next school holiday during the previous one. Does DH? No. He's not even fully aware when they are, and this is repeated across all our friends. It's annoying...

The problem is probably not the cost of summer holidays

would those things feel quite so expensive if your rent / mortgage cost was quartered ? So instead of paying £1k you pay £250 a month for your home ? That’s what it should be

Housing costs have way stripped inflation for decades , and the by have a negative impact not just on your costs but the cost of every business you deal with - nursery costs high? That’s their rent and so on

it’s the elephant in the room as people say - the bloody big problem that everyone ignores whilst complaining about everything else

Mine are only 5 and 2 but we’ve hardly spent anything (bar a holiday in the middle, but even that we mostly swam and went to the beach). The heatwave has helped in a way as it put me off any days out. We’ve had a lot of friends round to play (free and wears them out!), but also just many days pottering around. They play relatively nicely together and do spend hours making up games / making a mess, but whatever, they’re quiet! Park trips I take food and coffee in a flask. Thinking back we’ve actually had no “big” days out. Also, I think a lot of these expensive activities put on for kids (at least around here) are a bit shit. I’d rather have some friends round to paint stones from the driveway than pay to do it out. Get a gang of kids together and they entertain themselves. The UK is really into manufactured fun at the moment and in my general experience it’s never much fun.

That aside, sorry your husband is making comments. Holiday childcare costs a fortune – send him an invoice for all the care you’ve done!