How the fuck can people afford to go on holiday?

[Figuringitout]

I’m wondering if I am just super naive about how much everything costs. I earn an okish amount, have a small mortgage and don’t feel like we live extravagantly. I have 3 kids who I’d like to take on holiday. My husband earns seasonally (and is trying to increase that) but at the moment his main contribution to our budget is in looking after kids so we don’t have to pay for childcare.
Back to holidays, I cannot find anything somewhere hot for less that £4k and even France we’re talking about £2.5k.
So, do people have holiday funds that they pay into each month? Please tell me how everyone seems to be affording to go abroad once a year.

Also, going on swish holidays is not an absolute necessity for children. I grew up going skiing twice a year, a European beach every summer and long haul in the autumn/spring. DH had zero holidays for his entire childhood. Both of us enjoyed our childhoods. Because of funds, we’ll have to get our children to experience travel in a much cheaper way, but it won’t do us any good to beat ourselves up about it.

We don't do hot, which probably helps! We will have been abroad 3 times this year, but we do airbnb or eurocamp. Portugal in Feb half term, about 20 degrees which was lovely for us, kids still enjoyed the pool! About £700 all in. Going to Denmark in the summer for a week, again an airbnb for under £400 and then flights. Netherlands in October, staying at a eurocamp which if I remember correctly was under £300 and then eurotunnel and our own car.

Both me and dp didn't go on holiday as kids due to family finances. I work alot of overtime to be able to give our children the opportunities we didn't have as children and feel incredibly privileged to be able to do so.

We book a year in advance for our family holiday. We have 5 children and work full time and holidays are important to have for us so we put a large amount away each month to be able to do this. We also pay for things monthly like wildwood and English heritage sites so we still do things at the weekends with the kids that don’t cost a bomb. We only have one 2 week holiday abroad each year and then a long weekend away in the uk generally towards the end of summer.

YHA or Travelodge for mini break

Camping or glamping in France is often cheaper - Canvas or Huttopia
Travel by ferry or Eurostar & drive to France/Holland/Belgium/Germany.

We both teach & so not high salary but equally not on the breadline either. We can't afford a package type holiday hi somewhere hot.

It depends what you want out of a holiday. If it’s all inclusive, all singing, all dancing, five star luxury, then yes they are going to be expensive.
For us it’s getting on a plane to another country for a week or two to escape from reality. We go self catering/B&B, somewhere clean to sleep and shower and close to amenities.
We’ve had holidays to Spain for a week for 2 adults 2 children for less than £500.
We now have two more children and I’m looking for 5-7 days in October. I’m finding some for around £800 to £900.
We’ve just come back from Florida (2a, 4ch) of which the HOLIDAY cost £2900.
(Spending money was a whole another ball game)!
A lot of hard graft was needed to pay for that however. 7 day weeks for months on end.

We're a very low income household, although there's only me, ds(18) and the dog, but we either do UK static caravan type holidays, or eurocamp type things and drive over. Drove to Switzerland last year over Easter - 10 nights in total, 6 on a eurocamp site in Switzerland, plus cheap b&b's there and back in various countries. Including accommodation, fuel and ferry, it cost £700 in total, plus obviously food, but we mainly self catered so didn't really spend much more than we would at home. We camp regularly too in the UK, which doesn't cost much.

Not uk centre packs- but ones in Europe are half the price. We did Netherlands with euro tunnel. 1200 for week accommodation and 400 for euro tunnel. Our 4 bed lodge felt great value compared to a tui 1 bedroom situation.
We are beginning to go down the do it yourself route too- with the kids being so little, kids clubs and all inclusive has previously been a big need for us (otherwise it didn’t feel like much of a break!).
not sure I’d trust air b&b for my main family holiday tbh.

How are you managing this? Is this price during school holidays? I think you need your own blog if you’re getting these deals!

I book as far in advance as possible, pay a deposit and then a set amount each month. Not exactly spontaneous then, but nice to have something to look forward to. It's not just the likes of TUI, Jet2 that have this set up, we always book ours through British Airways holidays, depends the type of holiday you're after but this works for us.

zero percent credit card, pay off over 24 months. Rinse and repeat.

We do abroad one year (usually snowboarding) then a UK holiday in a log cabin (usually Scotland) the next year.

