Family Fun for £10 a week - and assuming that's equivalent to low income parenting

[abdnhiker]

Gaby Hinsliff's recent article in the guardian talks about living on a £10/week fun budget with her child (ie not food at home, nappies etc). She seems to equate this budget with low income parenting - anyone else find this completely ridiculous? Is it just another sign of the smug upper-middle guardian having no clue how many people live?

We're a high earner family (just over 60K) and I consider us comfortably well off (no worries with the bills) but my weekly fun budget for the past year has been £10 - there's not extra money floating around for cafes and lunches etc. I would expect that many low income families who struggle to make ends meet would not be spending £10 a week on 'treats'. What are people's weekly budget for extras and entertainment?

I think it depends on why stage your children are at, how many you have and the time of year! Mine are all at school so during term time the only money spent specifically on them would be sweets/comic/something from the bakers. They do various after-school activities which I generally pay for at the start of the term - if you include those then that would come to much more than £10 per week I would think...

During school holidays we do mainly free activities such as the article talks about and take a picnic lunch but I could easily spend £5-10 a day on one of those "free" days out just by buying icecreams and a takeaway coffee at the park, for example, esp if you include petrol money, car parking, etc

I don't really spend any money during the week.I have to give DD £2.20 a day for the bus to school and £3 a day for school lunch.
When DCs were smaller, we did lots of things that didn't cost anything. Like walks, library, the park, washing the car, gardening, visiting family and friends.
DD is now 13, so has her own social life (parents are too embarassing to be seen with, unless it is shopping for new clothes) but she has a weekly allowance of £10, which she can use for whatever she wants.
Once a month, on payday, we treat them to a takeaway.

I agree, I read it yesterday and thought she was desperately out of touch. We're financially similar to you and the only 'paid' entertainment is one swimming session per week.

Flipping heck that is patronising. Shock news! Toddler enjoys pottering at home and looking for bugs!

I have £30 a week. Sounds like a lot I know! We live 5 miles or so out of town so going to the surestart centre involves a bus ride as does going to library, botanic gardens, going to a friend's house etc so most of it goes on bus fares.

In a week we normally go to toddler in the next village. Walkable so just £1

Go to see a friend or have a friend come here. Up to £5 on the bus depending on who is going where.

Go to Botanics. I have a season ticket which is very well used. £5 on the bus.

Play in the garden at home, go to the park, walk around the trails.

So far so good but then because I live in a way out of town and my buses are limited, when I go to the botanics or to town if I have things to do then I have to stay out over lunch. Picnics are fine when the weather is nice but if it is not then we have to go to a cafe. I generally take lunch for the dcs and just buy for myself to keep cost down and eat places where they don't mind too much if you bring your own food for small children. There goes most of the rest of my money!

The £30 budget though includes my personal spending money so what is left over gets saved up so that I can afford to have a meal out with friends once in a blue moon or it gets put towards being able to take the dcs to a farm or swimming or something during holidays when lots of friends are around and toddler groups are not.

I don't budget
I find things to do for free, and always take a picnic
(you have it in the car if it rains, v british)
At first I found it quite challenging but i as amazed there is so much you can do for nothing
for a treat we will go on a trip which is train fares etc, but find free stuff when we get there
ds does afterschool football tho

Having skimmed the article and not noticed where she lives, I'd hazard a guess at Muswell Hill!

She's right that many parents seem to have forgotten how to just bring up children without it constantly needing a class or a paid activity or soft play. But then again, many of us do actually still do 'real parenting'

As for the £10 a week, I guess it depends what you include. Like she included eggs for baking; I would nt class this as entertainment money, as they'd be part of the groceries!

I guess we spend...
after school gym club for ds1 £3
2 happy meals £4.18
treat on way home once a week £2

So thats the £10 nearly gone.
On the rarity we go swimming its free for the kids but £5.35 for me, and soft play is £4.75 a child and £1 for me to get in to look after them . So we dont go unless someone has a birthday party!

