How do people pay for a holiday? Decent income and can’t afford it?

[Ht1]

Our take home is 5,000 a month after tax. Mortgage 1,600, childcare 1,400, car payments 450 for two cars (each needed for work), bills 600, which leaves around 1,000 for petrol or days out and birthdays or one off expenses. Sometimes we can save 300 but not always and often that gets wiped out, like last month when we had tyres changed.

Just looked at holidays outside school holidays and it’s 1k minimum for accommodation for a week, much more if adding in parking at an airport and going abroad. How do people pay for this? It seems sad a family of three with 5k a month can’t book a uk holiday with ease.

Well you need to decide if a holiday or day trips are more important.. I'm not trying to be inflammatory in saying that but it's budgeting and making sacrifices.

I know quite a few people who live in these areas and unemployment is a terrible weight over their heads. They live with the knowledge they will struggle for another job and that there will be lack of opportunity for their children too. It’s really not that winning in life to cut off opportunity like that

Agree.
I've booked a week-long holiday cottage in Cornwall at Easter for £850. I paid a deposit, then £100 per month until paid for.
It's self-catering, which I prefer, and a spit from the beach.
You can do it OP.

Even if she had no days out, assuming she saves £60 a week all year, that’s £3k. So she does nothing all year, then has to find a very cheap holiday at the end of it. Not to mention, she won’t have £3k until January 26 so no summer holiday for her.

we could not find a holiday for 2a 2c that we would want to go on for £3k.

You need to readdress the car situation - that’s the big one that seems like it can drop. A loan to buy two old/small cars would be a lot cheaper.

10k over 5 years would be about £200 a month, I think.

OP I’m with you here, it’s depressing isn’t it? DH and I had menial jobs in our twenties, we went back to education late in life with the motivation to be able to live a little, a holiday once a year, a car, a decent size house. Fast forward to us now working our professional careers earning 90k between us and life is harder in many ways, the cost of living is just ridiculous at the moment and salaries have not caught up with it. We save, budget, buy most things secondhand and we still are down to our last pennies the end of the month. We’re grateful to be able to save but like you said, it gets wiped when something unexpected happens which is often. I don’t know what to tell you but only that I hope salaried go up and match inflation, naive of me huh?

They must be living really far from thriving towns and cities, then? There’s loads of opportunities in my city centre and not everyone who works there lives in the ‘mumsnetty’ areas of the city.

There are lots of holidays for less than £3k if someone really wants to get some sunshine. You just have to lower your expectations.
We went on a cheapy holiday to Majorca once to a basic hotel. It was grest value for money. Think it was approx £1.2 k for a week sc. It had a small but lovely pool and was never as crowded as the 5 star hotels nearby. Yes it was basic but it was clean. My children loved it.

I don’t understand why people keep saying this- how? What do you practically speaking, suggest she does?

they have 2 cars, £450 a month. Are you suggesting they sell them (likely lose loads there) repay the loans early (incurring early repayment fees) then buy another two cars on a NEW LOAN for £200 a month?

not forgetting, as above, you’re likely to have to lie about the purpose of the loan to get a loan over 5 years.

what exactly does that achieve?

It depends on what you want your holiday to be, when and how many there are of you.

There is quite a lot of choice in the uk under 1k. Blue stone, camping, haven, air bnb.
Euro camping would be worth looking into?
Going to Europe in a less busy month?

Your childcare bill is huge, it will be easier when you don't need to pay that.

Then you didn’t buy a cheap house in an area of high deprivation and unemployment did you ?!

It’s about awareness though. If OP plods through life thinking £450 is basically as cheap as it comes for 2 cars then she’s never going to have that much control over her money. She needs to understand what is a want and what is a need.
Then she needs to realise you can’t have all the wants on her income with no sacrifice. Often it’s either spending with no thought all month on days out, coffees, takeaways etc, or nice cars on finance or nice holidays.

