How do people afford holidays?

[OneHornedFlyingPurplePeopleEater]

We usually book a UK holiday, cheap and cheerful.

We're now in a position to save approx £300/month towards a holiday. I thought that was great, it's the bulk of our savings each month.

I recognise that we're in a very fortunate position, and I thought this would get us our first abroad holiday.

I'm looking at 10 nights all inclusive at a nice (but not luxury) hotel in Europe. Shit flights, they all are. And school holidays, so paying a premium. And its coming in at £4-6k.

Is this crazy or has it always been like this? How are people affording this?
That doesn't even include any spending money, or any clothes or suitcases (we wouldn't need much - and can borrow suitcases).

It's really got me down. Am I doing something wrong?? Looking in the wrong places (tui, on the beach, jet2holidays etc)? Is it much cheaper if I booked closer to the time?

Book self catered accommodation and flights separately. Can then choose to eta out or eat on sometimes.
Around us (south Europe), you can easily get a nice 2 bed holiday rental with outside space for €1200-1500 for the week.

Car hire €200 for week and flights €120 each ( that’s what my in laws just paid last month to fly out next week).

So say €800-€1000 for 4 people flights/ car hire to allow for different dates. Dh had a return flight this year for €60, so bargains can be had

You can expect to pay £1k per person at least for a week in Europe. I would always choose an all inclusive with the kids so they can eat or not eat and drink or not drink whatever they like without us facing bankruptcy.

We could never afford 10 nights as there are 6 of us. Look for offers with free child places.

I wouldn’t take even primary age kids out of school tbh, but that’s just my personal view.

My dd attendance was 100% and we still got fined £60 each when we took her out for 5 days week before ht

Yes we paid it as saves us loads but saying don't get fined due to good attendance is wrong

Eurocamp isn't all tents OP. They have lodges and static caravans too and a lot of their sites have great facilities. Take a look:

@Ugzbugz we always go easy jet as usually cheaper flights but do it via their app

Is booking.com cheaper then their app

Airbnb, self-catering. We don't really do hotels.

Also @OneHornedFlyingPurplePeopleEater it depends on how much of an actual holiday you want? Because I’m shocked the amount of people on this thread who like a self catering / villa holiday ( don’t get me started on camping!) These are not holidays imo as I’d be the one making breakfasts and cleaning up after everyone and it would basically like being at home but somewhere less convenient!! When I’m on holiday I’m literally on strike and I need a hotel to be delivering everything on my behalf!

We earn significantly less than you but different area of the country and no nursery fees now. Family of 4. We holiday abroad every year all inclusive but we book very early as soon as the following years deals out, this means we usually get about 15 months to pay it off this also usually gives a good range of free child places (although be careful sometimes these aren’t the best deals) we also try to look for 9/10/11 nights.

We tend to have a broad spectrum of where we want to go eg I will select canaries, all of Greece, turkey and then filter down to 4* + and inclusive and then sort by lowest to highest. I then literally just plow through hotel photos and reviews to shortlist a few and then husband gets involved 😂 and we go with whichever we like the best.

I think your budget of £300 a month is realistic for school holidays (following the above method) if you’re willing to go June/ September you will get a lot more for your money.

Honestly? We don't have school age kids so tend to go in June/early July.

There are other things you can do to keep the cost down even if you are tied to the school holidays.

Why ten days? 5 or 7 days will be cheaper and plenty long enough.

We never book packages, let alone AI. Book your own train or flights and you can choose cheap flights or ones to less popular airports. We have active holidays so usually just book a basic hotel or apartment. Eating out is a big part of our holidays so we tend to priotise is but it can be easy to eat fairly cheaply - small local cafes for breakfast or get pastries from a local bakery. Lunch picnic bits from markets or sanswiches from bakeries. For dinner eat out at a local restaurant or if you have a SC aparment get some nice bits from the local markets- French markets are great for ready made quices and tarts depending on the area.

If self catering, I wouldn’t eat out 3 times a day. When self catering, I would fill the fridge and freezer up with drinks and ice creams and get breakfast in. Usually a small supermarket close by that can pop to in the morning and get fresh bread/pastries/croissants etc for breakfast. Lunch can be rolls/fresh bread and fillings of your choice, meats/cheese/salads etc. head out in the evening for dinner. Or go out for lunch some days and one or two evenings, maybe bbq or grab a take out. If kids are young that can work out well not having to drag them out every evening. It’s not hard work, you don’t have to cook fancy meals. Personally I’d rather do that option than a budget all inclusive, where the food will be of poor quality. I can’t stand them. Only way i like all inclusive is in very luxurious resorts and the reality is I can’t afford that very often. But even then I get a bit stir crazy

This is what we do too. Have another look at Jet2holidays. Their flight times are usually pretty good, it's one of their USPs. Often you can fly out at 7/8 am which does have a bit of an early start, but not horrendous, but the pay off is that you can have lunch when you get there and be on the beach in the afternoon.

