Anonymous wrote:Wasn’t in our budget when I sah, so there was no Starbucks run (fill their water bottles, bring my own coffee from home, pack snacks). Library, nature centers, Barnes and Noble. Heck we visited the pet stores more often than I care to admit. All free. There’s a lot of random kids concerts if you look hard enough.

Here’s a tip—while it may be easier now to get them out of the house to do super fun things every day, as they get older they are less likely to be content with the everyday. They will need constant “fun fun fun” in order to be happy and boredom will be painful to them. Try and have a few days at home, with things like backyard time and reading time and sure some screens. But don’t make every day a trip to the movies/circus/puppet show or you’re setting them up.

Umm. You do know there is a free zoo that you can visit right?

I SAH with a 5 yo & 10 yo. They don’t do camps. Most of our outings are free, cheap, or “pre-paid” (ie, we joined a pool and have a couple of museum memberships).
So our outings are things like pool, library, State/regional/county/national parks, hiking, Smithsonians, etc. We went to $1 movies once. We’ve done some historic sites that cost a few dollars per person. We mostly pack lunch & snacks but occasionally eat at fast or fast casual restaurants for lunch.
One kid was a 4th grader last year, so we use his free national Park Pass. We got the Virginia State Park backpack from the library, which includes free admission to a VA state park.
We also have days the kids play in the yard/in the house/read/visit the playground across the street. (The kids actually ask for more chill days sometimes, so they definitely aren’t bored with the activities we do).

Wasn’t in our budget when I sah, so there was no Starbucks run (fill their water bottles, bring my own coffee from home, pack snacks). Library, nature centers, Barnes and Noble. Heck we visited the pet stores more often than I care to admit. All free. There’s a lot of random kids concerts if you look hard enough.

Here’s a tip—while it may be easier now to get them out of the house to do super fun things every day, as they get older they are less likely to be content with the everyday. They will need constant “fun fun fun” in order to be happy and boredom will be painful to them. Try and have a few days at home, with things like backyard time and reading time and sure some screens. But don’t make every day a trip to the movies/circus/puppet show or you’re setting them up.

I can count on 1 hand the number of times I have taken my kids to a sit down lunch (with table service) without my husband in the 11 years I’ve been staying home. It’s CFA, Cava, Chipotle, Kabobs, Zoe’s, etc. $30/max.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ZERO.

You are either wealthy or stupid.

We are comfortable. My older kids used to love the pool but not this summer. We have a pool membership that we used 5x this summer.

“Comfortable.” So, $750k?

We sort of fell into this pattern though not as high. I actually calculate that I was spending about $1600 a month on entertainment, lessons, etc. and realized that I probably needed to go back to work. I took home about 4K after retirement and college savings (I also carried health insurance).

I became a SAHM in a fit of postpartum hormones honestly. My DH supported it, but we were in a crap place financially and objectively working made more sense from a financial and practical standpoint.

What was also not great was becoming the default everything because I was always around and this was my job. My marriage was very lopsided and we went through a rough patch. I was generally pissed off and frustrated, my DH was frustrated being the sole breadwinner and the financial crunch not working put us in, and we both kind of went into this really rough cycle.

Everything improved when I went back to work. I left my kids with a quality childcare provider, my DH began to do more and we both began working as a team instead of two people running two different operations.

Honestly, it is such a personal decision. I know people who are happy but they truly accept the role and the responsibility of being the default parent.

I SAH with two kids. We can easily spend 100/day in food and activities, and our HHI is high enough that I don’t really need to think twice about it, however, we’d never spend that day after day all week long, because there are plenty (plenty!) of things we like to do that happen to be cheap or nearly free. Hiking, pool, library, playground, playing at home, having friends over, etc.

I don’t know why OP asked her question, but if she’s really spending that much I suspect her kids might need a little downtime!

Anonymous wrote:You do whatever is in your budget. Basically, you do you.

For us, 3 kids between 1-6 years old:

Busy Bees all day admission = $39
Flight Fit n Fun admission for 1 hour during Kid Flight = $36
Scramble all day admission (weekdays) = $36

Add a fast food lunch at Chik-fil-a ~ $40 (6 year old son eats a kids meal AND 12 piece nuggets, so the extras add up)

Add maybe a coffee at Starbucks and I can see getting to $100 in a day.

