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?

But the OP hasn't said what her other costs are, eg mortgage, commuting, childcare.

Also, just because you technically have the free money available to pay for something, it doesn't mean that you think it's good value or a good use of that amount of money out of your budget.

£4-6k is a lot of money. So unless you literally have more money than you know what to do with, it's natural to question whether spending money, especially the huge sum that a 'family holiday in the Med in the summer' costs, is worth the expense.

@ASCCM - it’s still a holiday. A holiday isn’t just food related. Your still in a new area, usually hot climate, no work, day to day activities.
We have holiday rental attached to our home. Most guests in summer are families of 4. Most seem to Eat breakfast at house on terrace, eat lunch out wherever they have gone for the day, then a mixture of bbq, cook in house or eat out in evenings.

Top (very obvious) tip: go in term time! We're doing the exact same trip to gorgeous family luxury hotel in Croatia as we did last summer (for four people for five nights) this October and the price difference is bonkers - cost £4000 for flights and full board last summer and this Oct will be approx £1500 for the same. It's a no brainer for me (for multilayered reasons I don't have time to elaborate on now) that it's worth taking kids out of primary school for shortish term time holidays.

I think it depends on your attitude to it.

For us, self catering involves very little cooking - cereal or pastries for breakfast, things like cheese/salad/quiche for dinner and eating out for lunch. It's really just putting a few plates and cups in the dishwasher and really doesn't ruin the holiday for me.

On the other hand, having to share one hotel room with the kids is an absolute no for me. I know you can get suites in resorts but it makes it super expensive and unless you pay a lot more, you don't get anything like the space you can get in a villa/apartment

We're tied to the school hols too. We afford it by getting cheap easyjet flights as soon as they come out (refuse to pay more than £150 pp for the 3 of us) then booking cheap airbnb's with a kitchen so we can cook most of our meals (not more than £100 a night) and then get around by bus/train/walking. We have between 5 and 7 hols a year this way (a couple of them short breaks for just a few nights). We then mostly buy ice creams cheaply from the local supermarket (although they still can be a bit more expensive then they are here).

Our top 3 evening meals that we tend do to abroad are either pizza, filled tortellini in passata with some cheese on top or bacon/pork with noodles/microwave rice and tinned sweetcorn. For lunch we have sandwiches and crisps, and for breakfasts it's either pastries or muslei and banana with yoghurt.

Holidays are a big priority for me though.

France in a eurocamp chalet? European center parks or alternatives in holland (look at little clogs holidays). Good cheaper ideas for a summer break.
Alternatively easter falls funny this year and you can get away with taking the kids out for half the week either sides of it. So maybe less of a fine or less chance if one ( our school inly fines if you take out the whole week).

When DCs were still children we loved eurocamp holidays. Mobilehomes are really chalets. The standard of them has gone up year by year. Aircon and a deck is very normal.

We have always driven ourselves on holiday. 3 DCs made flying prohibitively expensive but we also like having our own car for trips out.

Campsite life is great with children. Campsites are family friendly, large pools, playgrounds. Having space round the accommodation means DCs can play with their toys without bothering other people.

Self catering meant we could be relaxed about meals: breakfast of bread, croissants etc on the deck in PJs. Simple lunches and dinners from the local supermarket. Occasional takeaways or meals in the campsite restaurant.

Having our own car meant lots of sightseeing. We would do a half day trip out to a castle or market then back home for lunch and pool in the afternoon.

We got 7 days in Lake Garda this year half board.

We don't do longer than a week or AI unless it's long haul.

Maybe a solution for you is to have an expensive holiday every other year and a cheap holiday in the inbetween years.

You can only afford what you can afford.

We’ve used cyprusparadise a few times now for holidays during May half term - cheaper than the other main companies and the AI holiday (stayed in same place each time) can’t be faulted. We’ve always flown out a few days before the half term so it’s cheaper and not enough school absences to get fined.

Ive never known how people afford hotels and all inclusive

We book an airbnb and flights.

Or book an airbnb in the UK for the week

Why not save the money then book a last minute deal

This is what we do.

We are a fairly low income family - dh on just above min wage full time, Ds and I have disabilities so get full / highest rates of disability benefit and top off with tax credits etc. I can’t work due to my own disabilities and caring for Ds. We have a really lovely 4/5 star holiday abroad every other year and then the years in between we go to Haven for a week.

