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

I find it the other way round … that meat from Lidl is far tastier ! 🤷‍♀️

I’m in the NE, joint income 2/3 of yours and we have multiple holidays a year. We don’t spend £3 on 5 strawberries or £20 on ice cream (his many people had an ice cream for £20?) as we prioritise holiday savings. Nor do my children do extensive activities. It’s all about priorities, you need to make holidays yours if that’s what you want to achieve and sacrifice other spending.

But Innocent smoothies are special. They are made by the light of the moon, to the sound of shepherds playing pan pipes as the individual fruit pieces on rhe ingredient list are dropped into a mixing bowl one by one, by the bare hands of a local farmer.

Where the OP actually lives. She's in Manchester where it's pretty decent, albeit there are a few areas where that wouldn't go far.

A lot if the differences are to do with the amount of debt being serviced. There are mortgage differences…..lots of people are mortgaged to the hilt and don’t have anything left. It’s fair enough if that was necessary to get a property, but less understandable if people have gone do bigger houses than they needed and consequently can’t afford anything else at all in life. And then there’s the car finance that seems to take £500 a month for people with 2 cars….and that take as necessary, unavoidable and an assumed and ongoing cost of life. If that’s £6k per year and it happens for 20 years, even without inflation, that’s £120k gone on cars. The alternative of buying perhaps 6 cars (3 each) to last 6-7 years each at £7k each for a 4 year okd car, could be £42k and a saving of almost £80k. That £80k is a lot of holidays, a bigger house, school fees, retiring 3 years earlier etc etc. But people only think about the monthly cost and affordability not the long term picture.

OP
Our budget is roughly £10k more than yours and we struggle. High mortgage for a bloody small house, high outgoings increasing bills. Dc have one extra curriculum activity each. We have enough spare for school trips, pocket money, days out (within reason), unexpected cost etc.

I am not willing to live on beans and toast all year round in order to pay for a one week family holiday to Europe or 3 long haul holiday at a push. We cannot even envisage luxury 5 holidays to Florida/Caribbean/Thailand.

For what it is worth:
Shop at Lidl
Take lunch to work daily
Do not buy magazines
Dye my own hair
Shave my own legs
Do not buy coffees or snacks out - unless meeting friends
Polish my own nails
Take lunch to parks and beaches
Buy non leather shoes
Do not spend more than £30 on each item of clothing

The cost of living has greatly increased.

Household income in London is still
Of order 30 to 40 k on average? Op is above average even if she was in London

Unless your mortgage is £3k a month then you’re over spending.
I know many families who are on half of what you are on and can afford holidays.
Most of them don’t do certain things and choose to spend that money on holidays instead.

I also know many people who struggle to afford holidays but that’s because they’re on a lot less.

I think if you started simply tracking what you spend you’d be surprised how much you save.

Well, at that level of earnings, its mostly about choices. You chose to prioritise more expensive food. That's fine - but means you can't spend that money twice to also get a good holiday. Others choose to prioritise holidays and eat very cheaply. Some will prioritise something else entirely, like an expensive hobby or whatever. There is no right and wrong, just differences, but it's daft to whinge about not being able to afford stuff when you know you're shopping without any real thought/budget.

You have £X, how you choose to spend it is at least in part up to you!

It's understandable and good that your priority is good quality food. But could you do this a little differently? For example buy meat from the butcher instead which is high quality and can be cheaper. You can also buy less mainstream and popular cuts there.

Then you can head to Aldi or LIDL for the rest. Their veg is better quality than Tesco in my opinion.

Things like Innocent smoothies are a huge luxury. Could you make smoothies with frozen fruit from Aldi instead and maybe have an Innocent one less often? Yoghurts etc as well, you really don't need to buy brands.

I'd recommend watching Eat Well for Less for tips.

Yeah frozen berries are a big saver for anything where the texture doesn't matter. Cooked or blended basically.

How much is your mortgage?
You must have been living close to your limit if you are struggling now ie you didn't have much of a buffer.

@WombatChocolate so, so true!

Our mortgage/council tax/water/electricity/gas and commuting eat up most of our wages so we don't have holidays except going to stay with in laws for the odd week here and there on the coast.

There's no doubt it's pricey. If I didn't have savings from an inheritence, holidays would be a problem and we also have a good size household income. We're doing a not-luxury-at-all airbnb and budget airline holiday in a relatively inexpensive country (fortunately flying with Jet2, so it shouldn't be cancelled) and with the car, flights and accommodation it's going to cost us over £3k for 10 days.

How. Much in savings do you have Op? Are you living hand-to-mouth each month?

If so, this is where some of your difficulties lie.

The solution, which won’t provide a holiday immediately and will make things tighter in the short term, but give you more financial stability and choices for things like holidays longer term, involves building up some kind of buffer/savings.

