Stupid questions about affording a holiday

[CookingApron]

I'll probably get some robust replies to my stupid questions, but I am ready. I need answers.

I am a primary school teacher. Husband works in middle management in an office. We have three teenage children. We do okay financially, but there's not much left over. The kids all do sports, which is expensive; we eat out a couple of times a year; and clothes are from charity shops mostly. Biggest outgoing is rent. Will never afford to buy a house. We honestly do okay. In fact, I think we're pretty lucky - e.g. the kids all have their own laptops for school, and we can add a couple of treats to the supermarket weekly shop.

I sat in a staff meeting recently and everyone was discussing recent holidays and holiday plans. We have a weekend camping most years, but have never been on a proper holiday - flights and hotels - because I can't see how we'd ever afford it. A lot of the other teachers often go to one particular place abroad and everyone was talking about how they always stay in the Hilton there because it's so great for the kids.

I scurried home and looked it up on their website and WOW it looks amazing. For the 5 of us to stay there it would be nearly £800 per night, and that's before flights, food, and everything else.

Is that really what people spend on a holiday? How are all my colleagues going their with their kids for a week every year? What am I missing?

So how much is your rent? What is your household income? How much do all these expensive sports cost? What do you spend on groceries, petrol and other day to day essentials?

As a mother of teens, you're likely to be old enough to be way up the teacher pay scale. Likely your DH in his middle management job. You say you're not spending on lunches/takeaways/meals out or car finance. But obviously high rent will mean a difference of £1-2k pm compared with someone who has no housing costs.

But with a likely monthly income of £5k+, you could have money leaking away elsewhere. No-one on here can say whether you can or can't afford a holiday - you need to thoroughly review your budget to see if the rent is the reason, or if money is going elsewhere and whether there are any changes you can make.

Are you charging enough for the tutoring? I'm in London which admittedly is insane, but for maths and English tutors for 11+, a "cheap" tutor is anyone who charges less than £70 per hour, and some charge over £100 per hour. As a fully qualified teacher you should be charging whatever the top of the market rate is in your area.

We don't have three kids , and middle.management earnings can vary by absolutely thousands

It might be the renting? We'd be paying 2x or even 3x what we pay a month on our mortgage to rent, we have a real good fixed interest deal.
Also having 3 teens will make it more expensive, most places will count teens as adults so essentially you're paying for 5 adults. Not sure we'll be having the same holidays as we are now when we can't get a free child place for our youngest!

That sounds fab and that's one way to do it for less.

But a lot of people say they won't fly Ryanair and won't self cater so they think a week in the sun costs £5k+

I used to have a neighbour who worked for council and was quite right on about being left wing, social justice etc….but had regular deliveries from Net a porter etc and mentioned ones some v expensive habits. She later mentioned she’d inherited a few years before and bought her house outright.

We always struggled - but then we started following the barefoot investor. He’s an Aussie guy but the basic principles are the same no matter where. It’s a roadmap for getting out of debt and saving for holidays and stuff.

every pay we automatically put money into another account for holidays. We also have a separate emergency savings fund to cover expenses if we lost jobs or something.

As you are a teacher, have you looked at home swaps for teachers? I have friends who do this every summer, have been to some amazing places for holidays, and rave about it. I’m not sure which home swap listing site they use - there seem to be a few, though, eg:

https://www.teacherhomeswap.com/

https://www.we-teachers.com/en/home-swap

https://www.homeexchange.com/p/homeexchange-for-nea-teachers

OP cannot go away in June, start of July or September though as they are a teacher, working.

Well you can get a decent package holiday if you look around. Some you can pay in installments.

Everything is relative though, location you stay in, high rents etc.

We save year round for holidays, last year we done Xmas in Egypt, 11 nights AI for £3300 2 adults, 2 teens.

OP I'm a teacher and holidays with my three was in the UK in a tent. No secret income from well meaning family members. If we went to my Mums house for a week I paid her. I look back with regret but I'm not in debt and am actually now in the position to make holiday memories with them. Don't worry xx

Can I ask where about you stayed please? I really want to go to Croatia it looks beautiful!

We’re currently at an amazing villa in Italy - 2 adults, 2 teens - villa costs £350 per night and has 4 bedrooms, private pool, air con etc. Really luxurious, and way cheaper than the Hilton you quoted.

They're not paying rent, and they don't have 3 kids.

When ds was at school and we were tied to school holidays, we did camping weekends, very occasional single nights away in a Travelodge, or grandparents paid to take us away with them (see 'secret money' above). Tbh I preferred the camping weekends. Non Travelodge hotels were way out of our league.

