Family holiday. How should the costs be split?

[Sallyrush]

3 families looking to hire a Villa. (Siblings. Not sure if relevant or not)
2 families are 2 adults and 2 kids, other family is 1 adult, 2 kids.
Families 1 & 2 (2 adults, 2 kids each) think Villa should be split per family.
Family 3 (1 adult, 2 kids) thinks the cost should be split per person, their reason being they have 1 salary to pay for the holiday, other families have 2 - all adults work full time.
Families 1 & 2 feel they all use same facilities so it’s per family.
Family 3 would also like to split costs like food per person but other families think this is petty.
who is right?
YANBU. Families 1 & 2 are correct. Split per family
YABU Family 3 is correct. Cost split per person

Assuming that families 1&2 have dusk incomes, I'd have the single parent pay less. It's only fair.

Being a single parent must be hard enough without having to bear the costs of two people on one wage.

Duck? Dual

This 💯

Not just food, but alcohol may come into this too which is a significant additional expense for some groups, so should be split per adult.

the smaller family is also likely only paying for three flights so proportionally it is correct.

I am of course, surmising that it’s a foreign villa holiday you’re all flying to where copious amounts of alcohol are consumed as that is my go to holiday!

On the villa I'd split per family but then knock bit off family 3 and give it to 1 and 2.

So £3000 -> £920, 1040, 1040 kind of thing.

For food split per person, children count less, but it depends on ages. Under 2 free, Under 12 charge 0.5 people, over 12 charge 1 person. Separate booze.

Not sure why people keep saying split accomodation costs per room.

There are 7 rooms.

Each family probably only needs 2 rooms (1 for parents, 1 for kids). Even Family 3 will need 1 room for single parent and 1 room for their kids.

The 7th room seems superfluous.

OP, how is food being paid for? Will each family do a grocery shop or will there be a kitty that everyone will pay into? How old are the children?

And I bet one of Families 1 or 2 will ‘bags’ the 7th room ‘because Trevor snores’.

The fairest way is split per person. We’ve taken single family members on holiday with us, we pay the majority of the cost as there’s more of us. We also have given the best room to my single Aunt who came with us a few years, just seeing her face made it worthwhile. We now take my brother who cannot afford to holiday alone, I wouldn’t dream of asking him for half the cost, he wouldn’t be able to afford it.

I think families 1 and 2 are being quite cruel towards their sibling.

Im married and my sister is single and in these kind of situations I would never expect her to pay equal costs to what me and DH would. We would pay two thirds and she’d pay a third.

Families 1 and 2 need to have a good look at themselves I think.

If you forget how many bedrooms this particular villa has and look at what's needed, unless family 3 would otherwise share 1 bedroom they have the same bedroom needs as family 1 & 2 so I would split accommodation costs in thirds. Food wise it should be per person but I do think age or other dietary factors should be considered. There's a world of difference in what a small child and a teen eat and the same for particular dietary issues. The people who screen petty tend to have the most to gain.

The single parent is getting a whole room to themselves, whereas the couples are having to share.

As seen above theee are millions of ways to calculate or work it out. If I was involved, I'd make sure my sibling wasn't out of pocket as best I could. They must need to raise this obviously, it's a necessity in a one income household.

Think of it like this.

If husband and husband go for drinks with a single friend, does the single person buy alternate rounds of drinks!? No.! The husbands should buy two rounds, then the single buys one. Then back to husbands two rounds, single one.

Age of kids? On our shared hols where we have single parent family who go we split the cost amongst adults. That covers rooms needed.
we pay 2 shares as were 2 adults with 2 kids, .for food etc we split per adult. Age is relevant for bills - the kids are all under 13 so don’t eat like adults or drink alcohol which is a big part of the bill obvs

Accommodation split by rooms used per family.

Food per person.

😁

I was having similar thoughts. My only sibling doesn't have kids, but I imagined a holiday with the in-laws and I struggle spending an afternoon with one lot and their kids, never mind a whole holiday!

Villa split equally as rooms/facilities approx the same.

Meals/food split per person, as the smaller family shouldn’t be subsidising the bigger two. Unless, as a PP pointed out there’s an imbalance of teens vs younger ones.

