To ask how much you spend on your holiday?

what sort of holidays @UnPushyParents ?

and i’m guessing during school holidays?

@UnPushyParents when you say you spend “zero” on yourself… does your DH do the same?

and you never want to get you hair done? or buy a new item of clothing or some make up?

@UnPushyParents haha! We are the same age! Nobody I know my age has any children older than 1 or 2, so when you talked about the "children being younger" vs now I assumed you were in your mid-late 40s. Goes to show one should never make assumptions about strangers on the internet.

@UnPushyParents Yes you're right, looking after the pennies is a great manta and even things like not buying coffees or lunch out at work really add up. When you think about what that could do towards a holiday you'll really remember rather than a flat white you won't, it puts it into perspective.

I suspect we are probably in different generations, so I don't benefit from things like a good pension scheme (I have to pay in 15% of my salary as my employer only contributes the bare minimum and it's defined contribution) and I only bought my first home 3 years ago, so still have a whacking great mortgage to pay off, and own it alone. But regardless of different circumstances, the principle of saving where you can on the things you won't miss, maximising your returns on savings, and so forth are all excellent habits and you've inspired me to see where I can do more!

Clothes are a bit of a weakness for me however, and holidays always make me want new ones 😬 As well as a mani, pedi, wax and all the rest 😬😬😬

Our sons are 53 and 52 and they and their kids come on holiday with us twice a year, Caribbean summer and France winter ski trip. So much for the 17/18 summers!

We pay for most of it and it’s worth every penny to be all together. Both we and they also go on holidays without the rest of the family.

@loverofalmonds Yup makes sense I guess. I feel like I'm pretty careful with money elsewhere too, no school fees or childcare, and I don't even own a car-! but if I really made the move to prioritise holidays I'm sure there's money I could move from elsewhere to spend more there, be it not having a cleaner, not getting my nails done or whatever it might be. That's why I find this question so interesting, as it really reminds you of the different ways you can prioritise money.

I am in a weird situation where my partner isn't that fussed by holidays as he tries to practice appreciating the present moment, while I love planning holidays almost as much as going on them, so we even have different priorities in our relationship (although he isn't a big spender generally, it's more about mental prioritisation on that front). So I guess that makes me extra interested in the different levels of emphasis people put on holidays.

there’s no secret . She just very very much prioritises her holidays!

Unlike a lot of our friends, I’ll take the (still perfectly nice) second hand cars, state schools and a massive cut back on my personal spend post children, in exchange for the amazing adventures we have. I’ve cut my personal spend to practically nothing over the last 2 years

@UnPushyParents And I'd love to know how you do it - genuinely! Do you save/invest a lot? I take home £63k a year and spend about 4% of that on holidays (£2500 in a good year) but I save/invest around 15% (£9,600) on top of my pension savings. If you do then I deffo need to know how you're doing this 🤣🤣🤞🤞

Income is £63k after taxes and pension (£110k gross but that isn't really relevant is it).
I probably spend about £1500-£2500 on hols a year, some with my partner and some with friends. So around 4% of household income.

That gets me 2 x a week in Europe somewhere charming but staying in a simple apartment, outside of the school summer hols. I like to stay in a little coastal village right by a beach somewhere like Croatia, Italy or Greece.
A festival I go to every year.
Then 3-4 weddings or other occasions such as big birthdays where there is a weekend away involved.

I find this such an interesting subject as it's an area where people have wildly different priorities and approaches.

We actually don't count it up, but if I do a rough calculation, probably about 5% of our annual income.

We both earn good salaries, but tend to like relatively cheap breaks (short haul flight to another country or drive within the country, generally self catering, and often 7-10 days for main break, eat out a bit but cook for ourselves a fair bit too).

take home £73k May holiday £3k to travel agent, flights, b&b & transfers. I guess we’ll spend another £1k there and a couple more trips at about £1k each.

