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?

It can be worth buying shares to get discounts. I don't have any for holiday companies but my parents used to have them in P and O and that got them 50% off the price of cross channel ferries.

https://www.hl.co.uk/shares/shareholder-perks

We stayed at the Hilton in Egypt Hurgada one year. All inclusive. I’m a teacher and at the time we were a dual income house with no kids and a mortgage. Used to manage a lot of holidays back then. The Hilton wasn’t a particularly expensive hotel compared to the others. But I was lucky enough to graduate in the late 90s and get my first mortgage in the early 00s. Although got my current house in a 100% mortgage back in 2006. But since then I’m a single parent in same house. Even when a couple in this house, once we had kids and changed jobs to less secure - part time, him working ad hoc type hours, we could afford less.

At my school I’ve noticed a few things. There are a lot of staff - not necessarily teachers - who have fab holidays but they are in social/council housing so rent is much less than a lot. They also have dual incomes. Many of them have higher earning partners. For the teachers there are also many having fab holidays. They all do seem to have mortgages. Some have wealthier partners. But they start paying their holidays off a year in advance and add it into the budgets. Also seem to prioritise holidays over other things though. Their kids do often do clubs and extra curricular activities. Some go away abroad for a week of each of the 2 week holidays. But these are the senior leadership teachers who are paid more and who are working full time.

But if you’ve just looked at prices now for a holidays these 6 weeks they might be more expensive or too expensive to pay in one go now. Try looking now for next year and fit it into your budget.

I suspect a lot live on credit too.

We completely stopped going to hotels and started self catering when we had a third child !
The cost was far too much .
Most of our holidays are in the UK , we drive to a cottage somewhere for a week and take our dog so we don’t have the cost of kennels .
We mostly get somewhere lovely but not high end and do a supermarket shop the first day to last the week .
We tend to spend on coffee / ice cream / small lunch out

Recently did a budget for food shopping with my
DD
she was amazed at how much she was spending on rubbish food , takeaway etc and ready meals
shes 21 now cooks from scratch and takes coffee to work in a thermo cup
have a close look at where your cash is going
sky tv , Netflix, etc
maybe you could save here and there and start
a secret money pot !!

I haven't read the whole thread but -

We have 3 DSes similar ages to yours (10, 13, 15). We do not have well-paying jobs, in fact DH was made redundant earlier this year & not yet found anything FT - but he did get a decent redundancy package. Although we bought our holiday before his job went.

We are going with my parents by car to a little local festival in France for 2 days. They are kindly paying for accommodation & meals. From there, we are going to a Eurocamp in Holland for a week, stopping overnight in Germany. Cost £1100 including ferry. We booked this about a year in advance which gave us 25% off full price. While there, we will have a day at Efteling theme park & probably one in Amsterdam & self cater, maybe have one restaurant evening meal & few cheap lunches. The rest of the time in/around the campsite. In the October half term, we are driving to a French campsite for a week, costing approx £300 including ferry. Was on a 'second holiday half price' deal. Same kind of thing.

In previous years, we have flown to Portugal & Mallorca for 1 or 2 weeks in a villa. Flying Easyjet, booking less modern villas but still own pool etc. Last time was 2 years ago, week in Mallorca for £2k including car hire.

We don't have much money spare, but I do put a lot of effort into selling outgrown clothes & toys & also doing online surveys & I can easily make £100 per month. We don't go out much or have coffees etc & our mortgage is not bad for South East (£900 pm).

Forgot to say, Portugal & Mallorca were in April, so much cheaper than summer holidays but still decent temperatures (20-25 degrees)

That does sound like a lot per night for a Hilton, but without knowing the exact hotel/ location wouldn’t be able to suggest ways to get it cheaper.
Some ideas are though;
sometimes Expedia/ booking.com etc are cheaper than booking direct
Packages with flights can work out much cheaper - eg it’s often cheaper to book the flights and hotel together with someone like BA than buying separately. Or book very cheap flights if the location has that option.
Hilton has a rewards programme- if these other teachers partners travel for work etc they may have accumulated points to cover the hotel element and then they only have to pay travel. And they may have airmiles to cover the flights (this is my personal situation as DP travels a lot for work, so we rarely have to pay for flights and hotels for our holidays 😊)

The Hilton is really bad value IME. Terrible food, everything is extra and they rinse you for all you’ve got.

Overrated!

£800 a night is very expensive, and not indicative of most holidays! Far from it.

We've been to the Caribbean, for as little as £1200 each, for 10 nights All Inclusive. Mid range is less than £2k each, for truly amazing hotels with maybe up to 15 Alacarte restaurants, with everything (all food, drink and room service) included.

The fact you're paying for 5 adults is the killer. But once they leave home you'll only be paying for 2 people.