Wish I had a car to have my free picnic in ninah!

Some weeks we spend very little of the £30. Other weeks end up involving 3 bus trips and bye bye money so I factor £30 in and keep track of what I do/don't spend so that it evens out over the month including any socialising I do without the dcs and little purchases such as presents. For example yesterday I went to see a friend with her new baby and also went for dinner at another friend's house for which I took the pudding so the new baby gift and the pudding came out of my budget.

But if we're including travel, my bus pass is £15 a week, so thats the tenner blown!

Oh hang on I forgot, once every 5 or 6 weeks I take ds1 out to cinema on orange Wed, so that 7.45 for the pair of us. An sometimes all 3 of us going to Kids AM so thats 95p each. We make popcorn at home etc.

It also certainly helped that she lives in house with direct access to a garden with sandpit, gardening supplies, decent living accommodation to be able to spend wet days inside and so on.

we dont have a budget as such. we find lots of free things at the childrens centre and saturday morning movies fpr £1 and bowling for 1p in school holidays but tbh my girls would rather be out at the park and cooking in the house.
I think a lot of the parents that fills the day up with clubs and activites are those that can afford it, so just shows good real parenting isnt a problem for us all!

It's as daft an article as the one which I think was in the Daily Mail about the reporter than normally scraped by on shopping at Sainsbury and Waitrose but then switched to Aldi and (revelation) spent less!... LOL. I'd bet a pound to a penny that she's back in Sainsbury now.

This type of "thrift" verging on "self-righteous parsimony" appears to be a national pastime these days whether you need to be careful with the cash or not. I'm waiting for the next article about how to turn hubby's old Calvin Kleins into serviceable dusters rather than buying microfibre ones for the cleaner.

I'd actually prefer it if well-to-do Guardian journalists kept going to Tumble-Tots and other pricey haunts with their children... would keep the staff in a job and the economy ticking over nicely.

I'd also like to add that it helps that she only has the one child!

Yes, there are lots of things we can do for free at home but while ds adores baking, dd will try to get involved, throw flour everywhere then trash the children and have a strop whenI won't let her drink the contents of the cleaning cupboard. Ds quite enjoys gardening but dd digs everythign back up againas soon as you plant it and then eats soil. Playing in the garden sometimes lasts ages and is wonderful but sometimes lasts 5 minutes before they are murdering each other over a ball. Sometimes you just have to get out!

Then when we are out I can't keep dd in the pushchair the entire time because she screams but I can't let her walk everywhere because while pretty good for an 18 month old she will run away or try to pick nettles instead of wild garlic.

wait...sorry i'm clearly not as middle class as i think i am because what that faaaark is a babyccino???

Indith I am starting to think you live in the next village from me! I posted on the Durham meet thread once but then got my weeks mixed up and missed the meet. I'm in EW, am I right in thinking you're in W? If the SureStart you go to is UM then I may even have met you!

Back to the thread - we probably do spend £10/week if you include petrol as we travel 20 miles to my grandparents one day and I drop DS off at MiL's one day which is about 12 miles. Once a month we spend about a tenner on soft play (we go once a fortnight but friend and I take turns paying) but apart from that the majority of our groups are SureStart so free. We're also doing lots of walking at the moment for naps in the buggy, local library, or pottering around at home, mainly as DC2 is only 9 weeks. I don't think I'd consider a regular group/class that was more than a couple of pounds until the DC are school aged. We rarely have lunch out - DS1 gets up around 6.00 so we can happily have lunch at home not long after 11.00 if we want to go out in the afternoon.

Yes Intergalactic!

I only go to the bf group at UM. Sometimes go to the toddlers in EW at the methodist church. We are having a meet on the 23rd at Brewsters at the Arnison, you should come I want more friends!

hmm I normally spend the child benefit money but if we are putting after school classes in then am already well over.

We dont do many treat things though - an icecream once a week after school if its sunny and er thats it - there is judo and tennis though - does that count?

