Can't afford to do anything in school hols

[peebles32]

My children are 8 , 13 and 17 and we are just too skint to do anything! It's not like they are at that age where they can just be appeased with a trip to the park.
We have baked, long walks and for this second week of the school holiday we won't be doing anything. I am not one of these parents who finds stuff for them to do and I let them be bored, but all they are doing is going on devices.
Where on earth do people get their money from?
I teach and my husband has a good job but days out are extortionate.
Any ideas?

Dh is taking dc camping for a few days but even a cheap and cheerful pitch with hardly any facilities and no electric hook up seems to have gone up massively.

Kellogg's (I think) used to do vouchers for 2 for 1/discounted entry to Alton Towers and other places. Pretty sure I've seen similar on crisp packets too recently.
Do you have any Tesco clubcard points you could redeem? Not sure if other supermarket loyalty cards offer similar.
We've used Days Out Guide before, you can get 2 for 1 tickets to attractions if you book train tickets. We did the Tower of London but they have a list of attractions elsewhere too. Iirc there's no limit on train ticket price so for a local attraction just buy a single ticket from like a stop away and you'd still qualify for discounted entry.

Hi OP, depending on where you live you might find there’s actually quite a few things that you could do for free/really cheap!

For example near us there are 3 different “museums” (but they’re not your typical boring museums, have activity and game areas for kids/young adults) and those are all free entry. It wouldn’t be a whole day activity but it could definitely be a couple of hours of everyone out the house and break the day up.

There’s a farm near us as well which is free entry/“donation”, they are basic compared to the bigger ones but again could be a little trip out for an hour or so.

Have a look at activities near you that might have deals on for the holidays as well, there’s quite a few doing things like kids go for £1 near us, typically it’s between certain hours I think it’s between 10am and 2/3pm when they’d be quieter anyway but again would be a few hours out of the house for cheap.

I was a teacher for a while so I know your problem. You don’t say where you live but loads of museums and art galleries are free. Could you go and explore your nearest town looking for old buildings? Could you go for a walk and a picnic? Can they see friends? Doesn’t your 17 year old have studying to do or should they be finding a p/t job? How about a massive clear out of drawers and cupboards? Get them to at least help cook the supper and make you lunch. Do they have bikes? How about a board games afternoon or doing a family jigsaw? Perhaps insist on a family walk every day. Can you afford to go swimming? Sorry if this all sounds a bit old fashioned but at least it gets them talking to each other. You definitely need to get a plan together for the summer holidays too. OOPs - we used to have a reading hour after lunch. We all sat in the lounge and read a book.

Do they have bikes?
Are there woods near you....den building, mountain biking
Clear out junk and take to charity

We are seeing one of the DCs friends tomorrow. But that's it for the whole week. We have been a woodland walk on the one dry day last week. I have my eldest revising for exams so we can't book holidays anyway. Have no choice but to visit grandparents (done this first day of Easter holidays) and play board games, consoles, local walks etc. I hear you OP.

I wouldn't aim to do much with all 3 kids together - with those age gaps it'll be hard to find something they all want to do. Isn't the 17 year old and possibly the 13 year old more into hanging out with their mates?

Have a look at what's available locally for free, or where you can get money off vouchers. There are usually some bargains to be had. And of course nothing wrong with baking, walks and movie evenings too. I would let go of the idea you need whole family days out though because I can't imagine a 17 year old is going to be into the same stuff as an 8 year old

Fab ideas!! Thankyou.
We are going to the wood shortly for a trek.
There is a local museum which is free but we have been loads.
Hopefully the weather cheers up. At least we can go in the garden.

I sell stuff on vinted and save it up so started January and had a few hundred saved for Easter holidays. Cleared their clothes and toys and put more stuff on to save for the summer holidays. It is time consuming but I leave the money on vinted then withdraw a few days before the holidays so it doesn't get swallowed up in day to day spending

17 year olds don’t tend to need amusing in the holidays IME, they’re usually studying/seeing friends/working PT etc. So that leaves the 13 and 8 year olds. We have an all year round savings pot to cover activities in the school holidays (we have ‘pots’ for Christmas/birthdays/clothings/school trips etc too) so there’s always a bit of cash aside to spend. Over Easter this covered us for 1 theme park trip, 1 trip to the cinema, 1 bowling trip and a few lower key activities like swimming and walks round NT properties (we have membership). The kids also had a couple of days where they invited a friend round to ours to play/make pizzas etc.

