School Holiday Spending: How to Stop the “I’m Bored” Spiral

Nobody plans to spend $200 on nothing. It just goes, four and eight dollars at a time, across a fortnight where the answer to “I’m bored” keeps costing something.

By the end of the holidays you couldn’t name a single thing you bought/ your child bought.

Why the holidays do this

School terms have a shape and routine. The holidays haven’t, so every hour is a decision, and a bored child in front of a screen is being offered a way out of boredom for $4.99.

The online games know it. Holiday events, limited time items, the shop refreshed daily. Your child isn’t weak. They’re twelve hours a day inside something built to convert boredom into a purchase (even 1hr a day will do it!)

Set the spending ceiling before the holidays, not during

This is the whole trick.

A spending limit you set on day one is a rule. The exact same limit set on day nine, after a charge you didn’t expect, is a punishment, and your child will treat it like one. Same number, completely different conversation.

Pick an amount for the duration of the holidays. Say it out loud. Write it where they can see it. Done.

Then give them a way to say yes to themselves

A ceiling on its own is just a longer no, and it won’t survive ten days.

The families who get through the holidays without the spending spiral all do a version of the same thing: there’s one route to more. Something they can do to earn a bit extra e.g. chores around the house, agreed before the holidays start, with a price on it.

It changes the whole tone. “Can I have” turns into “what can I do”, and you stop being the only obstacle between your child and what they want.

And make the number visible

Kids can’t feel a balance that lives inside an app nobody opens.

Write the balance down and stick it on the fridge. Big, in pen. When an item is bought, cross the balance out out and write the new balance (every time it changes), and make your child do the crossing out. Half the impulse purchases die right there, at the moment they have to write down what’s left.

The bigger frame

Small money moments build lifelong habits. The holidays hand you about a hundred of them in a row.

The Screen Money Kit has the caps by age, the agreement you both sign, the printable balance board and the monthly review that keeps it running after the holidays end.

👉 Get the Screen Money Kit here

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