Every year when the school holidays hit, the real headache isn’t actually the kids, it’s the parents who both work. Term time is fine, school’s got it covered.
The second holidays start, kid’s home all day, parents still have to go to work like normal, nobody watching them, nobody organising anything. It really tests how organised a family actually is. And different ages need different setups, that’s a whole other thing.
No Fancy Camp, Just the Usual Interest Classes
Didn’t sign up for anything expensive, no camp, just his normal holiday dance and coding programs. Didn’t count it up, had no idea. Once I actually added it up I got scared.
- Interest classes: $70 + $70 + $70 = $210 (dance and coding holiday programs)
- Food, snacks, fruit: $250, and this one only ever goes up, never down
- Outings and play: $250, only goes up too, whenever there’s time he’s at the playground or the water park, comes home tanned like a little burnt egg, completely uncontrollable once he’s out the door
- Random bits: $60 (stationery, holiday homework sheets, craft supplies, odds and ends)
- Birthday: bike $250, small drone $80, robot $60, car model $30, food for the party $150. Whole birthday came to $570, and that’s not even counting the little toys people gave him
Didn’t go anywhere far, no expensive tutoring either, just stayed home for the holidays and the money still just flows out. For free ways to burn some of that outings budget, our Things To Do With Kids directory is where I go when I’m trying to avoid another paid outing.
If Both Parents Work, It Looks Different Again
Back when we were both working, the kid basically had to go to holiday care. Every day he’d get to play with other kids, do homework, read, draw, play games, play basketball, whole day was pretty full. Good for him. Rough on the wallet though.
Summer break here is only about five or six weeks, not two months, so we didn’t need care for the entire break, just most weekdays we were both at work. At $95 a day, across roughly 20 days that’s $1,900. If you want the actual state-by-state numbers and how the Child Care Subsidy changes what you really pay, I broke all of that down properly in our vacation care cost guide.
Then swimming, around $25 a lesson, if you did 20 lessons that’s $500. Basketball was about $40 a session at the academy he went to, 30 sessions across the break, every day from 5 to 6:30, that’s $1,200. Weekends sometimes we’d take him somewhere for a bit, another couple hundred here and there.
Add it all up for that summer and we were at roughly $4,500 to $5,000, and that’s before anything overseas or anything fancy.
And Then Next Term’s Fees Show Up
The worst part, kid’s about to start next term’s dance, English, coding, all of it due again, probably another $600 or so. Ahh. Honestly can’t keep up with it.
If you want to plan the next block of holidays around this instead of getting blindsided again, our school holidays and term dates for 2026 page has every state’s dates so you can at least see it coming.
How much did your kid’s school holidays actually cost you back when you were both working?