It depends so much on where you live.
My DC are grown up now, but we used to do picnics , sometimes taking friends, and trips to places with free entertainment, like Covent Garden market. But we live in London, where there also lots of free museums.
And it’s much harder with teenagers unless they are into something sporty. I used to try getting the older ones involved in projects, like decorating or making something, or helping in the garden, so then they weren’t just gaming all day, but they certainly didn’t see that as a treat! They did like power tools though!
But being off school was a treat to them, they really just wanted to chill, and actually, that’s fine. You can invite people over to play with your youngest, but the older ones will be in charge of their own social lives.

Even simple things like swimming have gone up massively. £33 for 4 to have an hour in a fun pool. Nope! Not happening.

The weather being crap doesn’t help. Walks and free things are often weather dependent.

We never had money for activities in the holidays, the things we did that I remember fondly were making sandwiches and driving to the beach, even if it was raining. Appreciate you may not be within driving distance of a beach, and public transport can be expensive.
Or playing board games /card games at home with parents.
Having sleepovers with school friends (although if hosting, that's an extra mouth to feed).

We have a really limited budget for holidays- but the advantage that, like you, I'm a teacher so we have time. This hols I did a park and ride into a local historic town (£3.50! Kids free!) and then saw all new free things 😂 There was a trail like the painted elephants to find around the town. We had a McD with points from a visit there pre Xmas where I'd bought meals for them and their friends. I was very pleased with myself at a £3.50 day out 😂
The other good one I've done is London as I bought a railcard last year. So there's the train cost but again we only do free things. I took a picnic to that one and it was fun to eat it down by the river. We don't go often so it's a novelty to wander around.

Hope it flies by!

At 17 at least one of them should be paying for their own amusements with a part time job! Would also keep him occupied.

Treasure Trails are good too. We've done a few in various places with mixed age groups and enjoyed them. There's loads of locations. We've done quite a few on foot but iirc one needed the car.

I have always found this. Also have an only which I find quite suffocating in holidays if I’m honest (and pregnant with dc2 now). I find our area great usually but it’s quite limited in terms of activities for 7+ year olds beyond lots outdoors, which isn’t really appealing / possible in the weather we’ve had. So far this holidays she’s seen a couple of friends, had swimming, been to another city on a day trip for museums and food, and a big craft project we are doing together. Rapidly running out of ideas and money. It’s good to have downtime but I don’t want her on devices for more than an hour or two at a time. It’s exhausting…

Can you make something in the garden? Get a couple of free pallets, break out the tools, make a planter. Doesn't matter so much how it turns out, but just learning to have fun making something you can use. How about a baking session and then inviting or taking to the grandparents for an afternoon tea, where they prep and serve. Painting t-shirts or a backdrop on an old sheet, to act a play against. Or making a frame for a puppet show, then making puppets and putting on a production, as fun or gory as they like.

Free ideas:

Invite friends over to play
(Bonus usually gets you invited back)

Do a sleepover (can be tricky to supervise but generally goes down well even if very little sleeping happens)

Grandparents? We'd go and see grandparents for a day or two and at least do different free things in a different area.

Same here

This holiday we've cleared out bedrooms and listed on vinted, national trusted, done the local posh garden centre (price: cake and drink!), taken the dog on walks in the woods. Done one day out in Cotswolds, one to Birmingham, and they've played with friends and we've done board games.

Actually, both of mine really needed some down time, they were surprisingly tired. Days spent drawing and relaxing at home are still fine xx

I wish I had the definitive answer to this!

As a kid, we had to entertain ourselves in my family and the highlight might be going to browse the shopping centre as a family and spending a few £'s on a very small treat.

We have done bowling this Easter break, which if you book for before 11am it's half price, it was £18 for five of us. Although you inevitably end up with someone sulking at least, because they didn't win.