Yeah we are on half that (70k ish). We live off one wage which covers all “expenses” - mortgage taken out when rates were crazy, childcare costs, and so on, and we have roughly £1500 per month to spend on things we don’t “need”

Now we could be sensible and overpay our mortgage, increase our pensions, or other boring crap. But nah.

Sometimes it’s booking holidays. Sometimes it’s eating out several times a week.

It’s all about priorities. For years we prioritised “sensible” things, but family illness (things which may be genetic) has given me a more “fuck it” attitude. We aren’t saving for retirement (aside our generous private pensions) because it’s not promised. And if our genes get to us, our house will be sold to pay for our care anyway. Fuck it.

The thing is when you say you can't "justify it" it is because the choices you have made are such that holidays are further down the list than, the home you wished to buy and the mortgage and related costs, the choice of childcare, etc.
You may prefer to spend your money in different ways, possibly using more money in your everyday life rather than on travel.

That's it really, no right or wrong way to do anything. I don't drink alcohol or buy take away coffee, and while I wouldn't be surprised as such if I knew what other people spend on this, it's a bit like saying would you choose to allocate a few thousand at the beginning of the year for this sole purpose, I wouldn't but many would. Same with holidays.

I think the PP meant it’s a lot to spend on holidays on that income.

Maybe I need to get him to more exotic places 🤣🤣

Income about 230k( euro ) pre tax. Spend about 35 k on holidays . Priority here !

Our household budget combined is around £150K, we spent about £6/7K for 2 weeks for 2 adults and one 13 year old in the summer. Do something most half terms if we can get time off work (I'm fortunate I'm the only one in my team with a child in school as they hate the idea of term holidays).

I’m not sure it is normal per se, but I imagine people answering this thread are people who saw the title and also travel frequently so it’s probably skewed (my own answer included).

We have friends who earn more than us with no kids who spend more than us on more luxury trips and friends who earn less and spend accordingly. We tend to do maybe an all inclusive and we “travel” in the summers, so this summer we’re heading to South Asia. The South Asia trip for 6 weeks is costing not much more than the all inclusive for 10 days tbh. Plus city breaks, even weekends to London rack it up to around £10-12k for us for two adults and a child. However we don’t pay nursery or childcare fees, and still go outside of school holidays as our school is quite flexible, we have a low mortgage that’s fixed (got lucky before all the rises) and our bills I’d say are low compared to most. For us it’s something we prioritise so we’re happy to pay it as I don’t think we’re extravagant in other areas of spending so possibly levels out. My best friend spends about £350 monthly on gym membership, hair colour apps, nails, eyebrows, lashes etc (and looks fabulous btw) and I’d probably put a similar amount towards a trip so that’s where we differ.

We were like that as well when our kids were young. We would visit my parents and the PIL but have no holidays just the 5 of us. To be fair both sets of grandparents live in holiday destinations, so e.g. my Mum lives on an island with lots of beautiful beaches and MIL lives in a major city with lots of museums. So it wasn't like having to visit Slough every year for your holiday.m

When we bought our current house and the mortgage advisor asked what we spent on holidays we said 'oh less than £1K' and she told us the average spend was over £1K per person and people on our income would spend even more so we increased our holiday spend, our youngest had just started school so the kids were getting a lot easier and it was worthwhile having good holidays because the kids were getting to an age where they appreciated going somewhere different.

But I think a lot of people on good incomes don't necessarily do loads of holidays, I have some friends who are always off somewhere amazing and they obviously prioritise holidays but other friends who just use holidays to visit family or have only started having holidays abroad as their kids get older, they obviously prioritise different things.

Ah, sorry! Yes, it's a bit confusing when not everyone is using the same measure. I had to work out what percentage of my take home salary I spend because I don't tend to think in terms of take home.

I'm not particularly worried about uni costs. We pay for one child to attend private school uni costs are similar so we can just pay out of salary if needs be.