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..

Ah yeah we've never spent 2k on a UK holiday so we've holidayed here so much cheaper!!

Work bonus.

AnathemaPulsifer I agree. Some people aren't figuring the total cost of the holiday. I'm a spreadsheet obsessive, and I have it planned to the penny, including petrol, parking, money to spend at the airport, spending money while we're away etc. I add up all of this and divide by 12, giving me a savings figure per month. I do factor in the money saved on groceries while we are away, which adds a nice chunk onto spending money.

I also prefer to pay as much up front as I can, so I will always take the catered option where there is one. We went to a UK holiday park for a week in April, and there was a half board option. It was something crazy like £10 a day each for full breakfast and dinner, so to me it was a no brainer. There was no way we could have eaten out for that little, and it gave me a holiday from cooking.

It rather depends on how much money and how much time one has.

Someone who has plenty of both, will just drop everything and go whenever they feel like it, without having to think about the cost or booking time off work.

Someone with very little of either would need to plan ahead carefully and save hard for a considerable amount of time in order to afford perhaps one trip.

That's life, I'm afraid!

As well as income it's how much people are spending on holidays.I am recently single with 1 dd.We are going on holiday to Spain next year but it will cost £600 ,this includes flights,transfers for a self catering appartment.
When I was married we still only went on holiday abroad once even though then we could afford it exh tight with money
Luckily I like camping and dd loved it(once the arguments about putting the tent up was over.)
No holiday this year as I am saving up for a carpet.

We always go abroad in the May half term - it's a lot cheaper than the summer holidays and the weather is still nice

We are always taken aback - every year! - by how much holidays cost. That's because we don't save for them, or plan them particularly well so we don't get the best prices. This is in turn because they are not all that important to us.

I think the people who have the fab hols are people for whom holidays are really important and who are prepared to put holidays as a high priority in their spending. One could make the same argument at how people, with what looks like the same income as oneself, can "afford" three takeaways a week, or a flash car, or to send their DC to private school, or buy a much bigger house than they need. It's because for whatever reason that particular thing means much more to them than it does to you and they bust a gut to make sure they get it.

It's also important to remember when you say "I am a SAHM so we can't afford . . . " that the one thing you can afford, is for you to be a SAHM. And that the people with the nice holidays might be wishing they could afford for one of them to be at home with the DCs. And I am not intending to SAHM-bash here, I was one myself for donkeys years and still only work PT. We could afford a much better holiday if I worked FT.

When our kids were small and I was a SAHM we just went camping. Got the cheapest ferry possible, loaded up our battered 20 year old trailer tent and did a supermarket shop abroad instead of at home.

Once we holidayed in the uk with my sister, who claimed not to be able to afford to go abroad, and I was quite shocked at the spending: day trips and attractions and meals out every day really add up. Lazy days by the pool or on the beach or strolling round a quaint foreign town are really cheap. Hell even an Italian supermarket is exciting when you're seven.

We plan well and book in advance. We went on a big holiday 2 years ago and paid for it on a 0% credit card which is now paid off. Last year we drove to France which was very cheap.
I find that holidays abroad are cheaper than the UK. We are a family of 6 though so nothing is ever really cheap.
Depending on how many there are of you and your flexibility I think you could go abroad for £75 per person if you shop around or do air bnb.

Income is one thing. What you actually want or actually enjoy is another. We can afford holidays abroad and can enjoy them in style...good class hotels, sometimes fly business class and not worry about enough pocket money once we're there. In the last few years we have been to Western Canada, the south of France, Switzerland, and Eurodisney. We have 3 DC, although sometimes only 2 teens come with.

Maybe we are weird, I grant you that but after years of stress, airport chaos, being herded around security, growing intolerance to the heat... we are doing what we in fact did in 2012....messing around on the UK coastline for a month. We are lucky enough to have a small flat on the south coast and these are the holidays where we are most happy, argue least and live most healthily.

We will of course go abroad again. But I love our UK holidays and although we had to make some serious decisions about how we would initially afford to buy and maintain a second home, it was the best thing we ever did.

I am same as wombling but do it the other way round, we can only save X amount to holidays so I save first then plan with what we have managed to save for the year.

We never ever do half board - or package holidays, unless you get the special deals and one offs - they are known to be far more expensive than just booking flights and accmd yourself.

Op we stayed at home one year and went to a YH for two nights by the sea, and in that year I started to save £10 a month to holiday and whatever I could each week. DP would give me £200 for bday and DH dp would give around same for bday and xmas, so we could each put another £200 from bday to holiday, the other £200 would get divided into our other saving pots, which are for bday and xmas. ( also put £10 a month in those and whatever we can from the week)

So after a year of small but steady saving we were able to build up a few hundred pounds, still not enough to get us on a plane, but enough to get us over to europe on the ferry using tesco vouchers. Had a wonder 4 nights away in a glorious theme park in Europe. But because of saving year in advance the next holiday was already being accrued....now we are 4 years into this regime, and this year we are going away for the longest time, 10 nights. Still Ferry, still euope, still not spain yet...but I cant wait .

At Easter we took advantage of amazing YH offer and stayed in one in countryside for a few nights - its was only £35 per night and it was a gorgeous hostel and the nicest hostel room I am hoping they do the offer again in January. The room was normally at least £109 per night. We just take breakfast with us.

This years holiday is already paid for and next years has £400 already accrued. I am hoping we can finally afford flights and a self catering gorg apartment I have found myself in Mallorca.

Because we also save for everything else we need, ie xmas, bdays, childrens fund for clothes and other stuff, means holiday money is for holidays....

