If your child’s book bag is anything like the ones I remember, the last fortnight of term is when it starts producing paper at an alarming rate. A note about the summer fair. A note about non-uniform day (a pound, in cash, on the one morning you have no change in the house). A message on the class WhatsApp about the teacher’s leaving present. And a gentle reminder that Friday is ice cream Friday, and would anyone like to contribute to the leavers’ disco?
None of it costs much on its own. That is rather the point. It is death by a thousand pound coins, and by the time the gates close on the last Friday, many families have quietly spent thirty or forty pounds without ever actually deciding to.
Here is the good news. You don’t need to dodge the end-of-term flurry. You can use it, because it is one of the best real-life money lessons your children will get all year.
Start with a number, not a no
Before the week begins, decide what end of term gets. Ten pounds, twenty, whatever fits your family right now. Then, and this is the important part, say it out loud to the children. “We’ve got £15 for end-of-term things. Let’s work out together where it should go.”
Something lovely happens when you do this. The conversation stops being about whether you are a nice parent and becomes about choices. If the summer fair matters most, that is where the money goes, and the extra ice creams wait. Children as young as five can weigh this up, and they are usually far more decisive about it than we are.
The teacher gift question
Class collections usually ask for a few pounds, and if that fits your budget, lovely. But ask any teacher what they actually keep from twenty years at the front of a classroom and the answer is nearly always the same: the cards and notes written by the children themselves. A wonky, heartfelt “thank you for helping me with my reading” beats another scented candle every single time. If money is tight this year, a handmade card is the gift worth giving, and your child learns that gratitude doesn’t have to come with a price tag.
Hand over the fair money
If your school has a summer fair, try this: give your child their share in coins, and make it properly theirs. Three pounds, their call. Tombola or cake stall? Two goes on the coconut shy, or one ice lolly and a lucky dip?
Then comes the hard bit for us grown-ups. If they blow the lot in the first five minutes and spend the rest of the afternoon regretting it, resist the rescue. That small sting, felt safely at a school fair, is exactly how children learn to pause before spending. Far better a lesson at seven than the same one at twenty-seven with a credit card.
A cheaper summer than you might think
If the six-week stretch ahead is already making your wallet nervous, there is some genuinely useful help this year. Under the government’s Great British Summer Saving scheme, VAT has been cut on children’s meals in restaurants and on family tickets for cinemas, theatres and attractions until 1 September, and children aged five to fifteen travel free on buses in England throughout August. The details are on GOV.UK.
Better still, let the children do the planning. Give them the job of designing a free-bus day out: where shall we go, what will the picnic cost, what is left over for a treat? That is budgeting, geography and negotiation rolled into one, disguised as a day at the seaside.
Mind your language
One last thought. All through this week, the words we use matter more than the amounts. “We can’t afford it” tells a child the family is short of money and there is nothing anyone can do about it. “We’re choosing to spend our money on the fair instead” tells them money is something you direct. Same budget, completely different lesson, and the second one is what they will carry into adulthood.
End of term is noisy, sticky and expensive, and it is over in a flash. Handled with a little intention, it can also be the week your children learn that money is about choices made together.
And if you’d like stories that make those conversations easier, that is exactly why The Financial Fairy Tales exist: adventures that plant the seeds of healthy money habits while your children think they are simply enjoying a good story. Explore the books here.