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?

It's a fluff article, but I don't think it's mad or smug. She does herself a bit of a disservice with the use of the word 'frugal', when it's just not, but she does accept that it's a middle-class non-problem - AND at the end talks about how much more energy and imagination it takes to entertain/raise children without throwing money around.

"Mummeeee! You're not very interesting" made me laugh - you should have told him about the toilets, and especially about wiping their bums with a sponge on a stick!

I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who was a bit by the article! There's nothing wrong with spending more money if you have it though - I'm sure that I would - it's just her assumption that this is a low income budget that bugged me. And I drag my kids around to optometrist appointments, grocery shopping, etc. all the time (no family nearby)...

My £10 buys swimming once a week (plus petrol to the pool), 50p for the local playgroup (run by the church, which I help out with), and sometimes a treat or two (£2 at Morrisons gets you tea, half a sandwich, and two pancakes - best deal to satisfy my 4&2 year olds and myself). I don't count petrol for the school run (we live rurally) in that budget because it's a fixed cost though, with less leeway than the grocery bill....

And yes, I'm also lucky enough to have a garden and a sand pit and neighbours to play with etc! I think it's rather idyllic...