I’ve got a roof box off free cycle. Husband has gone mad!

[VWCJW]

Every holiday, my husband prides himself on taking hardly anything to a self catering holiday, and gets really stressed by me and my daughter taking a normal amount of clothes. He moans that it all won’t fit in the car and our kids sit with loads of stuff by their feet and piled up between them. This year, we have a long journey through France and our kids are getting taller so I got a roof box and my husband has got really upset and stressed about it. He says he doesn’t want to drill holes in his car and it means we will just take more stuff we don’t need. He was literally shaking about it. I’ve told him we will get rid but I don’t really want to. We have a massive box of footballs in the garage and I am sure they could be stored in the roof box so it won’t take up more room but he just says he hopes we will have less footballs in the future. He’s clearly not thinking properly as our son is really sporty and will probably end up with rugby and basketballs too, once at secondary school. Am I right to think that a roof box is a good thing? I see loads of cars with them. Or is he right and they are just an excuse to take a load of extra crap you don’t need?

I wonder if we'll ever find out how much this freebie ended up costing the OP to get the missing bits required to use it?

Why do people take so much stuff on holiday? We take a small hand luggage sized suitcase each and a cool bag if we’re driving. And when the kids were small we took the buggy as well. Do you really need all of this stuff?

@PaniDomu if you’re camping then you do need a fair amount of stuff especially if kids are involved. My dp often takes his golf stuff if we are holidaying in the uk plus the dog in his portable crate! So you do need extra room! Even if me and dp only take a couple of bits of toiletries and say, 3 outfits each to wash and wear, equipment and walking boots take up room !

if I’m doing an all inclusive or half board hotel holiday in Spain then it’s a few dresses swimsuits and a couple pairs of sandals that’s it same for DD plus some toys and a push chair and bottles/box of formula.

It depends what you're doing for your holiday doesn't it. An all-inclusive in a hot place where you're going to be in your bikini every day then you probably don't need much, but self catering, camping, or any holiday where it's a bit cooler, or you are going to be doing sports or be quite active, then you might need more clothes, coats, shoes, equipment, toys etc. Some kids get their clothes dirtier than others depending on age/activities so need more. Some people might be going away for longer than you are. Also some car boots are deceptively small.

Clearly by "drill holes in the car" he's a complete idiot whose opinion should be disregarded.

Agree with this. We’ve just had a week holiday. We only had a small bag each for clothes. But there are six of us so that’s already six bags. Then a bag of walking boots/spare shoes, a bag of coats, beach towels, bodyboards, buckets and spades, a few indoor and outdoor toys and games, a few books, snacks and drinks for the journey…

when we’re camping and need to add in bedding, cooking stuff, tent etc it’s a whole heap of stuff!

Shaking over a roof box? Very odd indeed!

We have a roof box, I can't bear piling bags around us in the car (large dog takes up most of the boot). Although as soon as we've got home from holiday my husband removes it as it doesn't help the fuel consumption.

When we replaced our garage wee we'd bought a new large plastic dustbin with lid to store all the footballs in. Could you do that?