Friday 22 July 2011

Summer hols for the stay at homes

A bit of a coincidence writing about the cost of childcare then seeing the Guardian has written a much better article I ever could.

Summer holidays cost parents £8.6bn apparently. It says parents will spend an average of £660 per child over the next 6 weeks. I won't spend that much, I haven't got that much though it works out to £100 a week. Easily spent....

I was thinking see, as I was scrubbing the cooker, that London may have all these free museums and parks (if you don't go to Tory held Battersea where they want to start charging children), but this is the first summer I'm not carrying my son on the back of my bike.

That means a bus or tube to all these free places, free events.

Fuck.

Of course on any day trips I'll bring sandwiches and tap water. No canteen lunch for us!

There's a kung-fu week that costs £90 for the week..food, entertainment, training etc all in. Parents have said what a good deal it is. It might be, depending on what you're looking through. Shame they don't do credit... I could try ask the Foca... Means I could guiltlessly do my pub job...

I'm looking forward to hanging out with my boy though. Might be the last year he looks forward to hanging out with me!!

Here's the article

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/jul/22/summer-holidays-cost-uk-parents?CMP=twt_fd

Though to end I have to say the only way to avoid the high costs of childcare, whether you outsource it or do it yourself, is not to have children at all.

Helpful aren't I?

4 comments:

Frankie Parker said...

that is an awful lot of money for just the holidays. When i was working i didn't think too much about paying childcare as it was something that we jsut had to do.. but now i am not working it is a whole differnet matter....

Wandered up to the Job centre the other day to see if there was any local work going that i could do during school hours.. Holy shit, the money wouldn't even pay for the childcare for my younger son... And my childminder isn't even that expensive...

Stigmum said...

Childcare when I worked was through the roof so fortunate I was made redundant really so as not to tackle the holidays.
Don't get me on started salaries/childcare. At the school meeting they said if you had more than one child a cheaper option would be a childminder, which you are disqualifying. Admittedly when they said that in the meeting I did raise my eyebrows in a "really?" kind of way! Frightening, the whole thing...

Lillian xxx said...

Hiya

Loving the blog and wish I could have been as spontaneous. Recently started my own blog and just today I wrote about feeling guilty for not taking my kids on holiday this year (I'm a single mother with two kids). I'm following your blog now so please let us know how it goes on your trip, maybe one day I can do the same.

Stigmum said...

Thanks Lillian! I'll be writing about it v soon, maybe even today, not sure! Don't feel bad about not taking your kids on holiday. I was lucky to go this year (having saved for 4 years, blown in one week!)It's given me a real desire to keep doing stuff like that but it's figuring out how to raise the cash! (I don't want to wait another 4 years!). Do start entering competitions though. I've not won yet but you never know!!