I watch Easyjet like a HAWK. We usually go to the same hot country, as it's v cheap once you're there, so I know the routine.

Flights for the Easter holidays go on sale in OCTOBER. So have the credit card ready, and check every day for when they come on sale, and book immediately. Accommodation and car hire can come later.

Where we go can easily cost £1500 for the four of us or more if I don't gt myself organised (it's a 4 hour flight) but this Easter just gone by, I got flights for the for of us for £330 on Easyjet by booking in early October 2016.

If I was to look now for flights there this summer it would be (I just checked) £1800 return out of Gatwick leaving on Sat the 22nd for two weeks, or £1300 out of Luton, which we couldn't afford.

So yeah - planning.

If you're extra into planning and have good credit, you could book your holiday on your normal card then get an interest free balance transfer card, and put the cost of the holiday on the new interest free card.

Hell even an Italian supermarket is exciting when you're seven

Hell its exiting to me now at 42! also dc love the ferry, plenty of space and other dc to play with, so easy to chuck everything into the car with young dc....with tesco vouchers we have only had to top up ferry cost by £20 and petrol usually cheaper in france etc. Insurance is covered by current account.

If anyone wants cheap UK breaks I would recommend stayplayexplore.co.uk it's £149 for a family of 4/5 for 1 night b+b in 4 star hotel with pool and entry to 3 Midlands attractions like Twycross zoo or national space centre.
Or www.real-family-holidays.org run by field studies council do UK family activity holidays including full board (snacks and drinks too) and a family activity like sailing everyday in lovely places like the lakes or Devon for £30 pppn so £840 7 days for 4, under 3s free and you could do 4 days for £480 etc
We got tents for next to nothing off Facebook selling, it's coming up to the time of year when there's a lot of only used once full camping kit being put on!

astoundedgoat Wed 12-Jul-17 09:18:28

I was trying to do this year for next, when do flights for May go on sale and when would flights for august, and then oct go on sale please.

Good advice on CC BTW but personally for us - we dont use them, we used too and we couldnt pay them off - in our year of austerity we got them down significantly and just live within our means now.

Apart from a day trip to France, DS (7.5) hasn't been on a holiday abroad. We're lucky enough to live in Cornwall, so go camping a lot. His school friends have been all over the place, but he doesn't seem too bothered at the mo.

We're going to Prague at Christmas , which will be done as cheap as poss - budget flights and Air bnb apartment. I've been saving a tenner a week, and selling things on eBay and doing bootsales. No big presents, and we're getting money from family to go towards it.

We also have long term plans to go on a big adventure to South America. It'll take ages to save, but it's something exciting to plan and look forward to. Whether it'll happen or not I don't know. Nice to dream though.

I'm a single parent on a low self employed income. It's just the two of us, and outgoings are pretty low.

I want to go adventuring with my boy and see a bit of the World together.

Myself and OH both work in the industry and between us have a large concession.

I honestly don't know how families do it.

Oh and I don't have a credit card, so it's good old fashioned saving for me!

Argh typed out a big long response on my ipad then I lost it.

Firstly I'll say that we are comfortably off, which definitely makes things a lot easier, but that I hate paying over the odds for things.

Yes booking in advance is definitely the way to go if you're able to. We went to Tenerife at Easter for 3 of us it cost less than £1k, so £400 flights, £500 accommodation and £60 for car hire. Our friends tried to book the same trip a month or so before departure and it was coming out at over £2k for them, so they didn't go.

Sometimes you have to take a gamble. At the minute I've booked our ski flights out for next Easter, but not back as they won't be released until September, but at £110 for 3 of us including luggage, I was prepared to take the risk.

I also look at the currency rates of where we're going, so we'd love to go back to Canada and Orlando, but not going to do that until exchange rates are a lot more favourable.

UK is not cheap - we're staying in UK this summer and the accommodation prices in nice places - shared house in Ludlow and cottage in amazing location in Cornwall - have come to about £2k for two weeks.

Every third year DH and I go on a real treat of a holiday, we have been on a private safari with great hotels, to India etc. We knew we couldn't really afford a holiday like this without making special provision so we each save just over £9 a week ( I gave up magazines and coffee out and always take a picnic if we are going out for the day) and then top up our usual holiday money. I always get comments of "oooh, how can you afford that" but if you save a little bit regularly you get there in the end. Our usual holidays are strictl budgeted and we save money each month out of our income to finance them

We go every year but we are lucky enough to have a motor home but it's still a few thousand for ferry, campsites and spending money.
We both work, rarely go out, only have a few drinks some weekends, rarely have take aways, don't do massive expensive food shops, take our own lunches, don't have expensive clothes, bags etc. Run old cars,.
We are off for 3 weeks on Tuesday and cannot wait. It's all worth it.

Holidays are expensive, abroad and in this country, unless you camp. We earn reasonably well - household income around £60 000, and live quite modestly and even so have to budget carefully for a holiday. We always go with Brittany Ferries to France and book when they have a discount but our summer holiday still costs around £1500, plus spending money. I can quite see how holidays are unaffordable for a lot of people.

You can actually travel abroad very cheaply- and I know plenty of people that do- but that's only if you already have passports.

If you don't, then you're looking at forking out up to £500 for a family before you've even looked at flights.

I'm don't have children so only have to pay for myself, also I never really spend more than £1000 for the holiday total including flights accommodation and spending money.

This years holiday was 5 nights in Ibiza which cost £370 flights and accommodation and £450 spending money.