To ask how you actually afford to go abroad

[lavenderpekins]

Aibu to feel fed up? Not going away again.. nearly everyone I know is going on a family holiday to the med this summer holiday.

Sort of lighthearted I know we're very lucky to live in this country, able to buy good/nhs/school.. I'll get over it too..

They live near London or a port. I was looking at flights from Manchester and then looked at London, and the Manchester flights cost over 4 times as much as the London ones. I suddenly understood why my SE based friends kept going for weekends in Barcelona.

Same as Blunt

After all bills and spending we have £850 left - £200 each play money and £450 "savings".

So £5400 a year. From this then comes £500 for Christmas, £2400 actual savings and emergencies and then £3000 yearly for holidays.

I scower the internet for cheapest locations, dates, flights etc. Then check out the area reviews etc. And make sure it sounds like we'd enjoy it. I book everything independently rather than through a travel agent. I try to get at least two holidays for that budget.

Most recently we did a week out of season in the algarve for £175 each b&b including flights, transfers, insurance and what not. Total cost including spending money £850 as we mainly just did picnics on the beach, indoor swims, long walks, reading. A few little meals out.

Every now and again we will have a year where there is a big expense (replace car, replace fridge, house repair) that we may decide to use holiday money for instead so that the savings pot is actually saved and not always spent on emergencies. In this way we manage to pretty much keep on top of all the unexpecteds and have a small savings balance always on the go and still enjoy holidays.

Anything left over from the holiday allowance gets rolled over into the next years so that we can look at doing something fancier / more expensive as a treat.

They earn more than you

They put it on credit cards

They prioritise holidays before other things.

I know how you feel op I'm a single parent on a low income despite working at a band 3 level in the NHS and can't afford any sort of holiday at all again!! This time of year is difficult when so many people are going on holiday often more than one. If I earned more I would be one of them.

It is a priority for us and we have two a year. One is at a friend's place in Portugal so incredibly cheap then we save for one in the summer. We could be doing things to the house or having fancy clothes I guess but it is a really important thing that we have always done as a family. Never get into debt for it though

Its alot cheaper abroad than the uk to holiday, its just the travelling bit costs money. In germany in the beer houses its vvv cheap to eat and amazing experience. Accommodation is very cheap too and very good quality if you look around. Think less than weatherspones for a very good quality cooked food. Way Less than travel lodge for 4 star standard. The only place i found expensive was france. I cant afford to holiday in the uk. Who pays £100 bed and breakfast here! Shocked as love to explore the uk. So we save to do the travelling bit.

This is how we afford it...

We save £800 a month. £400 in long term savings, £400 in short term, easily accessible savings for Christmas, birthdays and holidays.
Unless someone else has exactly the same incomings and outgoings as us that doesn't really help. We don't have wildly extravagant holidays though.

We earn well and don't have a mortgage but our house isn't very big, other people cripple themselves with enormous mortgages.

We now have two cars but one is 10 years old. Again, other people cripple themselves with huge car loans, although I know a lot of people around where I live probably have company cars.

Having friends overseas helps keep costs down - accommodation is the expensive bit. But of course you can't just magic overseas friends out of thin air.

And I holiday in Europe, I have looked at a week in Disneyland and thought HOW MUCH? and gone somewhere else instead.

We have two good wages, no kids, and prioritise travel. I've had 3 holidays abroad already this year, with another 2 booked before Christmas, and a couple of trips up to Scotland (where I'm from). We've had some people express jealousy (their words not mine) that we can travel as much as we do and my answer is always the same - DINKY 😁 Dual income no kids yet. The person who is jealous has a partner who doesn't work, a one year old, and the wife is pregnant again- different priorities in life I guess!

We're going to Provence for a week, and Cornwall for a week in August....our Cornwall accommodation is almost twice the price of the French... however, we're sharing with extended family, and have booked self catering places. We didn't go anywhere last summer.

We save for holidays and always have as we love that time away. Only dh and l now. So cheap Ryan air flights off peak and book accommodation ourselves. The two weeks we are away no spending at home so use our income coming in to account to spend. Usually l get paid somewhere towards end of holiday so if we scrimp for a week or two when we get back we are back to normal. So really only extra cost is about 1000 euro which we save ovrr the year 500 each. My family make comments about our holidays but we are not big spenders normally and prioritise holidays.

I don't know how people do it . We both work full time jobs with a fair enough salary but we could never afford it. We can't afford to even go to a caravan park.
I always think their must be a secret money trick I'm missing as my social media is full of people jetting off more than once a year, people with my DC, less earnings ect.

We have saved for the odd big trip, then we go abroad if/when we can afford it but not if we have other competing expenses. Although some of our holidays in France have not cost significantly more than uk.

We don't tend to spend much on luxuries in the year - no takeaways, few expensive days out... We prioritise holidays over other stuff.

Yes! The whole car thing always baffles me. We must the only people I know who have one small old car and have never bought one on finance! I have no envy of fancy cars though - if it gets from a to b it'll do!!

Everyone I know who goes on holiday abroad, often several times a year, does so because of one thing and one thing only - they earn a lot of money.

Our holidays in the UK often cost the same as our abroad ones. We spend on average £8k a year on holidays.

How we afford them:
Bonuses
Booking independently- flights+hotel etc
Book in advance
Shop around
By not wasting money on useless crap.

We have our own holiday cottage for lots of cheap weekends away.
A (loaded) friend has a flat in London that we borrow every year and refuses any offers of payment.

More recently holidays have become cheaper because:
Our DS is going with mates/gf as well as us. He has a job so pays for his own holidays and even if he comes with us he provides spending money/clothes/travel.
We don't need to book around fixed school holidays anymore.

We use Credit cards for spending money only and paid off in full on return.

My husband usually gets a bonus and that's our holiday money. We normally go to France and stay with Canvas in a pre pitched tent. The whole thing incl everything is normally around 4K Ish.

Were looking at going to Florida next but that will be a holiday we have to save up for so might miss a year of France.

I guess everyone does it differently.

We go away multiple times a year, either short hops in Europe or week long hols. No kids so tend to avoid the school holidays, also am a great bargain hunter so e.g. Have got pretty amazing four star naice' AI for £400 pp etc.

Not going away for the next while though until we clear our wedding debt!

But yes, fundamentally, people who earn more money will have more expensive holidays.

Self catering. Low cost flights. We save as the year goes on (one income family, squeezed (to death) middle income 40k). We go away 1 week a year. We've only been abroad once because with small children I can't see the benefit of sand, suncream and hit kids.

We find things that are free to do during the day. Supermarket shop within our weekly budget. Picnics and we eat out once usually cheap or fish and chips or cheap pub!

Hot

I'm not sure how its cheaper abroad than here.

We've spent 400 on a cottage before for a week and not had to spend much else different to usual. Or an amazing 5 days we had to pay for one entrance fee but the rest was national trust etc.

Our holidays have never cost us 1000+ I had no idea I could go to Europe for a week for 400 including ferries/flights etc.

Even haven at half term was about 500 and that was with a friend!

Both of us earn 44K plus. Kids are adults but live in our house without contributing - one disabled , the other [complicated and outing] Mum gave me 5k for my 50th birthday so all the trips this year has been paid for with that. Finished mortgage. Two very 'naice' cars on drive.
I live for my holidays and every half term and holidays I go away. Sometimes abroad, sometimes in this country. We save to go away usually.
Work hard, play hard!