How much is reasonable to spend on holidays vs income ?

[holidayprince]

How do you calculate how much you can spend on holidays vs your monthly income for example ?

I'm having a debate with H about it and no matter how much we spend, for him, it's always a waste when it's spent on a holiday. He thinks is frivolous.

If you spend say half a monthly pay cheque on a holiday, is that too much ?

Do you save up a long time to go on holiday ?

Just wondering because to me it isn't money wasted to make memories with your family.

I know holidays are expensive but we have savings as well as investments and aren't spending more than half of what we make a month on a holiday, so I don't see a problem with having a nice time with your family once a year.

My DH has always been this way about holidays.

It depends on how much you value and enjoy a holiday. DH & I both love holidays and would rather spend on holidays than on meals out/takeaways etc every week, we both enjoy our holidays and so both of us are more than happy to do this. My mum & dad though while my mum loves a holiday, my dad doesn’t and also see’s it as a bit of a nuisance and hassle to go away so see’s them as a waste of money.

I can't not imagine spending on travel. I love expanding our horizons and exploring the world with the kids. I wouldn't like an all inclusive though and find them overpriced and overstimulating. Are your holiday "ideals" compatible?

I don’t think there is a right or wrong answer here. It depends on people’s priorities.

I prioritise saving for holidays personally but would never get into debt to pay for one.

It depends on priorities as people say & other outgoings. I wouldn’t spend ££££ if I wasn’t able to save money for investments etc. if you bring home 10k a month, 4k on a holiday isn’t excessive.

It's all about priorities. If your partner doesn't value them, anything you spend will be a waste & money should be going to whatever they value. For someone who does value holidays, whatever you spend is reasonable.

We value holidays over most things, but would never borrow for it & also have savings & are salary sacrificing into pensions. We save by not 'wasting' money on takeaway, expensive outings, or buying things we don't need. Most people think we're dull or just mad.

Whereas my DB will spend on holidays & lifestyle first, savings & pension be damned.

It depends on so many things including what you prioritise and how comfortable you are financially. We spend probably about 2x monthly take home salary on holidays a year (that would cover a couple of bigger holidays and a couple of weekends away), but we have plenty of savings, good pensions etc so have a lot of disposable income that we can enjoy. I wouldn’t spend that much if we didn’t already have a cushion.

I don't think about it based on my income, I think about it based on if I cab afford it or not, simple as that.

I spend about 20% of my income on holidays (around £6k a year) because it's what I can afford.

I receive Universal Credit though so I cannot have any more than £6k in savings or they start reducing my UC. So there's no point me putting any more in savings. I also rent so again, don't have a mortgage to overpay.

I do pay a bit extra into my pension but I also want to enjoy the here and now, I could die tomorrow for all I know. Holidays are important to me.

Personally I don't think half of your monthly pay cheque is excessive - we would usually spend more than that on a holiday. There's no right or wrong answer to this one though - just different opinions.

Holidays are very very important to me. Dh can take or leave them mostly- but that said he has a Very Expensive Hobby that is his passion and very home based. Traveling is mine.

So- that said. I put away about 15% of our post-tax income into a dedicated holiday account. That gives us fairly modest holidays a couple of times a year- AI to Greece for example or a long weekend in Europe plus a UK-based holiday just the Dcs for me. However the past 2 years I have done additional seasonal work for 8 weeks in order to top up the holiday account - this is about £1200 post-tax.

This year however we have completely blown the holiday account as we need to visit my home country (long haul) as my parents are becoming frail. So we will have had 3 abroad holidays this year, at a cost of about £18k. I have had to empty an ISA for it.

@Beezknees I am thrilled that my taxes are helping fund your £6k per annum spend on holidays.

Holiday spend is about disposable income and priorities.

We spend £10k ish a year which is just less than 7% of our income

we spend it a across 3 holidays

that doesn’t include spends, clothes, airport parking etc that’s just the holiday bookings

Could not live without holidays / travel

wow to the comment above about purposely avoiding savings to get UC.

I love holidays and have the attitude that you only live once etc. DH has a similar attitude to yours and while he's happy to go, is very careful about what he'll spend. I've got round this by going on the occasional trip with one or other of my adult DC. We've also booked a weekend in a hot tub lodge for DD's special birthday. I wanted to book a posher one for an extra £60 but DH said it was a waste of money. As it turned out, I'm paying for the accommodation and he's paying for everything else so I've sneakily booked the more expensive lodge. Even though it's my money I know he'll moan about "unnecessarily wasting money" all weekend so I'm going to pretend we got a free upgrade for a quiet life!

I must admit, I found it a waste of money and frivolous when they were all small and couldn't remember it. I don't mind spending on a holiday as they are all of an age they will remember it now. I am in the middle on this.

I will also say that we did not have any holidays for years when the Dcs were young because DH wasn't interested. It drove me crazy and I became hugely resentful. That was when I started up my holiday account and diverted money. We had a good few years where only I and the Dcs went somewhere (a short cruise, various UK Holiday camps, paris then DH suddenly realised he was missing out and now he comes with us on the abroad ones (but not to Butlins, where we go this weekend. )... but that took about 5-6 years before he got to grips with the idea.

This will get turned into a bun fight....

🙄 I work full time and claim what I'm entitled to.

We spend about 1 month post tax income on annual holidays - in the past it was much less when we were saving for a deposit and didn't have to go in school holidays! This pays for a long summer holiday 10 - 14 days and a couple of shorter ones.

Why wow? If I saved more and my UC stopped I'd end up having to spend the savings anyway then I'd be back on UC. Not much point.

@Beezknees if you have enough tonspend £6k on holidays, you shouldn't be entitled to a penny. This is where the benefits system has gone completely wrong. Benefits are a safety net against poverty not a buffer for luxuries.

I enjoy holidays, but (perhaps like your DH) found it difficult to justify taking money from ‘savings’ to pay for it. I felt like that money could better go to something else, as holidays felt frivolous, however I did have other savings, investments etc.

The solution for me was to create a holiday account (literally named that) and pay an automatic amount into it each pay. Now I don’t see the money spent on a holiday as deducting from savings or taking away from other goals, as this money was always earmarked for holidays - whether it’s a weekend away or a longer trip. It’s nice to see it build up.

Perhaps something similar might help with your DH?

It does depend on your priorities and especially your other financial commitments.

Time off work completely is the important thing above all. No logging onto work emails, no 'just one meeting whilst I am on leave', no alleged emergencies calling you back to work, for example.

This with bells on 😏

I don't think they have the facilities to check on what each individual is buying, that would cost far more.

My outgoings are a lot less than a lot of others.

Anyway this is not the point of the thread.

We like to have 2 holidays a year but we don’t have a set amount that we spend on them.

We also like to do other things and not scrimp and save for the holidays. We prioritise day-day living. We set an annual budget for all types of spending and then see what we have left for holidays and find a holiday to suit. Some years we don’t go if there are other priorities eg having a baby, doing big jobs in the house. We usually just agree what is a priority and what isn’t.

Exactly - people claiming UC should be in work houses and eating gruel. How dare they enjoy life.