Perhaps when her renewal comes up she will have more food for thought rather than automatically trading in for a more expensive car because that’s what people do.

But then in a couple of years when her childcare fees are done she’ll be able to easily afford her cars and her holiday. She won’t need to sacrifice

OP isn’t a person who needs to have an awareness of money so she can live the life of a poor person. She isn’t a poor person.

it’s not the life lesson you think it is.

and many, many people are agreeing that £450 a month for two cars isn’t expensive.

Outside of school holidays in May/June/September, there are literally thousands of places that are less than £1K per week in the UK or abroad especially if you are 2 adults with a baby/toddler/ preschooler and only require one bedroom.

@Ht1 Your childcare bill is huge. Any chance you can both reduce hours to cover a day and save 20% of the £17k a year? That would
pay for your holiday? Thats what we did back when ours we small. But those years are brutal on finances as PP have said. We managed with one car for a while (was a pain but we did it). Also is your mortgage to interest only? If not maybe consider that until the childcare bill is reduced? I’m assuming your £1k left over each month your food bill btw? £600 for food and bills for 4 seems very low?

We haven’t flown for holidays since 2019 mainly due to cost. I have just booked a 11-night summer holiday in August - eurocamp for 4 of us in southern Netherlands for £2074 - this includes the ferry crossing with a car so maybe think along those lines?

You can have days out for nothing

Go for a long walk explore, go for a picnic, go to a free museum, go to parks and gardens that are free, go to nature reserves, get special offers at cinemas, use vouchers and points from supermarkets

No one needs to be spending 60 quid on a day out and for 3k I can have 3 holidays and so can OP

OP hasnt set out the circumstances, it would well be that she could trade it in for an advantageous situation and be quids in, in coming months

She asked a question, this is the answer, if you want holidays, then you need to cut back on something else.
If you dont want to cut back on something else, then you're not likely to have holidays (or not the ones she seems to want, others have made suggestions of camping and self catering UK)

Its not a criticism, is not judgement its just bald facts of financial priorities.

OP can take it or leave it.

Yes of course you can. OP, and everyone, knows this.

free days out only, for an entire year, for a family containing 2 full time working parents? Surely you can see that they might feel they deserve an actual TREAT at some point in the 52 weeks of the year?

plus. I know for me, at that stage of life, I did not have the time or energy to be planning days whereby the only aim is they were free. I was so exhausted that a few hours in the soft play with a coffee helped keep me sane.

We did self-catering in the U.K. when ours were young

Oh fuck off is anyone telling OP to live like a poor person. They have £5k to play with and can’t stretch it how they want, get real.

We only started holidaying annually when the youngest was in primary school, prior to that the childcare fees just made it hard to save up. Your outgoings are very high vs your income, but once your childcare stops, that's your holiday pot!

You need to find a way to save or earn an extra £85 per month. Shop at Aldi if you don’t already, that would do it. Do a cheaper day out like a playground trip and put the money towards a holiday instead.

Yes of course, but thats not going to be 60 quid either

A 'treat' doesnt have to cost 60 quid, there is such a backlash to discussion about being able to do things that arent some great 'experience' or cost a lot of money. As I said, take it or leave it, but these are choices, no one is forcing you to do that

Yes its boring to hear but most of us who grew up in the 70s, just didnt have this full time entertainment concept from our parents, full on days out were few and far between, didnt involve snacks and food etc, a packed lunch and some squash was the sum total and theres nothing wrong with that, its not deprivation!!

We earn much less than you OP, and we manage a holiday each year, we go to various havens and pay monthly. This year we re going to Ayr. We've paid just over a grand so far since September (I think) and have 4 payments left. I do it so holiday payments are due out on payday, the same with rent and other bills. That way when I wake up on payday what is there is what we have to spend.

She can spend her money however she sees fit. But people are giving her ideas of how she could afford a holiday. It doesn't matter what you feel you deserve. It's what you can afford.