I’m not sure why you keep saying about the rooms and no other detail.

Interested to know what family you’re part of, at this point you have a fair amount of feedback.

Accommodation should be split by rooms but food should definitely be split per person

I think the fairest way is to look at what it is actually costing, so villa split equally between families if getting to use the same number of similar size rooms each, but food split per person (maybe counting kids as half if they aren't teenagers). That's also a compromise between the two different suggestions on the post so also seems most diplomatic.

I think families 1 and 2 are being very unfair to expect everything to be equal between families when they know there are more people in their families - I get it if they were just trying to keep things simple and didn't think anyone was bothered, but once family 3 have objected how can they continue to dig their heels in when it is clear there are more of them so family 3 would be subsidizing them? It would be like continuing to insist on a restaurant bill being split equally after someone pointed out they had no alcohol and less courses. I'm not sure how they justify that to themselves?

Even going with the suggestion of just rooms being split equally between families the 2 parent families are getting a good deal as they will take up more space in communal room, bathroom times etc, but I get that's hard to account for. But I really can't see the justification of food being split by family unless the single parent family have said they don't mind to keep it simple, which they obviously haven't.

Accommodation split three ways.
Food and drink split by person.

No way would I expect family 3 to pay the same as family 1 and 2 for food and drink.

Even this approach, if I was in family 1 or 2, would offer / insist to pay more for accommodation than a family 3 (round up/ down).

What a delightful way to start a holiday 😬

Presumably the single parent isn't in any of these situations as they've actually indicated that the money is an issue. If they could happily absorb the extra cost then they wouldn't have brought it up.
OP has also said the other families have two incomes so no SAHP. In this particular situation they should pay per person.

I’m still interested in Bedroom 7.

Who gets that? Because someone will nab it, and I doubt it’ll be the single parent.

Bloody hell!

A whole room to herself….well that totally makes up for the fact that she’s a single mother trying to cope in a COL crisis with possible little support from the childrens’ father.

She’s so lucky to be single….I bet she’s secretly laughing at her married siblings and their two incomes households as she’s thinking how much better she has it because they have to share a room and she doesn’t.

I hope you wouldn’t say something so offensive to someone who’d just been widowed.

I don't understand why people are basing on bedrooms.

Is the entire holiday going to be spent in the bedroom? Are both adults in the 2 parent families not using the communal spaces? Are both adults taking up only one spot on the sofa, is only one dining chair needed for both of them, etc?

OK. So I am family 3.

When I suggested cost per adult (like other posters have said we all have 2 kids so I was ignoring them!) this was a definite no, mainly based on each family having ‘2’ rooms and us all using the same facilities.

I agreed about the faculties but pointed out the villa we are looking at has 7 bedrooms so is irrelevant but I am more than happy to look for alternatives and share with my kids (if we go on holiday we always share one room) however this is the Villa everyone else seems to want.

So I suggested per person as that is, IMO, fair. If the boot was on the other foot and my siblings were the single parents I would never expect them to pay the same as the people with 2 salaries.

They are sticking to their guns and the implication is I am being difficult and petty.
my sisters words were ‘we can’t be having this every time we book something. It puts a damper on it already’ to which I responded ‘which is why I’m trying to sort this out now for things in the future’.

When I said I wanted to split food costs she said it was ridiculous and my son eats more fruit so should she be paying the same and if this is the route we are going down then she’s not interested in going. My son is 8. Hers is 14.

I feel very hurt and as some people have said ‘ganged up on’. My kids will be so upset if I say I’m not going and worry it will cause a rift in the long term.

We lost our mum and step dad in the past couple of years so they are the only family I have.

Accommodation by rooms used per family.
Food divided by head but obviously if some are teens and some toddlers then this needs to be factored in.
If the two earner families are better off it would be nice for them to help out the single parent sibling with some of the costs.
Budgets for these sort of trips should be dictated by the poorest family.

I would have assumed that one of the children might want or need more privacy/quiet and would nab it - if more than one of the children were in that position, they might take turns. So that could well be the single parent's children.