No toddler related activities at all - again with the I would rather save it and spend in on things like the judo after school when they're older rather than fecking tumbletots.

But then again if I had ds at the weekends I would spend way more I suppsoe as we'd be going out.

I read that article and thought it was a bit bonkers, you can entertain a toddler so cheaply, its when they are older that its much harder to keep the costs down.

I did spend about 10 a week with my pfb ds though - we would go swimming and to a playgroup and a singing class - with dd though I have seen the error of my ways - we spend much more time just hanging out and enjoying eachothers company - if only I could have been as relaxed the first time around.

I used to go to the toddlers at the Methodist but about a year ago now - I guess you would have been downstairs though as your DS is older. Used to go to bf group very occasionally, but we usually go to the group at the primary school in EW at the same time. I'll check out the details for 23rd, hopefully I will see you there!

Utterly mad article in IMO. I have 3 DCs (13,10,3) and one goes swimming once a week, one goes to football once a week( not watch, to play in local youth team) also choir and small one to toddler group. All these free or about a £1 a session. What is this with big family outings at the weekend? We only do outings when on our annual camping holiday, and then only one or two (e.g zoo, museum etc) rest is beach, walks, parks etc.
Our weekends are full of tidying up, cleaning, homework, sleeping, washing etc. Would be utterly knackered if had to do a major outing as well. My DCs perfectly happy with playing in garden, with neighbours DCs in their garden occasionally, watching TV when they have done their household jobs and homework. IMHO if you train your children to expect entertaining at all times then more fool you! bet the child in this article has a house full of (under-used) toys too.

£10? Crikey, I'm a low income family but spend way more than £10 a week. I home educate though so have all those extra hours to fill.

You people in the UK are so lucky with things to do with kids, free or cheap! Free swimming, 95p cinema, etc etc!
I live in Ireland, to bring one child swimming would cost me €10, never mind the 3 of them, ditto about €15 for one adult one child at the cinema, soft play €5 or €6 per child, €3 for a toddler group (if you can find one), €10 a pop for gymboree/tumble tots/ music makers (so I hear, never been).......

And I imagine it would be easier to entertain 3 small children if we had a garden and didn't have a tiny 2 bed house....thank fuck we live at the beach and the council finally got around to building a kids playground!

We go to Costa for a babycinno (it is a rainy day treat after the library, if the sun is shining however we go to the park instead). It only costs 50p there

My three are older than Freddie, and are all now school age. But we have been doing free or cheap activities for years!

They all went to our local toddler group, which cost £1 per week per family. I had to pay the small price of being Treasurer for 2 years, but it was an experience fun.

They all still enjoy going to the library, but when they were pre-school age they used to go to the story sessions there too, which were free.

Now they are getting older they love the local museum, which is free. DD(4) loves the Victorian dresses and the puppets, DS1(7) loves the ships exhibition and DS2(6) loves the archaeology section which has "a real live skeleton" (apparently).

Then there is the castle ruins, which have a lovely park next to them, and are right by the sea so you can look out for invading ships coming over the horizon .

Then there is the beach, which is miles of unspoilt sand dunes. You have to pay to park, but a 12 month parking pass costs about £5.

Then there is the forest visitor centre, with red kite feeding every afternoon, 2 playgrounds and lots of forest walks. Again, you pay to park but it only costs £15 a year.

A trip to the park/beach/forest/castle usually involves a picnic, which is far cheaper than buying food in a cafe.

Swimming is free here during school holidays (it is just avoiding spending in the vending machines on the way out that is problematic!).

We do pay for riding for DD (£10 a fortnight) and piano lessons for DS1 (£10 a week). They also go to Urdd which is £1 each a week and £18 a year membership between them. DS1 plays football for the under 11 team, which costs £15 a year to sign on with the league. DS2 goes to under 7's football, which is free. DS1 plays hockey, which is free at the moment as he only trains with them but will cost £10 a year if he signs on with the league.

I suppose the costs of those do mount up, but we didn't pay that much when they were toddlers.