You budget £50 for the zoo. Then it's parking, and fuel, and lunch for four, and an ice cream each on the way out, and suddenly it's £120 and everyone's tired. We add it all up before you set off.
01 · What you get
Nobody wants to scroll a directory at 9pm on a Friday. You get one that fits best, one that's the most for your money, and one that's free to walk into.
02 · The whole day, priced
Tell us where you are, who's coming and roughly what you've got to spend. We price the tickets for your children's exact ages, because a 3-year-old and a 9-year-old rarely cost the same, and family tickets aren't always cheaper.
Then we add the bits nobody mentions: parking, the fuel to get there and back, lunch, and something from the shop on the way out.
03 · How it works
Where you are, when you're going, who's coming and roughly what you've got to spend. Tap any word to change it.
One that fits best, one that's the most for your money, and one that's free to walk into. Not eight hundred results in no order.
Tickets for your children's exact ages, then parking, fuel, lunch and treats. The number at the bottom is what you'll actually spend.
04 · Why we made this
There's a quiet pressure on parents now that didn't used to exist. Every scroll is somebody else's perfect Saturday, and it leaves you with the nagging sense that everyone else has this sorted and you don't.
We felt it too. And every Friday night we hit the same wall: seventeen tabs open, a weather app, a map, and no real idea what any of it was going to cost.
Because that's the bit nobody tells you. You can get all the way to the checkout before the number finally appears, and by then you've picked your date and entered your children's ages. Then you find out about the parking. Or that they close on Tuesdays. Or that the thing your six-year-old actually wanted to do is another £8 each once you're inside.
So we built the thing we wanted. Three ideas, the whole day's cost worked out for your family, and no nasty surprise at the barrier.
05 · In numbers
Every price here has been read off the attraction's own booking page and dated, so you can see how fresh it is. Nothing is scraped, nothing is guessed, and where we haven't checked something we say so.
Across 24 counties, from the Chilterns to the Norfolk coast. Farm parks and windmills, lidos and soft play, and the free woods you'd forgotten about.
Some windmills open six Sundays a year. We'll tell you before you drive there, not when you arrive at a locked gate.
Step-free routes, Changing Places toilets, quiet spaces, hearing loops. And where a venue hasn't said, we show that it hasn't been checked.
06 · The honest bit
07 · Where we cover
We started around the Chilterns and Milton Keynes because that's where we live. Every few weeks another county is researched, checked and added. The number by each county is how many places we can put a real price on today.
Thin where you are? The app still works anywhere in England for the places it knows, and you can suggest somewhere from inside it. Coastal counties come with season dates, because a beach café in January is a different day out.
08 · Somebody's actually been
Anyone can copy an attraction's own description. What's harder is knowing whether a family actually had a good day there.
@familyfunbucks tested
Sam has been taking her five children round these counties for years and posting about it. Where a place carries her badge, the app tells you how many times she's been and when, and links straight to the post from that visit.
See her posts on InstagramNo review is written on anyone's behalf. The badge points at a real post and you can judge it yourself.
No attraction can buy a badge, a place in your three, or a higher position.
Tap Recommend or We've been here and other families see the count — "12 families recommend this". Nobody's name, nobody's email, and it never changes which places we suggest.
09 · Get the app
Free, no account needed, and it works in a car park with no signal. Sign in only if you want your saved days on every phone. Out now on the App Store.
There's no separate app to install from a store, and there doesn't need to be: open offwegoapp.co.uk/app in Chrome, tap the menu, and choose "Add to Home screen". It sits on your phone like any other app, opens full-screen with no browser bar, and keeps working with no signal. Follow @familyfunbucks for what's new.
Off We Go