You might get a free child place which will help with the cost. Search as wide a number of destinations as possible, be flexible with length of stay (many places you can go for any number of nights, so maybe choose 8/9 nights and see what it does to the cost) and dates. Fly midweek, it's cheaper than the weekend. Filter for trip advisor rating of 4 and above and for self catering or possibly B&B and sort by price and start with the cheapest and work upwards. Look for an apart hotel with a kitchenette so you can store drinks, ice creams etc and prepare simple meals. Check the location on Google maps to make sure there's a decent convenience store/supermarket nearby and you can walk to the beach, restaurants etc.

I'm sure you'll find something lovely within budget and have a lovely holiday.

Or do the same with Easyjet Holidays if the airports suit you better.

Yes you are doing something wrong. It is jog necessary to spend anywhere near that much

We go to France a lot and if we have a holiday apartment we might eat at home a couple of nights. We won't "cook" as such. French market halls are great and you can usually get very decent cold meats, cheeses, ready made quiches or pies, salads etc..

That said we will eat out most days as we enjoy it (and don't have picky children to worry about)

We organise and plan everything ourselves including food, excursions and transfers.

I think if you want the kind of holiday where you don't need to lift a finger and people arrange everything/bring stuff to you all the time - then you will pay more.

No criticism - just different strokes for different folks.

ultimately is how you spend on your reglar days. We only buy food on rollbacks/clubcard prices, rarely eat out, no expensive hobbies but to travel

Try 7 nights. Or do it all separately. I use sky scanner to get the best flight deals and then match up with a hotel. I usually try and pick no further than 25km from airport so I can just jump in a taxi. Holidays are expensive. It's what you're willing to spend your money on I guess. Self catering is an option- I think you may be overthinking it. You don't have to pay it off all in one go

In the past I would have said to book separately but Covid and wildfires have made the protections offered by a package worthwhile.

Yeah, it's got a lot more attractive over the last few years.

I'm not against taking children out of school for holidays by any means, we have done it multiple times as can't afford not to, however this information is not accurate for our school...the headteacher decides whether to forward to the LA based on school attendance policy, which is 5 sessions i think, so 3.5 days.My DD's attendance is fine in general.We have holidayed in term time twice in the last year, since DD has been compulsory school age....we got fined once at Xmas, the last time was early July and we haven't been fined yet, but might be come September, not sure.

Another one who would recommend self catering and jet2.

We went to Kefalonia for a week at the beginning of the hols. 3 of us. 7 days. £1200.

Pool, beaches nearby.

I would suggest reducing the number of nights to 7 for a start. I would always go for a shorter holiday but more luxury. Either way, I don't think k you're going to get nice AI for 3k. Have you considered a villa with a pool in a nice resort. You can probably get a better deal doing this.

We always go self catering abroad and always have. We tend to eat out most meals except lunch which is small and had on the balcony. My husbands bonuses pay for our holidays really. We are in the north, so I expect living costs are slightly lower but house prices (and mortgages) are higher than average in our area and we run two cars, so I can’t see that we have much cheaper living costs. Our combined income is £125k though and I’m part time. I honestly think holidays are a luxury and if you want to go abroad then you may need to be creative and look past AI.

I must admit I was thinking the same!
We can't afford to go abroad, but we only have a current joint I come of 42k! 🙈

The other thing to remember is that a 'package holiday' is not the same as 'All Inclusive with loud people who lay around the pool all day getting pissed interspersed with fighting over chips at the buffet' that some people seem to assume.

It's just a way of booking accommodation, transfer and flights all together, which gives extra legal protection and often costs less than booking everything separately.

You can book a naice villa as a package, or you can book the cheap and cheerful AI hotel separately to your flight. So it's often worth exploring all options in the quest to find what you want at the best price.

Take the kids out of school and you'll knock a third off straight away.

If you really don't want to do that, then maybe drop down to 7 days

I can think of nothing more stressful than having to get children up and dressed in the morning to have a hotel breakfast , or worse having to share a bedroom or worry that the baby is disturbing everyone or not being able to have privacy if you or a dc is having an off day and just wants to tantrum and watch tv ! Or worse having to deal with other peoples children !

I am quite fussy with accommodation , must have aircon, washing machine and preferably dishwasher . For all his workaholic tendencies dh has always been great at making sure I don’t do everything on holiday, we only do washing in extremis, live outside so no cleaning other than surface wiping, he does most of cooking with the dc and the dc love a trip to the local supermarket and choosing what to barbecue or which odd shaped rolls for lunch .

Generally we eat and live simply on holiday, our lives are quite complicated IRL so if people don’t get up until late or eat at weird times that’s fine by us. But I completely get it’s not for everyone .

Indeed. It pays to take to time to work out the best value combinations of travel and accomodation. As we are out and about people we tend to save money on accomodation (as long as it is clean, walkable from civilisation and had an ensuite bathroom I am good)

I would say instead of thinking about just buying a holiday, start with where you want to go and how long for, then work out how you can afford to do it.