To think my DH is a miser when it comes to holidays? How much do you spend?

[Pipsquiggle]

We are a relatively high earning household. We earn between £7k and £9k a month net. Have a small mortgage, no debts to pay off, monthly bills but essentially never spend over what we earn (we have saved for so long, we have kept up with this habit)

We both agreed that we needed a foreign holiday where we could relax, so I looked at options for an all inclusive 4/5 stars, pools, kids clubs etc. for 7 days. The quotes I got back were circa £5k to £6k (school holidays, family of 4).

My husband then says 'We can't spend like this every holiday - it will be a 1 off' - which is fair enough, I don't mind camping or hiring a cottage etc.

But then I got thinking - am I taking the mick with this holiday? What do other people spend when they go abroad?

I don't want to start a 'showing off' thread but genuinely How much do you approx earn as a household and how much do you approx spend for a week abroad? This holiday is slightly lower than a month's earnings - is that too much?

Thanks in advance.

We don’t go AI, one of us is teetotal and the other barely drinks. It would piss us off no end to subsidise people intent on “getting their money’s worth” by drinking all day. We go out of school holidays, b+b in a 5* and pay about £2.5 for a week for two of us, we usually spend another £1k while we’re there.

It depends on what I want to do and where we go really. I’m single mum of 3 on £35k and aim for two weeks in Disneyworld every year or two. That’s going to be about £5000-£7000 a time. But we have also been to Cyprus for a week in a 5* AI resort for under £2k and 5 days in France for under £500. I love our Disney trips so i don’t mind paying more but no way I’d spend the same on another holiday

Just to say my brother and his wife went on an Ai holiday once & said not again - yes you get all dinners etc but they prefer going out to a little restaurant etc - they do not pay a fortune for their holiday

I think you do have to spend a bit more to get a decent all inclusive hotel in Europe.

@thetaleunfolds

Tell me where you have been in the school holidays to get a 5* AI in Cyprus for a week for £2k!

Pre-Covid I was the queen of finding bargain flights to Malaysia, thailand, Bali etc on emirates etc during school holidays at prices far cheaper than easyJet we're charging to mainland Spain in august. I'd then be able to book a beach side villa with private pool (& maybe a private chef) and bring the whole holiday in at less £1k per head.

Last august we had a week in Norfolk for £2k which was lovely, however they're now charging £4k for a week this summer.

At that price I think i'll hold out to see if long haul is back on the cards this summer. If not, I'd prefer to dig the tent out the back of the garage then pay that kind of cash for a uk holiday

If I made as much money as you do I wouldn't bat an eyelid at spending £5k+ a year for one fab holiday!

I've just booked a holiday for 2 in dec to the Caribbean and I thought I'd got a bargain at £4k 🤦‍♀️🤣

I don't think you're being unreasonable at all

We've had to halve the holiday budget this year, in anticipation of increased utilities. I take it this is booking expenses? We tend to spend 1k per head per week, with a couple of holidays in the year. We will probably save with less time away for each break. We usually go camping for a week in the summer too, though the prices in the UK have gone up so much i imagine they will be rammed full which takes the edge off.

Household of 6 here (4 kids under 11). We earn about 7k net a month i think.
Our approach is a bit biased as we have to spend some of our holidays with the family which is abroad for both me a d DH. So that means those holidays only cost us the cost of the flights. For long haul that means a out 2.5k, we do that every other year. For the European country that is around £500 usually (i like finding good deals) - we do that once or twice a year. If we go we like to go skiing and that costs a bomb so with flights, skis, rental, car etc it is probably about 4k for a week.thats the max I'd go to for a week tbh. We go every other year but not during school holidays as the flights are ridiculous then. We also try to find in a holiday abroad but not in our respective families. Somewhere warm but not too far for the october holiday. But l don't do all inclusive. Don't like it. Find cheap flights for about £800 max and then good accommodation on booking.com for £500 or thereabout. I suppose when you add it up it probably comes to about £3k for the week. But it's worth it!
So for me yabu but really its up to you what you like and the disposable income you have.

brother and his wife went on an Ai holiday once & said not again

OK, I didn't think anybody on this thread was forcing your brother to go on another one?

I like AI, I don’t drink much alcohol at all. Love the fact me and DC can snack or have a drink without having to think about anything.

I also appreciate that I can go away without having to spend ages researching stuff.

