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

Neither did we. We bought in a cheap area but it's certainly not that deprived and there's plenty of employment!

If you earn £100k a year your childcare costs go up massively, too. Sorry OP. It's a horribly expensive time, childcare just eats up your (post-tax) income.

Well, that depends on how you define "winning at life" I guess. Neither DH or I care about a high-flying career, making loads of money or "improving" our situations all that much. We work to live and would rather have less money and more time.

We also don't want children so that's not a consideration for us.

I have also set up various monthly saver accounts or 1 year bonds which have matured just before going on holiday.

I got used to having less disposable income, because it went into the holiday savings pot

Your expenses are huge.
We can save around 1k per month so we have holiday money in savings (and we earn less than you) but no mortgage, no childcare, no car loans. Our bills, including food, come to about £1300 per month though, which is a good bit higher than yours.

Having said that, when our dcs were pre school and primary age we never went abroad - we camped in the U.K. loads, or got a holiday cottage if we were feeling flush. Ds1 was 16 before we went on a 'proper' AI pool/beach holiday and when I read about the holidays that some people on here go on my mind boggles.

During The Childcare Years we mostly went to Scotland and the Lake District, mostly in a tent or Youth Hostels, and we'd only go for a week.

Dir

You don't have to camp. You can get a caravan outside of school holidays for like £120 for 4 nights.

We did Brussels on the Eurostar too, Center Parcs, Bluestone. Look at cheap flights with the likes of Ryanair too, literally anywhere that's different will feel like a holiday.

You prioritise. You have £1000 to save each month. So you make sure at least £300 goes into savings and only touch it for extreme circumstances. You cut down on days out. £1000 to play with each month is absolutely plenty!!

You could afford one of those you pay monthly or just save a little bit.

We have similar income though slightly less mortgage.

We prioritise holidays so of that £1k you have left over, we’d be putting a fair chunk, say £200-£300 an month, into a pot for holidays.

We book them in advance when we know how much a month we can afford to pay back. We go for self catering over all inclusive and I do a lot of research into good deals. We use the Sun Holidays offers to get some cheaper UK trips to break up the year.

Last year we went on 2 holidays in the UK with groups of people from our hobby groups
So we
shared the cost of the accommodation
shared the cost of the food , drink & some activities

Perhaps you can join some local groups & go on holiday together ?

We also went on some other holidays outside UK, but we avoided all public & school holidays

We own our own 15+ year old types of transport

Op we are a family of 7 (2 adults 4 children and pregnant) DH is the only one who works I'm a SAHM and also studying he brings home about 3000 after tax.
We manage 1 aboard holiday every year and a caravan break in June.
All our children are home ed so this makes us flexible with booking holidays.
Our out goings are cheap after bills are payed and food we have around 1500 to play with for holidays savings etc.

It's all just income vs outcome really, we get a similar amount to you but our outgoings are much less.

Our main differences seem to be

£700 mortgage (small house)
£0 childcare (SAHM)
No payments on the cars

We live quite a modest lifestyle, in a little home so are fortunate to have money left each month for holidays & savings.

That said, it looks like all of your outgoings are essential for mortgage, cars and childcare so I'm not sure what you can do about it unfortunately. I'm sure things will be much easier when you've no longer got the childcare bill.

In the meantime I would perhaps look at other options, last year we booked a very nice lodge for a week in September on the Suffolk coast for around £700, it was at a Park Dean type place or similar. Might not be your usual cup of tea but the kids loved it and you can get quite nice accommodation for your money during term time. We are going to Centreparcs later this month and that was also quite reasonable for a week at the end of Jan.

Not really. You can buy reliable, decent 2nd hand cars outright for just a few K...

If you're not stuck to school holidays, you can easily get a holiday in the UK for 3 for less than a £1000 - I can give you some pointers / websites / facebook groups but abroad may he a bit of a stretch at the minute. Things will get alot easier for you at school age so it's just getting through

I live in a deprived area with lots of unemployment but that's obviously not all there is here.
There is definitely a good chunk of people who are lazy with no intention of getting a job but in these town are the good areas and bad areas (I imagine there is everywhere).
The unemployed people who are happy to doss about all day live in the scruffy houses on benefits with no itention of getting a job but there is a huge amount of working people who live in good neighbourhoods with good jobs who have well priced homes because we are in the North.
So yes she definitely can have lots of opportunities in a deprived area. There's still schools, police, office jobs, engineering etc

She can spend her money however she sees fit. But people are giving her ideas of how she could afford a holiday. It doesn't matter what you feel you deserve. It's what you can afford.

We earn much less than you OP, and we manage a holiday each year, we go to various havens and pay monthly. This year we re going to Ayr. We've paid just over a grand so far since September (I think) and have 4 payments left. I do it so holiday payments are due out on payday, the same with rent and other bills. That way when I wake up on payday what is there is what we have to spend.

Yes of course, but thats not going to be 60 quid either

A 'treat' doesnt have to cost 60 quid, there is such a backlash to discussion about being able to do things that arent some great 'experience' or cost a lot of money. As I said, take it or leave it, but these are choices, no one is forcing you to do that

Yes its boring to hear but most of us who grew up in the 70s, just didnt have this full time entertainment concept from our parents, full on days out were few and far between, didnt involve snacks and food etc, a packed lunch and some squash was the sum total and theres nothing wrong with that, its not deprivation!!

You need to find a way to save or earn an extra £85 per month. Shop at Aldi if you don’t already, that would do it. Do a cheaper day out like a playground trip and put the money towards a holiday instead.

We only started holidaying annually when the youngest was in primary school, prior to that the childcare fees just made it hard to save up. Your outgoings are very high vs your income, but once your childcare stops, that's your holiday pot!

Oh fuck off is anyone telling OP to live like a poor person. They have £5k to play with and can’t stretch it how they want, get real.

We did self-catering in the U.K. when ours were young

Yes of course you can. OP, and everyone, knows this.

free days out only, for an entire year, for a family containing 2 full time working parents? Surely you can see that they might feel they deserve an actual TREAT at some point in the 52 weeks of the year?

plus. I know for me, at that stage of life, I did not have the time or energy to be planning days whereby the only aim is they were free. I was so exhausted that a few hours in the soft play with a coffee helped keep me sane.