We saved for 3 years to go to Rome for a week when ds was 13, £50 a month was a strain but we managed it, we flew Easyjet and stayed in an Airbnb. I don't do Airbnb any more in areas of high housing pressure, but it has to be said it was an inexpensive way to have a week abroad for 3 of us in a place we could walk everywhere and mostly self cater.

I bet your children get a lot out of the things you do spend money on.

Single mum here with one child, DS13. I booked our holiday with BA during their sale last October. We are having 2 weeks in the Caribbean in August , all inclusive for £5000, which is a bargain. I saved up for this, we didn't go away last year. I don't drink, smoke or drive, but for me holidays are essential so I budget and make compromises to be able to afford them.

There are three types of canniness with holidays. Firstly secret money as mentioned above or putting additional income directly aside for the purpose. Secondly spending priorities - if holidays are important, you spend less on other thing (eg I cut my own hair, live in a cheaper part of town, share a car with another family etc). Thirdly there are ways to make the holiday fund go further - shopping around, credit card points (this is massive, especially the signup bonuses - we run all expenses through the credit cards, including utilities and council tax), cashback, playing with your holiday dates to get the best deal - can be much cheaper to nudge your whole holiday forward 1 day or ensure you are there over a Saturday night. Nectar and Tesco clubcard points are both redeemable for or towards holidays or swappable for airline points.

Well this has been useful. And no replies telling me I'm an idiot for not understanding that some people earn more than me 😁.

I think, on reflection, that our personal circumstances are enough to explain why we cannot (and likely will not ever) afford a holiday. This thread has made me decide to have a bit of a financial audit though, and see if we could be doing anything differently.

Inheritance, gifted money so they could buy a home /put down a deposit/ family help with costs /partner is a high earner.

The reality now is house prices are such that inheritance/gifts to help get on the ladder have a bigger influence on lifestyle than salary does.

I also know people who live very frugally all year round because they prioritise that holiday above everything else.

I am also interested in this OP.

We have a decent income but the cost of holidays seems extortionate at the moment.

Another Aussie here - second the barefoot investor. Completely independent of all banks and financial conflicts of interest

you are doing it backwards- you dont decide on a destination then look up a price. You decide on a price, then go on cheap comparison websites and find a destination. We have been to some lovely places cos we caught the price at the right moment, but we would not have been able to afford mainstream prices. I am a teacher too. But have a mortgage, which is cheaper than renting

I definitely think you can be quite canny with how you holiday as well.

We are reasonably fussy with flight times (try very hard to avoid 3am starts or planes due to land at midnight) but do fly Ryanair, and actually often select our location based on somewhere Ryanair has cheap flights to. Locate somewhere as well where it's cheap and easy to get there from the airport (preference for a direct train but a local bus is okay if necessary). Purple parking for airport parking often has discounts.

I'm also pretty canny with my choices around where we stay. We've had places for as little as £250 per bedroom per week - so if people are prepared to share you can probably find somewhere for as little as a single night in the hotel you referenced. You have to get good at checking out the self catering listings and reading the reviews but we tend to end up in one of two sets of places: newly listed places that are fancy but don't have many reviews - these are often listed at a cheaper price to start with so they can get their 5* reviews in and you end up booking them reasonably close to the holiday date, or "quirky" places that have strange features and which we put up with because they're relatively cheap. It's always a bit of a risk and what's key for us is that we're not looking for a "fly and flop" holiday - we're looking to see new places and try local restaurants etc, so weird house features (one had a mystery half length bath and the shower hose was too short to attach to the holder on the wall - the other hose was long enough so we swapped them over and it was fine, and the kitchen roof leaked but whatever - it's not our house and it was super cheap). If fly and flop was what we wanted then this wouldn't do the trick.

My tone deaf colleague asked if I had a nanny for my children. And then told me she was going to Dublin for a long weekend. I said “enjoy your holiday” and the reply was “it’s not a holiday, it’s only Dublin”. She works 2 days a week on a similar salary to me (which is less than a teachers btw). She has a wealthy husband and works for fun / to keep her from getting bored.

A Lot of people consider a holiday as a very expensive package, but we go on holiday 2-3 x a year by doing similar to what a PP did, where had bargain flights + cheap self catering or even driving there. I don’t think you can do it as a renter but lots of friends of mine use the home swapping platform too (I haven’t as my house isn’t suitable).

I’ve spent that sort of money twice - once for a honeymoon and once for the Lapland package, which was full of people doing it for their 4th or 5th Xmas, and I was similarly baffled! Both times I did it by putting it on credit and paying it off throughout the year in advance of going.

With 5 of you, you could easily be spending £30 a week on ‘treat’ food. Put that into perspective and that is £1560 a year. This is enough to rent a really nice place in rural France for a week for example. You’d have to get there though. Or you book flights to Spain way in advance. Or if you can book a last minute cheap deal trip somewhere. Far more difficult with 5 of you.