To wonder how people afford holidays!

[Dreaming34]

I mustn’t be budgeting very well on food etc and me and my DH have a joint income of 75k, we really struggle at the end of every month and we cannot afford to go on holiday! Everything is so expensive really we are really struggling

Have you full insight of all your spending?

If you are in the south east I can well believe you are struggling

Depends where you live, how big your mortgage/rent is, how many dc etc

So many factors but I would suggest looking at your bank/credit card statement and/or keeping receipts - little trips to the supermarket eg for a pastry and takeaways etc was my downfall when I calculated we were spending between us for 2 adults 2 teens £17k on food not including proper restaurants! Absolutely crazy

As pp have pointed out, there are many factors. You could have 11 children who all attend riding lessons, for example.

Really depends on things like your mortgage cost, general bills, how many kids, taste in holidays etc but that being said you probably could budget better and go on holiday with a household income of 75k. It’s by no means on the poverty line.

Mortgage?

"Essentials" that you know you could drop if you lost your jobs ?

Desired holiday cost ?

I think it is your budgeting or you have a very large brood of children. We have gone on holiday every year, even when our income was lower than yours and we live in London with a large mortgage. We have always made holidays a priority.

Childcare? Large mortgage? High end car payments? Pension? Health care?
Nobody knows except you what you are spending on......
I would look at how much holiday you want is inc spending money, divide it over 12 months and see if you can save that put of your current outgoings, but you're not wrong everything is so expensive now.

If you are budgeting well you will know exactly where your money is going.
Whether you can afford a holiday depends on how much is spent on fixed price essentials that can't be changed, how much you can reduce essentials that can be changed, and whether you are prepared to not spend on something else.
With an income of 75K unless you have a huge mortgage I'm sure you can afford a holiday.

We have a ‘holiday fund’ that goes into a separate account when we get paid, so it’s not factored into our spending at all. It’s far too easy to spend if it’s in your bank account.

(this only works if your budget currently has some leeway and you’re overspending on say,
coffees out, treats at the supermarket etc.)

Book your holiday way in advance...at least a year.... and pay monthly. We are doing this with on the beach.

We are the same! Have around the same income as you and not a penny left. We are going away for a couple of weekends this year but that's it.

how Much do you honestly spend on food per week for a family of 4?

Well it depends what you do and where you go. We have a much smaller income than you and 2 DC. Tend to book a gite online in France (seem to be quite cheap) and take the car over on the ferry. Can even take food from home. This would be cheaper I think than a package deal, or even a holiday cottage in the UK in the summer holidays. You just need to think about it a bit more. I'm sure you could at least afford camping if you got a tent?

My mum says we should be rolling in it, I think they forget how expensive children are. It costs £100pm just for activities like gymnastics etc, nursery fees 600, nipping to the bloody park for ice cream…20 quid!

There's your answer then ... other people don't spend so much on activities for their young children and go to the park instead. And they take their own food and have cheap supermarket ice creams in the freezer at home. It's all about where you want to spend your money.

A lot of people live on loans and credits cards. Years ago I worked in Asda and the majority were paying on credit cards for their food so no doubt they buy holidays this way too.

We have a joint income of roughly that - maybe £8-10k more and, honestly, I feel wealthy.
Ie, I get everything for the house from John Lewis, I can go shopping the day before pay day and can drop £200 on clothes if I like, we can eat out as much as we like etc etc - and we save, both jointly and separately.
Our mortgage is £700 a month for context, and council tax is £260. The rest of our bills are average. No debts. We own our cars outright. No gym memberships or other subscriptions (apart from Netflix). We don't have kids.
Do you have much higher outgoings than us?

With petrol prices increasing too I won’t be going very far anymore, I have been walking to the local country park when I am off instead

How do we afford holidays? Planning. Compromise (both everyday and what we have as a holiday), luck, time and saving for it.

When we were in the middle of paying for childcare we saved up newspaper tokens to go away.

As some costs have gone down and our income has increased and we've got on top of debt we've been able to go away.

The luck is that we've managed to get our money back for our 2019 holiday which was deferred due to bereavement, then cancelled due to Covid. We were lucky to get it back and hope to go away this year.

@ImplementingTheDennisSystem about the same really plus £700 for childcare and activities. I can’t afford to go clothes shopping really. It must be the kids, there is always something they need

We pay for our groceries on a Sainsbury's credit card for the nectar points but have literally never not paid it off at the end of the month. Most of my friends do similar - there are various great points deals.

Before I had children I had so much money I didn’t know what to do with it.

I'm going to assume you live in the South and not the North East, like myself. If we had a household income of 75k I'd be rolling around in it😂 I think ours is around 40k joint income and we can afford holidays, activities for the kids, days out and to run a car 😁 move to the North East its great haha!