Would you rather have a fancier house or more holidays?

[londonldn]

Just pondering.

Looking at moving house at the moment due to hateful neighbours.

If I stay put in our (mid terrace, small but perfectly comfortable) house, we could afford to spend £5k plus for holidays each year. If we move we can have a lovely home, but won't be able to afford to holiday much (probably every second year).

What would you choose, given the choice?

I'd probably day holidays but if your neighbours are awful that's a separate consideration.

If I was unhappy in my home I would definitely sacrifice holidays for somewhere that I could be happier. But home is really important to me!

House definitely. Year round happiness is more important than a holiday every year.

I'd move house if your neighbours are awful

House definitely. I love being in my house, i spend most of my life here. Holidays would be great but I don't miss not having them really (we can't afford it) whereas I'd be gutted to live somewhere I didn't like.

I prioritise holidays. One big long haul a year.

We have the nice home and no holidays now, I do miss them but it doesn't have to be forever - we're actually looking into doing a home swap with another family in Europe, so having a nice home helps too!

If your neighbours are awful, then changing that will be worth far more than a holiday.

I would prefer to have a nicer house as that would have a positive impact on my life everyday. Holidays are nice to look forward to and are lovely when you're there, but even relatively long holidays are over quite quickly and going home to a house I didn't particularly like would intensify the holiday blues even further.

Depends what you look for in a holiday I guess. Ours are never anywhere near £5000. We had a brilliant holiday in Brittany in a gite for a week for £800 last year.

For me, I would be moving. You are on holiday infrequently, you are always at home.

Do you need a bigger house, or is it the neighbours getting you down? If just the neighbours, why not do a sideways move to somewhere around the same value of your current house? That way you'd still be able to have your holidays.

In your situation I'd go for a new house and new neighbours. You'll feel like you're on holiday when you're away from your existing neighbours.

I guess it depends a bit. What is the difference between the house you would have if you chose the holiday option and the 'lovely' one you could otherwise get (other than the neighbours - I fully understand the misery bad neighbours can cause but then again you could move to the lovely new house and bad neighbours could move in next door the next day!).

If it was a case of being genuinely overcrowded, at risk of crime, having a lot commute etc. I would pick the better house option. A house is also an investment for the future whereas holiday money once spent is gone forever. But on the other hand if it was a choice between an 'average' terrace or semi in a normal area with enough room for the family but no more, or a 10 bed detached mansion with 12 bathrooms and a ballroom, I'd pick the holidays, because the house would then become more of a status symbol than anything else...

But all other things being equal I think I'd pick the house. Even if you go on lots of holidays that's, what, 6 weeks a year spent on holiday and 46 weeks spent at home? Home would win for me!

Well without the hateful neighbours I would say holidays but it’s horrible living next to arseholes.

We live in a fairly modest 3 bed semi but we’ve chosen to stay put as we are now mortgage free and we want to put the money saved towards exciting holidays. But our neighbours are okay

While I personally really love my holidays, and would normally say prioritise those, I think if you have horrible neighbors then moving should be your priority. Of course it's entirely possible that you could move and still end up with awful neighbours and no holidays .

How about moving to the same type of house you live in now, but with new neighbours? Then you would have the best of both worlds!

I'd go for a better house and not have such big holidays. Would probably still manage an annual holiday in the UK, occasionally abroad but having a really good house and garden counts for a lot. However, your house sounds OK, it's just your neighbours that are the problem.

I hope when you move that you have pleasant, non intrusive neighbours.
Try to choose a road in which the houses are quite private, a wide road, quite long drive, high fences or walls. Have a good look around and get a feel for the place and the area. To have somewhere like that where you feel secure and no one bothers you except in an emergency is worth giving up one or two holidays - and that won't be forever anyway.

Good luck, let us know how you get on. I'd love to know what your present neighbours do :-).

I am the opposite. We have a fairly big house with lots of equity in it but very modest disposable income and go on 1 week (usually uk) holiday per year. I would much rather slightly downsize and have more money for holidays but can't persuade DH

House definitely.
Holidays are always the same shit just in a different place when you've got children!
A nice, practical, comfortable home would be much more important to me

I have no need for £5k worth of holidays every year. We go camping maybe twice, maybe another weekend away and dh and I usually have a weekend away with friends (separately). I don’t need a week in Dubai every year.

But I couldn’t cope in a small mid terrace (too close to neighbours and too overlooked and I like a big garden), so I’d take the house. Plus it’s an investment in your future.

Well for a while we prioritised our house and doing it up, having cheaper holidays.
We are in our house for a lot more time than we spend on holiday (although I know a couple of people who spend as much time home as they do away), we wanted it to be somewhere worth spending time.
Nothing to do with neighbours though. If we didn’t get on with our neighbours long term I think we’d move.

You live in your house most, if not all of the year. I want to be in a pleasant and comfortable environment. We’ve recently come back from a week in Devon, where the holiday cottage was grotty compared to our house. That felt like a waste of money. It rained a lot too.

Neither

A middle road

A nicer enough house with enough left for holidays rather then a super max house and no holidays

Smaller house, definitely. We have been in the same small 2 bed for nearly 15 yrs, despite both of our salaries tripling over that time. There's sufficient room for the 2 of us, it means the mortgage is easily affordable and we can splash out on holidays. We also have a camper van to maximise our chances of getting away.

Fully appreciate this wouldn't be everyone's choice of priorities. We have no kids, so no need for a bigger house, and we made the conscious decision not to move to a bigger place. It helps that we like our house, it's in a great location, so no reason to move.

House every time. But I'm a homebody

You can still do holidays, just cheaper ones! I LOVE our house. It’s such a great place to be nearly every single day, morning to night. I’d go for the house assuming you’re getting something that will really give you pleasure.