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.

We love holidays! I would saying we spend about £10k a year on a main holiday and then a couple of smaller ones. This is about 8% of our income but worth every penny.

I was brought up holidaying all the time - we had a caravan, would do Sun holidays, and would also go abroad as much as possible - so whilst we don’t have a caravan or do Sun holidays any more, going away regularly is a non-negotiable for me (funds permitting, of course)

People on 6 figure sums spending money they earn may be irksome to people who don't earn as much but it is indeed their money they are spending.

People who receive universal credit funded from tax income but say they receive enough to be able to spend £6k on holidays (and deliberately keep their savings below a certain amount to ensure they still get UC) are indeed being insensitive . It puzzles me you don't see why.

Well, we'll agree to disagree.

Anyway we are hijacking OP's thread with this.

Yes, only the middle classes should enjoy holidays. She should be working 70 hours a week on minimum wage and that way won't need UC.

6k a year on holidays if you are receiving UC is quite frankly shocking. We spend nothing like that on holidays as we get taxed so much from our 'higher incomes'.

@Beezknees you're doing great. Wish I had £6k in savings. Good on you getting away on holiday. Everyone deserves a break.

You probably have higher outgoings than me and own a home. I doubt you'd want my life living in a high crime town in a council flat.

They can enjoy life but £6k is madness to have spare for holidays. We don’t spend anything near £6k to spend on holidays and we are both working not claiming any universal credit.

If you're earning over £100k between a couple (which you have made it sound like you are), and you can't afford £6k on holidays then you probably need to look at what you're spending.

I'm not saying I agree with the UC poster, I think its insane they are affording such luxury, maybe their expenses are next to nothing.

If you're earning over £100k between a couple (which you have made it sound like you are), and you can't afford £6k on holidays then you probably need to look at what you're spending.

I agree with @rewilded tbh. 100k plus doesn’t often leave thousands for holidays if you have a large mortgage, childcare, kids extracurriculars, pensions, savings etc.

You probably have higher outgoings than me and own a home. I doubt you'd want my life living in a high crime town in a council flat.

I believe in a safety net but having 6k for holidays when on UC is pretty wild.

My essential bills are less than £1k per month. That's why I can afford it. I don't have childcare costs or a car.

I work PT at the moment and to allow me to do this we've sacrificed a few things (we don't run a car at the moment and we don't have holidays abroad)

We spend about £1.5k a year on 2 UK breaks (this is accommodation costs for 10 days in summer and a week in October) and then we budget accordingly. This summer we were able to eat out most nights - some evenings at restaurants, others was fish and chips on the promenade but had our other meals at the cottage we rented. Activities were relatively cheap, we did coastal walks / went to the beach / visited local beauty spots.

A holiday abroad for us work out as £5k minimum for a week. We just don't have that spare whilst I'm down to a 50% salary.

I'm happy with our choices. I have young children and prefer the time I have with them at the moment. But I will go back to FT in the future.

@Beezknees surely getting UC & a council house helps you afford it not just low bills?

Our joint income is around 70k and on average we spend around 3k on a holiday for 4 of us, once a year.

I'm quite surprised someone on UC has £6k spare for holidays but that's not on Beezknees, that's the system, she has small outgoings, there will always be winners and losers in systems like that, they need to be broad enough to try and support a minimum level for everyone, anything too intricate would be very costly.

To take some of the fire off Beezkneez, we have a joint income of £115,000 (very low outgoings too, except mortgage) and the Tories uplift of child benefit to those earning up to £80,000 means we will have £1500 in child benefit this year we wouldn't ordinarily be allowed to keep (I do a tax return and send it back) that'll be going in our holiday pot. 10 years ago, it would have gone straight on childcare when we were trying to keep our heads above water.

Whilst I don’t agree with advertising their spending 6k UC on holidays the poster has indicated they pay tax and work full time hardly fleecing the system.

in response to improving the situation - you do realise that UC tops up a lot of wages from minimum wage up over even when working full time. We would be in trouble if we had no carers, cleaners, shop workers, admin staff etc. The issue is ‘minimum wage’ isn’t enough and the jobs that pay minimum wage are required by society. Plenty of public sector workers in professional roles are able to claim UC.

For what it’s worth I don’t and aren’t eligible to claim so all of the above is not a defence post.

To the original PP it depends on your priorities, our families is 100% holidays, making memories etc and we spent a significant amount of our disposable income and time doing so. We do have a small amount of savings which are added to monthly and good work pensions but we certainly prioritise living now than having huge pots of money for when we get old.

I think child benefit should be universal

Yes, obviously my rent is fairly low.

Obviously

Absolutely this

@Laughinglama I think most people are aware that many UC recipients are working and have low wages & as I said I don’t have an issue with a safety net. Presumably being able to save 6k and spend it on holidays because you don’t want to lose your UC claim is not common though.

I mean yeah we have all that minus the childcare and we earn over £100k and just spent double that this year between holidays and spends. Childcare costs are temporary so if they are the reason then it's only for now.

I mean yeah we have all that minus the childcare

😆 Childcare costs are huge though & temporary can still mean years.

And then you can start on the uni costs as the gov expect you to subsidise.