However, I'm not a SAHM and have to work to be able to do expensive outings, so your DH must be making a nice income or your credit card bills are terrible.

Doing this every day sounds terrible.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wtf!?! Get a job.

If you can afford to spend $2,800/month just on kid entertainment there’s probably not much motivation to get a job. What on earth for?

What’s your HHI? Where do you go on vacation?

Very high. And, very nice places. Next?

Oh come on. I am curious about what HHI gets you to nearly $3K/month in kid entertainment!

Op here. That pp was not me. DH earns a high income. I also used to earn a high income before I started staying home.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wtf!?! Get a job.

If you can afford to spend $2,800/month just on kid entertainment there’s probably not much motivation to get a job. What on earth for?

What’s your HHI? Where do you go on vacation?

Very high. And, very nice places. Next?

Oh come on. I am curious about what HHI gets you to nearly $3K/month in kid entertainment!

Anonymous wrote:You do whatever is in your budget. Basically, you do you.

For us, 3 kids between 1-6 years old:

Busy Bees all day admission = $39
Flight Fit n Fun admission for 1 hour during Kid Flight = $36
Scramble all day admission (weekdays) = $36

Add a fast food lunch at Chik-fil-a ~ $40 (6 year old son eats a kids meal AND 12 piece nuggets, so the extras add up)

Add maybe a coffee at Starbucks and I can see getting to $100 in a day.

However, I'm not a SAHM and have to work to be able to do expensive outings, so your DH must be making a nice income or your credit card bills are terrible.

Can you see yourself spending that kind of money EVERY day? I sure can't.

Anonymous wrote:Outings are free, libraries, parks, play areas, going outside at home, zoo. I pack lunch and/or snacks. Might spend $50 a week if we need to ride the metro, or eat out.

This.

We did a ton of free stuff and if we ate out it was at McDonald's or a place like IHop. Often I just packed lunches and snacks.

I can't imagine spending $100/day on food and entertainment unless we were on our family vacation with dh.

In fact, my kids are teenagers now and I hand them money for gas or to go get themselves subs or pizza from time to time. But that's about the extent of it.

I just came in from doing a ton of yard work and now I'm getting ready to vacuum, lol.

You do whatever is in your budget. Basically, you do you.

For us, 3 kids between 1-6 years old:

Busy Bees all day admission = $39
Flight Fit n Fun admission for 1 hour during Kid Flight = $36
Scramble all day admission (weekdays) = $36

Add a fast food lunch at Chik-fil-a ~ $40 (6 year old son eats a kids meal AND 12 piece nuggets, so the extras add up)

Add maybe a coffee at Starbucks and I can see getting to $100 in a day.

However, I'm not a SAHM and have to work to be able to do expensive outings, so your DH must be making a nice income or your credit card bills are terrible.

Anonymous wrote:ZERO.

You are either wealthy or stupid.

We are comfortable. My older kids used to love the pool but not this summer. We have a pool membership that we used 5x this summer.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I probably spend on average $100 per day on a mix of admissions and meals. Some days are more and others are less. I have 2 kids in elementary and 1 in preschool. Of course we spend less during school but in the summer I feel like the summer outings add up.

$100 PER DAY??

Doing what?

I could blow that easily, just on food. Stop at Starbucks with a drink for everyone is 20 alone. Add in lunch at sit down places for four and you have at least another 50.00. That doesn’t include any activities. If OP is not a troll, I think they may just rely on outside factors to run their day, which can be wicked expensive.

OP here. My kids were in camp or we were on vacation until the beginning of August. I guess I have been treating the past 2 weeks as a staycation. We do eat at sit down restaurants for lunch or dinner. We have also eaten at places like shake shack. I have done a few overnight trips to Philadelphia, Lancaster, and Annapolis.

We just met up with a friend this morning. I spent $60 for the activity for my 3 kids plus $50 for lunch. Yesterday I spent $120 on a day out in DC. Tomorrow meeting up with another friend for activity and dinner.

Sounds like your whole life is a staycation.