I think cinemas also have cheaper viewings, but there doesn't seem to be anything they would want to watch at the moment.

I used to do an annual pass to an attraction and spread the cost over the year it would be a lifesaver over school holidays, but including step kids, I have five and its too expensive now really.

They are booked into holiday clubs this week, you can claim a good portion of the money back as childcare expenses.

@mynamechangemyrules We did the painted Elmer elephant trail before, it was quite good. I think they've got painted shaun the sheeps at the moment!

We did spring cleaning of DD’s room and sorting out clothes: packed away winter one and took away spring/ summer clothes making a list of what will be needed. it took a while!
She had a spa evening with bath bomb (leftovers birthday present found during spring cleaning) and I did her nails. Went to the local library as she needed a new library card. We all including DH did an Easter trail around the town (free) posing for funny photos.

Cinema do special rates/ family tickets sometimes so watch out on FB like the one below

It sounds like the 8 year old is the only one that could require more entertainment. I don’t think 8 is too old for the park or for play dates (although that’s the cusp of the age where we started calling it ‘seeing friends’).

Given how the weather has been - mostly wet where we are - movie afternoon for all of you at home is a cheap option.

13 can be tricky, as not all friends are equally independent so hanging out with mates might not fill so many days.

Our DC was yr 12 last year and spent 4 hrs a day revising for mocks and some time with mates.

Planting seeds? Chilli plants are good. More for the 8 year old - making something from the stuff in the recycling bin - a space rocket or doll's house. For the 17 year old - choose a paint colour and paint their room. Whole makeovers can be expensive but paint's quite cheap. Cooking lessons - works for everyone and useful if the 17 year old will be off to uni. Branch out from baking cakes and do pizza, spag bol, curry. Then dinner's sorted.

My dc are teens (13/14) were not skint, but we need a new roof, so have no budget for holidays (camping isn't cheap, at least not in our area, cheapest deal I could find per pitch was £25.00 per night), then add in the fuel costs you're suddenly looking at £100 for three nights away!
My dc have limited screen time (max 2 hrs a day). The weather has been crap, so walking to the skate park and doing some wheels, hasn't happened yet, although as soon as we get break in the weather, they'll grab their wheels and go. Dd is doing art for one of her GSCEs, so she's working on her big assignment, and will have to work on it over the summer holidays too, as she's doing something incredibly complex and intricate. She also has to do maths practice (she's shite at maths), so she does 40 mins everyday, otherwise I don't think she'll pass her GSCE and she's going to need to, for the job she wants to do. She's also doing a guiding challenge; take one or two items of clothing and upcycle them, she's taken a a dress she had when she was 8, removed the bodice part from the shirt, and redesigning the skirt, she's cut stripes of fabric to add to the hem line to make it longer, and because it had a gathered wait in the original form, she's taken it in with a funky bright wide waistband. She also found a denim jacket in a charity shop for £2.00 so she's giving that a new lease of life by making an appliqué wolf (she loves wolves) which she'll then sew on to the back of the jacket. She's so far appliquéd a large moon, and the wolf will go on next!
Ds is teaching himself anime cartoon drawings, and making up comic strips. He found a couple of white t.shirts in a charity shop for 50p, and we have some fabric crayons (I got them years ago, when they were much younger, but never used them!) so he's going to 'anime' his t.shirts😂.
When I'm not working, we play board games/ card games and word games, Cluedo is one of the favourites, but also Chinese checkers, chess, and ludo, various card games and their 2 favourite word games are balderdash and Scatagories. Admittedly the games are all ancient, and I know buying new games isn't cheap, but card games are inexpensive.
When they were younger we used to do puzzles, and then use sticky back plastic over the puzzle once built, and then hang them on their bedroom walls, Dd still has a couple hanging up (a wild flower id puzzle, map of the world, and a cool 3d wolf one....which was really hard to build!)
We're also blitzing the house, so the kids are helping with that (dd just sold a load of her Sylvanian stuff on eBay, and ds a couple of Lego sets, so they were both chuffed to make some money).

Why do you have to do days out? I've worked throughout Easter and the kids (16 and 11) have amused themselves or played out with friends. They love that downtime in between having to revise for SATS and GSCEs.