Right, gather round, because this one will be familiar to every parent who's ever stood in a school corridor feeling smug.
Dave from Swindon, first-time school-run dad, two kids, blissfully naive, got the envelope home in October. School portraits. Lovely stuff. Bit glossy, bit overlit, one kid clearly mid-blink, but y'know what? The price wasn't actually offensive. Dave handed over the cash, felt like a responsible parent, filed it under 'sorted.'
Then March arrived.
Another envelope. Another set of portraits. Same slightly startled expressions, different jumper. And the same price tag.
Now here's where the maths gets cruel. That 'reasonable' thirty-odd quid? Suddenly it's sixty-odd quid a year. Per child. And Dave has two of them. That's getting on for a hundred and twenty pounds annually just so the school can document that yes, his children do still exist and are roughly the same height as last time.
And the kicker, as any parent will tell you, is that you basically HAVE to buy them. Try explaining to a seven-year-old why you didn't get the photos. Go on. We'll wait.
The whole racket is genius, really, in the most diabolical way. One visit? Feels like a treat. Two visits? That's a billing cycle. They've essentially turned your kid's face into a direct debit.
School photo companies have been pulling this one for years and somehow it still catches parents off guard every single time. There ought to be a leaflet at the school gates. A pamphlet. A strongly-worded heads-up from someone who's been through it.
But no. You find out the hard way, wallet already open, wondering how something so small got so expensive so fast.
Had the same thing happen to you? How much have you handed over to the school photo industry over the years? Drop your horror stories in the comments, we want the full damage report. 👇