Holidaying on a budget.

So the reason for the lack of posting recently is I have been away on our family summer holiday. We had a beautiful week in the Lake District staying in Ambleside. Before we set off, however, I had almost started resenting the holiday. You see we had been a bit rash and booked a cottage without checking our bank account. This wouldn’t usually be a problem but after a mix up with my maternity pay and a certain Junebug’s birthday we were not really in a position to be paying out for the holiday. In short we ended up with bank charges and now couldn’t actually afford to go on the holiday we’d already paid for. But my encouraging hubby bucked me up and off we went, determined to have the cheapest holiday ever. Luckily the Lakes is the place to do this.
We spent less than £100 over the week including food for all three of us. Praise God for good weather.
Lots of walking, paddling in lakes, playing in parks, board games and ham sandwiches kept us happily entertained and we were so blessed with the weather I even came home with a walking boot tan line – sexy.

So our recipe for limited spending money holiday is as follows:

1. Take food along and find the nearest supermarket. We didn’t eat out once but had plenty of yummy family meals. Pasta and sauce, microwaveable curry, and oven pizza, all requiring minimal effort so it still seems like a holiday.

2. Walking is free! We found walks on our smart phones and set off for a couple of hours with beautiful scenery and good exercise.

3. Parking charges. We found places which would provide a few hours of good fun and didn’t charge for entry. True we had to pay for parking but £3 for a day without needing to spend anymore was an easy choice. My favs: Brockhole  and  Grizedale Forest

4. Picnic. A pretty spot, a sandwich and a bag of popcorn = a perfect midday munch.

5. Treat’s a treat! The last day of the week we had chip shop takeaway and it seemed like such a treat. Also on one of our days out we had an ice cream and as it was such a one off I let Phoebe have some of mine. So we all enjoyed our treats.

6. Family. Simple, we just appreciated the chance we had to hang out as a family together without any of the usual hassles.

Here are some of my favourite photos from our week:

 

Little one’s transport for a lot of the week.

Fun in the park.

Ice cream!

My girl and her daddy.

A toddler sized house.

Oh help! Oh no! It’s the Gruffalo!

Paddling and finding rocks in Lake Windermere.