I don’t like driving abroad and tend to walk or catch a bus during the day for trips out, eating in the hotel in the evening.

Those travelling outside school old without kids have clearly got no idea how it affects your budgeting!

@BasiliskStare

Just to say my brother and his wife went on an Ai holiday once & said not again - yes you get all dinners etc but they prefer going out to a little restaurant etc - they do not pay a fortune for their holiday

You can still go out for dinner if staying in an AI hotel, nobody forces you to stay in. Sometimes it’s cheaper to book the AI holiday than the half board.

In fact sometimes it’s cheaper to book the packages holiday than the flights. A friend of mine booked a villa once, the flights were expensive. So she also booked a package holiday going to the same airport as it was cheaper. Just got off the plane, told the rep she wasn’t coming to the hotel and went to the villa! 😁

We earn half what you do and for a one off huge holiday, once spent about £8k.

We earn circa £100k and still don’t spend big on holidays. Camping weekends / U.K. houses near the beach / pre covid one European week abroad SC (would HATE hotels / AI) .

We both travel for work and sometimes link family time onto that too, making some of it claimable / covered by expenses.

I guess on reflection our income has gone up but our £10k/annum behaviours haven’t changed.

I prioritise a really nice holiday - half decent hotel, good room, decent seats on plane (nothing dancing though), money for eating out and excursions. I had no money years ago so being able to do this now is a joy.

Fancy🤣🤣 rather than dancing

If I told you that during our last holiday, kids had a football camp, art classes every day, theatre, cooking classes, went to amusement park and water park, tried paddleboarding and snorkelling, plus had a few trips to see local historical landmarks, I think most people would not turn their noses up. Unless of course I tell you this all happened at an AI resort, then it's suddenly the most boring thing and why don't you just take a tent and trample around the moors in a pouring rain instead for a week?

But AI has to be good. If you have already pre-paid for everything, you don't want to be stuck in some cockroach-infested shack where breakfast consists of a toast and slice of cucumber and only activity offered is morning race to reserve your sunlounger.

So OP, if your DH thinks this is overpriced, tell him to look for better deals himself. Or agree like one previous poster, that one year you get to choose the holiday, one year it's according to his wishes. But from financial perspective it really does not sound like this should be once in a lifetime event and the rest of your holidays should be spent camping, (unless you really love camping)

Doesn't sound like crazy amounts although whether it's value for money would depend on where you're going, the standard of accommodation and food, the faciltiies and what's actually included (booze, expensive activities etc).

Personally, I can spend on holidays but prefer to spend money on experiences and doing things together. Spending huge amounts on hotels isn't really my thing although don't mind splashing out ocassionally. I live in a tropical country with gorgeous beaches and islands but, really, when you've been to one drop-dead tropical island paradise, you've been to them all I'm hankering for some lovely gentle English countryside in the drizzle of a typical summer!

Yes you can leave AI resorts to go to restaurants etc, but as most people don’t they are so detrimental to the local areas that I avoid them on principle.

And a football camp sounds like a waste of being on holiday to me, you could do that at home!

If your DH wants to do self-catering to save money, he can do all the holiday catering. Otherwise it’s not a holiday for you, it’s just cooking in a smaller less familiar kitchen.

A week's holiday for me and my DS is usually at least £3k. But we go and see and do things, eat and drink whatever we like, take ubers and really enjoy it.

When he was little I had less so I spent much less but we did not go camping and if it was self catering I only made breakfast.

I also go away with friends a couple of times during the year which is about £1k each time.

Vacations for me are about getting away from everything and having time and money to do as we wish.

we usually spend about 3k on a holiday but normally go for SC which I prefer. Have looked into AI but cant figure out - if we go to say Spain or Greece are all their kids clubs in English or how does that work?

@MsTSwift

I work with the terminally it’s heart breaking when they are dying and have scrimped and saved and die with thousands in the bank - many are really regretful they didn’t do more with it. I know it’s wrong to be a spendthrift but going too far the other way isnt great either. Worse when they don’t have kids and it’s going to some random nephew and the cats home.

Yeah, but if they had lived they probably would have been really glad of that money if the shit hit the fan later on in life, or when they got older and could a great retirement, or to retire early, or could afford the care they needed when they got old. Its not a sign you made a bad decision because you couldn't fortune tell your early demise.