If you cut that supermarket bill by £150-200 per month and reduce the £20 spend on a round of ice creams to instead a box for £2.50 from the supermarket, and are more savvy with your bills and shop around, you could put aside perhaps £5k or more per year. Aim to get to £10k or £15k. You can then afford a holiday from savings, plus have savings for replacing one of your cars outright at the end of a lease, meaning the monthly payments vanish. This will allow even more savings and accumulation. This will allow even more holidays and other things you’d like and accumulation for future. Keep cutting out things you pay for monthly, if they incur extra charges for that payment type. Keep the mobile that is out of contract and go SIM only. Pay for insurances yearly if it’s cheaper. Each of these means less going out monthky and draining your cash and giving you just that bit more to save so you BOTH have the funds to pay for items as needed AND have more left over for holidays, upgrading to bigger house or whatever. The money can go for things that really matter and benefit your family, rather than £20 on a round of ice creams - fine occasionally on holiday, but not a weekly thing.

DP and myself earn £60k jointly - we were the same as you. We spent a couple of days going through literally every outgoing and got rid of what we can. Sky, phone contracts that type of thing.
We both get paid monthly and when we are paid we go through everything we have to pay out, whatever is left is split into weekly spends and we go through our account every week to make sure we stay on top of it. Say for instance we have £300pw every little thing we spend we make a note of so we don't go over that £300. Whatever is left we put in savings
It's tedious and boring, but an absolute necessity to stay on top of our finances
2.5 years of doing this we are now out of debt and no longer need to use our overdraft- but we are not stupid enough to think we are out of the woods with coat of living rises etc,

And for holidays…we book far in advance = more choice, lower prices usually. We research and find out what usual prices are, what’s cheap and expensive and little ways to save. For UK cottages which can now be £1500 for a family of 4 in peak times, we can get the price down by going just 1 mike or 2 miles out of the very popular area, looking at websites where you book direct with owner. Another way to get holidays abroad cheaper is to look at 6 nights instead of 7, again to research slightly less popular resorts or accommodation a little bit of of the centre of key resorts. However, it’s going to cost and the key isn’t so much the cost as the having money out aside for holidays so it is affordable.

When I was younger and money was tighter, I’d save £75 monthly all year for my holidays in the summer. I always maintained a savings buffer if at least £5k. Then I’d be willing to spend as needed up to £1k on non essentials (ie holiday) and whatever was needed on essentials - ie new boiler. No further spends on non-essentials were possible until the non-essential spending had been replaced.

Holidays are important. Something to look forward to, family time and memories. Camping can be as good as expensive holidays. 3 days away staying in the Premier Inn and sight seeing can be good with older kids.

Clearly many people at the moment can’t afford a holiday. Absolutely buying food and paying energy bills is the priority and lots of people are struggling with those whilst budgeting hard. It’s a shame though if your income is decent and £75k is decent to not be able to manage the income to allow even a camping holiday. Choices can be adjusted so that it’s possible.

It’s some combination of:

1. They earn more than you;
2. They spend less than you;
3. They’ve had a windfall/inheritance;
4. They’re living on credit

I wouldn’t recommend 4, 3 either happens or it doesn’t, you may or may not be able to do something about 1. 2 is within your control, at least it is unless you are completely on your uppers. So stop with the £20 on ice creams at the park (can’t you get one for less than a fiver, in Manchester? Adults go without, maybe) and start caring about what you spend in the supermarket, for starters.

It's surprising what you can save by keeping an eye on the little things. We have a holiday every year but it is by no means exotic or 5*. We also have a little buffer if things go wrong, but it's taken us a while to get there and was not easy in thrle early days - it is entirely doable though, you just have to be honest and strict with yourself and be able to cut the "luxuries".

You are buying a longlife product, it has negligible nutritional value. You are paying primarily for the marketing not the product. You could make something far healthier for less money.

But it is your money.

Re. Smoothies. Drinking a smoothie with the whole fruit thrown in (ie containing all the fibre and other stuff, not just “juice”) is of course just as nutritious as eating that same fruit. They’re literally the same thing.

However - store bought smoothies are NOT as nutritious as making one at home yourself, as the vitamins content starts to diminish rapidly after storing. You need to drink it straight away.

Secondly, if your downing, say, 750ml worth of innocent smoothie a day that’s too much fruit for a healthy diet. 20 strawberries + 30 grapes + 2 bananas + 20 blackcurrants + an apple is too much fruit for one person in one day.

Far better to make your own and mix some veg in with fruit as well.

We will also be £600 pm better off next September

It’s like paying 2 mortgages

Hi OP, our household income is similar to yours (a bit less). The only way that I’ve found we can budget for extras like holidays is having different bank accounts and direct debits that go out as soon as we’re both paid. So, we have accounts for food (£700 pm), children/family activities (£500 pm), Christmas (£70 pm), holiday fund (£200), mortgage/bills and savings accounts. This works for us. £200 pm doesn’t cover fancy, expensive holidays but we get a couple of camping trips, a couple of weekend breaks and a week/10 days in a eurocamp type place (for this, we go at the very end of the school holidays when the costs are about a third of the price as many kids in european countries have gone back to school) We are a family of 5.