Might help if I added the price!

We got 7 days in Lake Garda this year half board. £3.5k

How and where you book makes a big difference! There always seems to be lots of good deals to resorts in Turkey.

I have also found some really good offers on the LoveHolidays website with the added bonus that you just pay a deposit and can log in and pay bits off the balance throughout the year.

Book a cottage with a pool in France. You could get something nice for 1500 plus flights or ferry plus car.

I go on Skyscanner and search for whole of August to anywhere and find the cheapest flights. This year we are going to Nantes in France as flights were £50 each.

I then look for self catering accommodation in the area. We like campsites but not tents. We book the poshest mobile homes which are lovely and about £1000-£1500 for a week.

Can usually get a nice Airbnb type property for less than that.

Package deals are horrendous in the summer hols. We couldn't afford one.

£300 a month is reasonable - I save £350 and manage. Next year I have booked an air BnB in lake Garda for a week over may half term, cost us £1300 and flights will be about £800.

Prices have gone up massively in the past year - in early 2022 we booked a summer holiday in the canaries for less than £1000 self catering (Inc flights and transfers) but it's around double this year.

To keep costs down.......look at booking flights and hotel separate, and look at where you can fly to cheaply first. Main cities like Barcelona are often good value with lots of flights to choose from. Also look at the days you fly - mid week is often cheaper than weekends. Do you need a hotel? Air BnB can be lots cheaper (my introverted kids prefer not being in a hotel). Look at reducing your search to 7 days instead of 10. Is all inclusive worth it? If you drink a lot it often is, but self catering can work out good if you don't and are willing to make breakfast, lunch and sometimes a dinner. Also consider not flying - some cruises from Southampton aren't too bad cost wise (and are all inclusive food), or look at France and drive. We got an air BnB caravan in Brittany for two weeks and drove, cost us less than £1000 for the fortnight but that was a few years ago.

Hotel Holidays with young kids are grim unless you’ve got a connecting room. Who wants to all sleep in the same room?? I did an all inclusive holiday once as a single mum, with a 6 and 7 year old, we were all in the same room. I felt like I couldn’t get a moments peace to myself at any point. That’s where apartments/villas come into their own. A space where you can sit without the kids and decompress at the end of each day.

I’m sure it’ll be fine if you’ve travelled plenty of times with them and nothing goes wrong - for us, we had to fight for our money back after we’d booked a ‘package’ AKA not a package and they left us high & dry, cancelling flights that we had no protection over. ABTA couldn’t help us as they’d been booted out in May 2020. Long boring story but only got our money back because I relentlessly emailed their CEO weekly and shouted my head off on their social media at every opportunity. Threatened them with small claims court and they then coughed up.

Hope your holiday goes smoothly😎😎😎, every co has to issue an ATOL cert, but it’s not the same as ABTA protection.

We’ve paid £3500 for a week bed and breakfast in a five star hotel. However, that was with a room upgrade to a two bed suite. A standard room (which sleeps four) was £2500. My kids are not early risers so we have a big breakfast around 10-10.30 am, just a snack in the day and then go out for dinner. DH and I don’t drink much either so we don’t find all inclusive to be cost effective.

Good luck with it OP.

if you do book with BA holidays, don’t pay for their airport transfers though - way overpriced. I use a company like sun-transfers to pre book our private taxis’s - always reliable and very good prices. Your car/people carrier will be waiting at arrivals. Cala D’or is about 45 mins from airport (but much longer in a Tui bus transfer cos of hanging around for other passengers, multiple drop off etc.

let me know how it goes, I LOVE a good holiday planning chat😁✈️😎

Is the fine the same amount each time?

Going during the summer holidays is going to be the thing that drives most of the cost.

We've looked at Greece for next year - all inclusive, 4 star resort with its own private beach, 8 of us in total (4 adults, 3 kids and 1 infant) - during the summer holidays -£8k. During term time, £3k.

This is one of those situations where it's cheaper to pay the school fine and take them during term time.

We pay for everything on the Virgin credit card and pay it off on full every month. Then every few years we have enough points for free flights (plus tax).