We have 5 children and go on holiday at least twice a year, and don't include mini breaks as holidays. We obviously just earn enough to afford it. I could complain that we can't afford to own a private jet and ask why I can't but it's quite obvious

We're going all inclusive to Costa Adeje in Tenerife in August.
Three of us,really lovely hotel close to everything.
£3,400 plus spending money.
We booked in January.
There are some good places, you've just got to fall on some of them at the right time.

We're going for 1st time abroad this summer - youngest is now 15! DH & haven't been since our honeymoon. Just done UK holidays up till now & was fine when kids were younger but weather last Yr & this made us up our holiday budget considerably! Still can't afford to go every Yr, both earning decent wages but will have 2 students to help out this Yr.

I am on my own with a nearly grown up child so it's not too bad.

We (DC &I) prefer sightseeing over the beach so we go on very short breaks. I get some discounts through a work benefits scheme. We find discounts online and never go above three star on a hotel. I also like caravans, lodges and holiday cottages. I plan a year in advance and save hard. I also don't have a car and book trains three months in advance, shopping around for fares. I buy a Railcard to get cheaper fares too.On flights I shop around on various websites, although I'm falling out of love with flying, personally.

One child, higher income, priorities… some people will get holidays on credit. You likely know nothing much of other people’s finances.

We tend to do DIY holidays. Book flights and airport parking first and then find an apartment that suits us and transfers if needed. Almost always do SC so look for an apartment where we can go back for lunch and have our own breakfast/coffees. Having two extra children to accommodate and pay flights for would 100% change what was feasible for us.

We struggled with young children. Just had caravan holidays in the UK until they left school, we didn’t go abroad until we could afford to go in term time as the cost difference is shocking. Now we enjoy holidays abroad at least once a year but only because the kids are adults now and do their own thing. Sadly, it means school age children miss on holidays abroad, unless you earn loads.

Literally saving the previous year

Yes, we save a set amount each month for holidays.
But as a child we only went on one foreign holiday as a family which my parents saved up for years for. This was normal and lots of my friends never went on holiday. We did go on holiday to other parts of the country other years though.

A lot of people book well in advance and pay a little each month until it's paid off. I have not done that, but did book a 2 bed flat for myself, my 18yr old and our cat, a year in advance. For just Monday to Friday in Morecambe, we're actually on the way home right now. I didn't have to pay until a couple of months ago, so had plenty of time to save what I needed to

Out of curiosity, which agency with?

We are older and earn well with no debts and good pension provision. Holidays are a priority so happy to spend a.lot of money on them. Simple as that.

Honestly? Credit card or monthly instalments is how we manage it. Is it ideal? Not really and appreciate not everyone will want to do that or agree with it. But we do what we can. We don’t have abroad holidays every year, we do UK holidays some years which are significantly cheaper obvs. We also have 3 kids, all under 10 (2 preschoolers).

@Flossyts I want to know how she finds those deals too. I book everything separately and flights alone for two adults, a child and a baby were £600 this year.

We don’t either, we earn ok money but living costs are high and mortgage high as live near a city. I would love to though and kids desperate to go on a plane. We have looked and about £3k + which we don’t have spare.

We do UK camping or Eurocamp. Eurocamp or try Euroresorts (cheaper than Eurocamp but don’t do all the sites Eurocamp do), in May half term is cheap.

Ask them to book the ferry as they’ll get it cheaper than you can. In May around £900 for a week inc ferry, summer holidays £1800. Ferry to Cherbourg / Caen / Roscoff / Spain and drive down for a couple of hours, easier than many think.

Euro camp sites SO much better than UK ones - and except for the ferry cheaper too.

We’ve just had a week in Spain for 4 of us. Ryanair flights, car hire, 2 amazing AirBnBs with pools. All of that came to less than £2k. Whilst out there we had a budget of about £100 per day for eating out and sightseeing. We shopped in local supermarkets for the other meals - lots of bread, cheese, cold meat, salad type lunches by the pool or an evening BBQ I’d we’d been out for lunch. I don’t include the food shop as a cost as it’s usually less than I’d be spending at home - likewise fuel. So, that came in at £2700 for us and wouldn’t have cost much more for your extra child - just flight really as we had extra space in the villas.

If you didn’t eat out every day, you could do it for much less.

Paid for the flights in Jan on interest free credit card which we paid off monthly, likewise accommodation, which is taken out in 2 chunks as a PP said. I’m a teacher and take on exam marking at this time of year which has more than covered the spending money and what was left on the cards.

I definitely think there are good value holidays to be had, just not through TUI etc.