Every school holidays, I see the same question pop up in parent groups: can I just book personal leave to cover the break, rather than eating into my annual leave? I get why people ask. Annual leave never quite stretches across four holiday periods a year, and personal leave is just sitting there. It feels […]

School holidays come around fast, and for working parents they usually mean the same juggle: book a holiday program, pay the invoice, and get back to work knowing the kids are looked after. It seems fair to assume that cost should count as a work expense at tax time. It does not, and the reason […]

We made our first boredom jar a couple of school holidays ago. I was tired of being asked what there was to do before I’d even had a coffee, so I figured it was worth trying properly instead of just saying “I’ll think of something” for the tenth time that morning. A boredom jar is […]

You know that feeling in the last week of term when you glance at the calendar and your stomach drops a little? Not because you don’t love having the kids around. Because you’ve just done the maths and the numbers don’t love you back. I’ve been the one-income household for a while now, and school […]

Every school holidays I sit down with the bank app and try to work out where the money went. A vacation care booking here, a Movie World ticket there, three days of “can we just get Maccas” — and somehow four weeks off school has cost more than the mortgage. If that sounds familiar, you’re […]

Vacation care covers supervised full-day childcare for school-age children during term breaks, and it’s one of the least-understood costs in the Australian childcare system — the price varies significantly by state, and the Child Care Subsidy doesn’t reduce the bill as much as most families expect. This article breaks down current vacation care costs across […]