What is it about bank holiday weekends that seem to make it so easy to spend an absolute fortune? Regardless how fun they are and how nice it is to have an extra day off work and school, whether you’re 23 and spending three days in a pub garden, 40 and trying to keep the kids occupied for an extra day, or 65 and going overboard in the garden centre, bank holidays can be money pits. Especially when we have two coming up, back-to-back (the early May bank holiday on May 4, and the spring bank holiday on May 25).
Personal finance expert at Boundless, Lynn Beattie (aka Mrs Mummypenny), notes that the cost of living crisis doesn’t help, neither does the compulsion to ‘keep up with the Jones’”. “The biggest thing with all of these kinds of events is the pressures of social media,” says the mum of three. “It’s the demands on people to be doing something more exciting than other people, and something better than last year. It’s that ongoing need to be doing better, and it can end up costing more.”
