Families priced out of summer day trips, charity says. (manor house, movies)

[Baldrick]

I thought this might ring a bell with a few people.

BBC News - Families priced out of summer day trips, charity says

Children in poor and middle-income families are facing a summer "stuck at home" as they cut back on days out and leisure activities, a charity says.
Family Action says standard activities are increasingly out of the reach of many, with a day out costing £80.
A poll of 2,214 mothers for the charity suggests 54% planned to cut back on trips because of money worries.

Now i'm lucky in that over the years this hasn't presented too much of a problem for my family as we've been fortunate enough to have a decent income coming in. But i know a lot of soldiers whose families have this problem and i know that many of them try and save as much (if not more) as they do for Christmas for the school summer holidays. They do all they can to try and afford to take the children out places and not just have them sat at home. These findings don't surprise me at all and i think it's a real shame..

[Mooseketeer]

Great thread and you are right.I think for a lot of people a day trip certainly adds up pretty quickly especially if you have kids. Hubby and I are ( cross fingers, touch wood) still not feeling the pinch too much but I think it really is becoming quite a struggle for a lot of families and considering most cannot afford a foreign holiday or even a "staycation" this really is quite a big issue.

I often look at the cost of any "attractions" and apart from National Museums which are free the average place one might wish to take the kids to is really quite high. Then you start adding up the cost of petrol ( or even public transport), food in a cafe or restaurant and the souvernirs/gifts kids are bound to want and it really does start mounting up.

School holidays tend to be very expensive whichever way you look at it. If you try to book any vacation whether domestic or foreign they sting you for it, and any outside entertainment can start looking quite daunting if you have a fairly tight budget.

And in this weather I pity parents who either have to have restless children indoors or spend a fortune at the movies, safari parks etc... ! I know in Oxfordshire where on the whole the locals are reasonably well off the costs also mount up with a myriad of activities on offer from "Rock Camp" to every single artistic/sporty day schools you can think of. And these most certainly do not come cheap either !

I am so glad to be child free ! We don't have to worry about this...

[Jezer]

I agree that many 'attractions' are overpriced, and if you have a number of children then the cost, even for better off families, can be extremely high.

That said, there are many things that can be done for free, or for far less money.

The trouble is that at school there is peer pressure to go to the over-hyped themed money pits that are advertised on the goggle box.

[Baldrick]

Where i am (Exeter) is pretty good in that respect as a train down to Exmouth and the beach is £10 for a family return so great if the weathers good and Dartmoor can be got to for a family on a ticket for £25 (not quite as cheap) on the bus.

A lot depends on the weather sadly, no shortage of stuff to do with a family around here that's free when you get there if it's dry. Otherwise we're just the same as everywhere else, lots of wet-weather attractions but not cheap by any means.

[GnomadAK]

During our recent trip to the UK, we were thinking of going to Warwick Castle-until we found that tickets for 2 adults were going to be just under $100 . The bride was disturbed by this on the grounds that Warwick is part of the cultural heritage of the UK, along with other historic and now expensive venues that the young folks don't get to experience now because it costs too much. I can't really argue with that.

[Transorb129]

Originally Posted by GnomadAK

During our recent trip to the UK, we were thinking of going to Warwick Castle-until we found that tickets for 2 adults were going to be just under $100 . The bride was disturbed by this on the grounds that Warwick is part of the cultural heritage of the UK, along with other historic and now expensive venues that the young folks don't get to experience now because it costs too much. I can't really argue with that.

Ah yes Merlin entertainments (Warwick Castle, Legoland amongst others) they also run the chain of Sea Life centres around the country. I visited one on Monday cost over £50 for two adults and a child just to get in. As Jezer says there are a lot of free attractions around here but they are usually outdoors and after all the rain they are more like swamps at the moment and mainly fenced off.

[Baldrick]

Originally Posted by Transorb129

Ah yes Merlin entertainments (Warwick Castle, Legoland amongst others) they also run the chain of Sea Life centres around the country. I visited one on Monday cost over £50 for two adults and a child just to get in. As Jezer says there are a lot of free attractions around here but they are usually outdoors and after all the rain they are more like swamps at the moment and mainly fenced off.

"Ah yes Merlin entertainments", i like that.. it goes with "*sigh* Oh, it's a Merlin, best check the bank before we mention it to the kids".

Thankfully many castles, manor houses and medieval attractions are looked after by the National Trust which while not particularly cheap themselves do at least put the profits back into our heritage rather than into a shareholders dividend.

My youngest is 13 and considers the idea of a day out with me and my beloved as more of a punishment than anything else.... *Falls to his knees and cries to the heavens* "Oh when she was little and wanted to be with me and i wasn't seen as a pain in the neck!"

[Jezer]

Looking back on when I was growing up we wree reasonably well off but not flush by any means.

Dad had a nice company car- a rarity- but I don't remember too many days out. I never felt hard done by, and as many other kids of my time we made our own entertainment.

Jeez- I'm not old, but I do wonder if expectations are unrealistic these days.

It seems that people expect to have a flat screen colour TV, internet, Sky dish, Gaming console, at least one car etc etc.