How do people pay for a holiday? Decent income and can’t afford it?

I sacrifice on other things . I rarely buy new clothes, don't pay to have nails/ hair done etc, spend very little on socialising. I also book my holidays abroad at least a year in advance so I have smaller monthly payments. I find it's easier to find the money to make payments monthly than trying to save up. I have one income,it is minimum wage. It is doable depending what you decide is a priority.

We don't have childcare costs or car payments. We take picnics for days out. We usually have one overseas holiday and several UK short breaks a year.

We go on two foreign holidays every year but have a smaller mortgage than you and our kids are past needing childcare, other than a very small fee for breakfast club for our one remaining child

Hang in there!

Edit: And 2 (old) cars owned without finance

I don't think £450 a month is cheap for cars 😶What have you got?

The short answer is by making different choices to you.

We bought a smaller house we could easily afford on one income, we drive older cars that we bought outright for about £2k more for both than you're paying a year for yours, and we prioritise travel/holidays over pretty much everything bar savings.

We pay £13 a month for National Trust for days out - and go overseas four times a year. This year will be Japan, France, Canaries, and India.

If we had car finance, and the size of mortgage we could get on our income there would be no way we could do that.

Lots of us don't have car payments. We have a cheap, older car that we paid for in cash. There no way I'd get a car on finance.

Join the national trust for days out. One off yearly payment and then unlimited free days out. Take a picnic, I was brought up on cheap days out and car picnics!

Kindly, OP, your household income of £5k p/m isn’t high enough to support bigger holidays (nice UK breaks and abroad) and childcare costs. Your car payments are too high for your income too.

That’s not a judgement, it’s just realistic unfortunately.

It's about what you prioritise, OP. You can't have everything, all at once. Out of the £1k savings you have each month, how much is necessary for petrol for work? You just spent £60 on a single day out. Granted, that isn't a lot, but how often are you spending £60+ just on entertainment? If you want a holiday, you need to find a cheaper way to entertain yourselves. Read/watch movies/play games together at home, go for walks in a local area, allow yourself one treat day out per month, if you must. And either be flexible about weather and location, so you can check deals on something like lastminute.com; or book the ideal holiday 6 months in advance.

Well for example, my mortgage is £500 a month and we bought our cars in cash years ago. So even if nothing about our circumstances was different to you than that, I'd have £1550 more to play with than you a month. It's not 'ridiculous' that other people don't have the same circumstances as you...

I think childcare & car payments is the issue. We earn considerably less but manage to go away overseas mostly long haul 3x per year. We rely on my parents for childcare and probably pay £200 pm for nursery. We own our cars - not the fanciest but take us from A - B and so save on that monthly payment too.

I have a friend who complains about the same, her income is much higher than ours. But they both drive fancy new cars and she likes to treat herself to a luxury handbag every year etc. It just depends how you budget and how and what you spend your money on - its subjective and depends on your preferences and circumstances of course.

You have to make choices. Stay in, do free things, take sandwiches go for walks.

You have probably got a nice house and 2 nice cars instead, many don't have everything

It's not particularly cheap in the context of your income and when you consider it doesn't include fuel, though.

You're spending 3/5 of your income on your mortgage and childcare and another 1/5 on bills and car payments. That's a lot of money on "essentials", and doesn't leave you with very much to play around with, really.

You didn’t need to buy food out though. I get it’s hard as everything costs so much now, but there are cheaper ways to do things. We get a farmers membership for Christmas from in-laws, we don’t get anything else but ask for that. We take a picnic and snacks with us so food doesn’t cost more than if we were home.

You gave the example of the farm but it's whether this is typical of most weekends? We earn less but have less outgoings than you, still not loads left at end of month. At the moment when the weather isn't great we try and do cheap things and then make the most of being at home because when the weather is nice we'll be spending more on days out.

Typical weekend for us at moment is

• walk and park/free local museum/library visit and trip to charity shop to pick up a cheap toy/craft kit sometimes with cafe for breakfast (cheaper than lunch usually), coffee and a cake
• home - tidy, clear out their toys/clothes and get out toys they haven't played with for a while, baking or crafts

I like to use the next few months to spend less to save up for the better weather

Your outgoings are much higher than ours. We take home about £5.5k. Mortgage £650 but we overpay £200 a month. Bills and food probably another £1000-£1200. Childcare £180 a month. No car payments as we buy second hand, cash, and save up for the next one.

I'm still dreading when my daughter hits school years as I just cannot imagine paying £4k or so for a holiday, even though we could easily afford it. Costs in holiday time seem insane.

Well, there's your answer.

We enjoy holidays and prioritise them so minimise spending in other places. Days out are parks with a picnic (yes, even in the rain). £58 on a day out to "nowhere glamourous" doesn't happen. Based on the childcare your child is quite young and would be happy with something simple.

We earn around 4000 after tax, mortgage and all bills and food is about 1900.

We live in a small house in a cheap area, drive a small, paid off car and prioritise holidays over evertthing else.

We save around 800 per month for holidays and go 3 to 4 times a year.

You will either need to work out how to earn more or cut some of your huge expenses x

I have almost similar household take home, except no kids and mortgage is £480 per month, car is £320. So we have plenty of cash for nice holidays. You've just chosen to have kids instead and pay childcare and a large mortgage. Can't have it all on this wage.

You earn a lot but you also spend a lot. You don't need brand new cars but you chose to have them. I'm not sure about your mortgage, is that due to rising rates and living in a very expensive area in which case not much you can do about it. If downsizing or moving to a cheaper area is an option that's one way to be able to afford holidays. Also you need to think about different sorts of holidays. We did a lot of caravans / camping in the UK and then some cheap packages where we only went for one week and did bed and breakfast.

What sort of holiday are you after?

We holidayed in a self-catering in Wales when the kids were little, with a max budget of £1000 for accommodation for a week (we went for a week). Beaches cost nothing to go to, and parking and ice creams are cheaper there than in the South West (don’t know about the rest of the UK).

Ferry self-drive holidays, self-catering are worth exploring. Jet2 do free child spaces so that is worth looking at. Self-catering is cheaper. You can pay monthly with Jet2 so actually easier to budget for than paying for a holiday cottage in one month.

We have done lots of camping too.

The above said, holidays do seem more expensive now. Could you go with grandparents and share the cost?

Don’t do very many £58 days out either. Get a membership somewhere close by and take picnics.

Exactly this. Plan ahead.

We didn't go away!