I personally absorb the cost of all field trips and outings into my budget .... and than just choose outings that I am comfortable footing the bill for

I do get clients who offer to pay when they hear we are going somewhere with a 'cost' associated with it ~ however I always thank them but decline.

I have control issues and personally do not want to be asking them to foot the bill because it opens up conflict of a clients saying 'we cannot afford to send him' or 'no we do not want them to attend we'd prefer you just stayed onsite' or it opens them thinking you should 'refund' them because you are choosing to do something they do not want the kid to do .... upon enrollment they are given a list of places I take the children and they sign 'blanket consent' for them to go to all those places at any given time and that allows me the freedom and flexibility to just go spur of the moment and so forth ~ I like to have freedom in my program and need clients to trust that anything I plan with the kids is in their best interest.

There have been a few times when enrollment was 'low' and I was able to do something special like going to a zoo or museum outside my city and I than just get permission for that 'one special trip' separate from my blanket permission slip ... so for example in September I have low enrollment and a sibling family on vacation for a week so it is going to be me and 1 daycare child for a whole week ... so one day we are going to the Butterfly Conservatory and out to lunch with my mother for her birthday, I am going to take him to see Brave cause I really want to see that ... I got permission for for those trips from that client but I am footing the bill because these are things that I want to do for ME and the kid is just tagging along