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.

This is getting weird.. of course 3 rather than 2 kids costs more for an annual holiday. Budget accordingly. I have 3 kids, we manage it year in year out! X

A holiday is time away. That is it. We had two holidays in 2023, one of those was four days in a Kent seaside town that cost £450 for travel, apartment hire and food and drink. It was still a holiday.

Holiday home swaps here. Found one in the UK, one in France and another UK one for the October half term. Only paying for the cost of getting there and pets looked after for free by the people staying at ours.

I'm eastern European. My parents used to take us for holidays when we were young so this stopped for us when I was 7 and my sisters 13. Then they would send us on camps and they would stay home (!!!) I have never gone on holidays abroad with my parents. Some breaks were rainy some weren't....

When my husband said he used to go on holidays twice a year and one break was just France... When they were kids I was shocked.

It's ok to have self catered holidays 2 hours away... :)

Simple answer is, don't go abroad 🤷 were a family of 6 and we've bought a large tent and the gear to go with it, we're going down south in 2 weeks and the site has cost £300. Even factoring in food, and getting down there we'll have a week away for well under a grand. We can't justify 5 grabs to go abroad, so we don't!

They either save up, or they have spare money. Earnings vary.🤷‍♀️

Different choices I guess - we don’t have 3 kids of school age, so that will be the big difference. We both save where we can, which has always given us choices. Make sure if you do save that you open a proper savings account with a higher interest rate. Meanwhile perhaps holiday in the UK for now and as others have said, plenty of people don’t have holidays abroad every year. Social media makes it feel like that particularly at this time of year but it’s not the case, plus some are putting it on credit which may create another problem.

Unfortunately AI technology is hiking up travel and other goods prices online when people are browsing which it shouldn't do. People aren't necessarily going to buy something just because they looked at something they see online, they might be looking for some other reason or for a colleague to get a price. Also it affects the economy detrimentally if you automatically increase prices significantly, simply by increasing them when people look online. It also actually lacks intelligence to do such a thing. Prices of goods and services in the UK are usually fixed and prices only rise a few percent with inflation once per year so I'm not sure why this isn't happening now or who is doing it because it's actually been unpresidented in this country until now. I'm not sure why the UK government is accepting this or why young people are buying it but its pretty bad and the technology should only be bought, if this is changed so that goods are not raised as soon as someone looks at them online, as its actually illegal to do such a thing. Also they have to abide by the country's government where goods and services prices are fixed and only rise each year by a few percent with inflation. This is common knowledge and standard business practice in the UK so why are UK citizens not abiding by this now?

Canvas Holidays (other firms like Eurocamp are available) was how my parents kept costs down on foreign holidays. In tents (but without the inconvenience of bringing all the gear with you and putting it up), self-catering.

We go away every school holiday, not always Christmas though. It's a combination of being mindful of money and location, we've just returned from Bulgaria for half term we went to Malta in August, Mallorca in April, France in May, Scotland in February. We use air b&bs, tend to cook in most nights and do a lot of free stuff whilst away, beach, siteseeing of land marks etc. We also earn well, have no mortgage and are a family of three.

Simple save in a holiday fund! If it has to be somewhere hot and extravagant go every other year or so!

ZOMBIE THREAD

People go on holiday and buy things on the never-never

Others use planning and budgeting - get extra income, part time jobs ...

People ARE goin on holiday - so it MUST work

How the fuck can people afford to go on holiday?

> Just get somebody else to pay for it

We budget for it. Feel we need a rest from juggling work and elder parents. A mum locally moaned they dont get away but she always at concerts so I guess its what you want too. We dont go out much during the year.

Zombie 🧟‍♂️

My experience is that even most families with 2 full time workers and 1-2 kids only manage every other year. It's only people who are really well off who go abroad every year.

I think that considering you're effectively 5 people living on one income (and teaching is hardly well paid!) expecting to be able to afford an annual holiday outside term time is a fantasy.

Just get somebody else to PAY for the holiday

Why does it matter whether or not you "go somewhere hot"?

> If somebody else IS payin - it probably WILL be HOT
The IMPORTANT thing IS > to get somebody else to PAY
The rest WILL work itself out