Family Summer Holidays on a Budget – School Holidays Fun

Family Summer Holidays on a Budget – School Holidays Fun

We still have a few weeks left of the summer holidays and SwiftMoney has challenged me to discuss spending habits around the holidays and share money saving advice. The summer holidays can be a testing time for families in many ways as a many of us struggle to fit everything in, to arrange childcare or take enough days of work and to come up with affordable ways to entertain the family over these weeks.

We’ve stayed in the UK this summer for a few reasons, but one of them was to save some money as we are hoping to move house soon. We’ve still had fun and we have a few things planned for the last few weeks of the summer too.

Here’s how we are money savvy over the holidays:

• Doing a few small trips here in the UK including weekend stays at nice caravans is much cheaper than going abroad and makes travelling with young children much easier as you can just go in the car! Last year, we got a caravan for a week and had a lovely holiday! It was perfect when we had a newborn and a toddler to entertain.
• Plan local days out to the countryside or a nice park and take a picnic to enjoy at the destination. This can save lots of money as feeding a family in a pub or restaurant can cost quite a lot in some places.
• Find out about what events are on in your town or city and which ones are suitable for kids. Google is your friend and you can also usually find leaflets in libraries and supermarkets.
• Stay at home! You don’t have to do extravagant things everyday! Kids like to relax and enjoy their toys at home too. If the weather is nice, have fun in the garden with a paddling pool, bubbles and garden games and if the weather is not great, snuggle up and watch a film, do crafts or build the tallest Lego tower you can.
• Likewise, outings can also be really simple. We often head to a large toy shop in our nearest retail park and just look at lots of toys. It can easily entertain the kids for an hour or more and we rarely buy anything!
• Going to the seaside is one of our favourite things to do as a family in the summer. We have a few options that are not too long a drive away and once we’re there, we play on the 2p machines which is a very affordable and fun activity for the whole family. Then we might get some doughnuts or chips and then we play with the toys we’ve won. Simple fun without spending a lot of money.

The summer holidays is really about spending time with your family and having fun together. Of course, you have to spend a bit of money to feed everyone and to get to places but it really doesn’t have to cost a fortune to have time off together. Focus on having fun and spending quality time together, before the summer holidays are over.

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