Do you pay when AP joins you on a family day out?

[chicaguapa]

We have a summer AP coming for the holidays. We plan on going out and about a fair bit during the weekends and will of course welcome the AP to join us. I wondered whether we should expect to pay her entry fees or if she should pay out of her 'pocket money'? It's just that another adult on the cost of a 2+2 family will make a difference to where we choose to go and we can't not invite her!

I think if she will be helping with the children then you have to pay, if she will go off on her own or you don't expect her to do anything with the children at all, then its more reasonable to expect her to pay.

I invite the AP to outings where it doesn't affect the cost, i.e to the beach, the forest, cheap trips. I don't invite them to days out like Legoland where it'll cost another £30+ food and it'll make the day prohibitive.
Hopefully she'll be going on her own outings

I always covered for all the AP's costs when they came with us anywhere. But I didn't invite the AP's to join us all the time.

Good, I didn't want to seem unreasonable but it could end up costing us a lot more otherwise! I guess I could tell her where we're going and that it costs £x then she'll understand that if she wants to come along she'll have to contribute - hopefully. We don't do a lot of expensive stuff anyway. Thanks.

She's only with us for 6 weeks so I don't mind her coming with us where ever we go. That said, she might be a complete PITA I don't know yet, do I?

I felt that I had to invite our ap everywhere we went, regardless of cost. It did make some things expensive, especially places that we go a lot as they're 'free' for us because we've got annual memberships, but still cost us another adult entry every time our ap came. We always paid for her meals and snacks when out too.

We did try to save money in other ways though if she came along - took bottled water for lunches, took snacks for the car to avoid stopping for dinner on the way home etc.

I don't think you can expect them to pay for themselves, as I think it's part of the deal that they come on family trips and get their expenses paid if they're coming as one of the family (i.e. not to wander off with a friend as soon as we've paid to get in). However, we're a bit of a fly by the seat of our pants type of family when it comes to planning trips and although it's almost a certainty that we'll go somewhere, where we actually go is up in the air until the last minute. As such, we often didn't wake our ap when we went out (she slept in until 9am on a weekday and 10am+ on a weekend), so we'd often be gone before she got up. Sometimes if we had a vague idea where we were going, we'd say, and tell her that if she was up she was welcome to come along, but that I wasn't going to wake her in case I interrupted her sleep [cheeky money saving emoticon].

Areas like this make ap's much more expensive than their basic wages. I think add on's probably doubled what we paid if not more.

it will also very much depend on the ap's personality whether you want to invite her at all;) although hope she will be nice and the question will be pay or not to pay rather tah take or not to take ;) when i worked as an ap a long time ago the family sometimes asked whether i wnated to come and sometimes they said we are going and cant take you with us this time. which i though was fare enough. they needed some time for themselves too. depends a lot on the relationship.