What is your summer holiday budget versus household income?

[GreatWhiteWail]

DH and I are not aligned on what our holiday budget should be. Because of covid and having young children we haven't previously gone on a (scottish-) school-holiday-time family holiday to a resort. When it was just DH and I we did more city-break type holidays (and even though we went to nice hotels, it didn't cost that much). We have never done a 'week in the sun with a beach/pool' type holidays so have no frame of reference. I'm talking about just a European resort for 1 week plus flights for 4.

I know there will be outliers as some people have no mortgage or childcare costs etc and will spend a lot more than is typical. but I'd be interested to know what's normal for different family incomes.

Is £5k for a holiday for 2 adults and 2 children a 'reasonable' budget? We each earn approx £60k. DH says people earning this would spend much more than that. I am uncomfortable with £5k, as although we can afford it, it seems so much money to just spend (rather than save or spend on the house etc).

Apologies for the nosiness, I don't want to ask friends as although I really want to know if this is normal, it would be rude to ask what they earn!

Well i suppose i have certain desirable's.

Very large pool area, more of a village type feel, water park, padded sun loungers, beach and minimum 3 restaurants, a room with 2 bathrooms 2 bedrooms (thats a new must have since my 2 older have hit early teens and take about 2 hours to get ready and 10 tiktok videos later😂)

So yeah I suppose we could get lower priced ones.

I work very hard for my money. I will choose to spend it how I like…that’s the point is it not? I give to charity in other ways. I deserve a holiday.

Our holidays are roughly 10% of our annual income. Not sure I’d be comfortable spending more than that as we have mortgage, cars & 3 dependent children.

When our kids were young we didn't go abroad at all. Once the youngest started school we started having week long self catering holidays in Europe, all but one of which have been 'city breaks'. We have 3DC and spend about £5K total on these holidays. Our income is slightly higher than yours (£130K) but we also have a week self catering in a nice cottage in the UK as well which is a cheaper option (because no flights and more picnics!) plus trips to see family so our total holiday expenditure is more than that.

family of 5 - 3 kids (20/17/8 yrs old) if self catering we spend about £8k for 2 weeks (flights apartment, car hire, excursions, food shopping & eating & drinking out everyday split £4.5k on the holiday & £3.5k spending money) height of August)
just booked a TUI hol AI in Oct for for all 5 of us for £5k.
will try to have 2 hols a year and some weekends away. Household income of £210k.

We earn similar amount to you, we have one child. We spend about 6K on our main summer holiday. Then we usually do 2 city breaks which are about 1k each plus spending money.
Next year we have reduced the budget slightly for the main holiday and may only have 1 other break as this is a week away snowboarding in Norway and this cost 5K
We both work hard, have no other debts aside from our mortgage we own our car. Due to both WFH we only need one car, we don't spend loads on designer clothes or nights out.

I can’t believe how much people are spending!

I too am gulping at the numbers on this thread, I thought at average uk salary I wasn’t poor but my god these incomes are something else!!! However, so as to stick to the point. First holiday this year for 3 years. It’s costing about 10% of salary, uk self catering but needs flight and car hire, too old to drive the length of the country and I like a nice self catering. Sad I’m too decrepit to camp as they were my best holidays and very cheap.

ah - I have to admit I am a fan of a mortgage overpayment calculator, but if this was the only metric one would never have any fun!

I don’t fancy diverting my hard earned money away from my children and their enrichment and into the pockets of ‘charity’ who amongst other costs have to fund their senior management team’s high level salaries. I wonder what the CEO of a national charity budgets for their holiday each year? Bet it’s more than I can afford!

I’ve also worked really hard to build a life I don’t have to escape from so our holidays are a chance to spend quality time together exploring or learning new things.

Blimey. My household income is less than half yours and used be be much less, so I’m good at cheap holidays. When kids were younger we used to stay in a very comfortable static caravan somewhere beautiful by the coast in the uk, on a farm: 400 per week, sleeps 4.
Canpsites in France or Northern Spain/ Portugal, again static caravan but access to amazing pool : 800 a week plus flights booked well in advance.
We rarely eat out in the evening on holiday, unless it’s a street food on the beach type thing, just use local markets and make our own.
My budget for 3 ( me and 2 kids) was usually 3 k a year all in for 2 holidays.

im not surprised. I think a week in Crete is a fairly standard holiday but when I last looked it was staggeringly expensive.

I work for my family, I’m already in the additional rate taxpayer bracket. Why can’t I have a holiday at the end of the year? I don’t work for charity.

Whoa!! Really? People are spending this kind of money on holidays every year??? I've never been able to manage that, not even when I was working full time.

I'm left with £38 for the rest of the month after my 'holiday' (which was last taken 2yrs ago). It cost £200 for a ferry and £30 petrol to visit my parents for five days. Plus taking them flowers, a cake and paying for two meals out, so about £300.

I usually go on a coach holiday for £250 once a year, but had to give that a miss so I could visit my family.

We’ve spent about 10% this year, maybe more. That’s quite a lot for us. Couple of weekend UK breaks. We like ski (very expensive), city breaks, rural UK cottage/camping. Hate hot holidays/AI and they are also really expensive now. Nothing is a good deal so it seems.

Normally about 15-20k a year on an income of 170k.
(For the whole year)

Household income of around £150k, mortgage £1,500pm, childcare around £600pm. We're a family of 5 who go away for 2 weeks in peak summer holidays but what we spend has varied from around £6k (eurocamp type, self drive holidays) to £12k (private villa with flights). Both ends of the spectrum include everything so all spends and food. Based on that, I think you could easily manage a week away as a family of 5 for £5k but equally it wouldn't be unreasonable to spend double that!

We tend to have two holidays a year - 10 days in the summer - 2 adults + 3 DCs and then another 1 week either Autumn or Easter. In total it’s about £15k normally split £11k / £4k but the year we did Disney it was more £9k / £6k.
Income is higher though, total gross about £180k.

We do prioritise holidays though and don’t spend on other areas - I can’t remember the last time either of us had a “big” night out.

Household income c300k. No mortgage. One young DC.

We spend about 4k for a week abroad in the summer plus around 1.5k for a UK week.

We also do adhoc trips for big sporting events that can be expensive. 4k for a weekend in Berlin + match ticket for the England v Spain Euro final was the most recent.

Prices have got ridiculous lately. Just before covid DH and I went to watch England play cricket in Barbados and paid around 3k between us for 2 weeks in a decent hotel. You’d be paying at least double if not treble that amount now for the same holiday.

Our income and mortgage is about the same as yours. We haven't been abroad since 2022 so this year we've booked a week all-inc for £3.5k, 2 adults, 2 children under 10. We were looking up to £5k at one point but couldn't justify that amount for 1 week. and for the person above who mentioned European campsites, when we looked as these options and added up the site, added basic extras (eg bedding/towels), flights, transfers or travel to the site, plus then factoring in a reasonable budget for food, it was coming in around the same cost as the all inc we booked with added hassle of sorting your own meals or catering.

Quite shocked this is what a villa costs, DH wants to do a villa and I thought it would be cheaper than a good package holiday. Oh no!

OK maybe I really do need to loosen the purse strings. 😏

Depends what you want and what ages your children are? It’s very hot in Europe in the Uk school holidays so, if they’re very young then it might be best to stay closer to home or somewhere cooler like the Scandi countries. They’re not that cheap when you get there.

Personally, I don’t really like two weeks AI in Europe and prefer to organise things independently (have done a few). Our really good holidays are scenic places with walking/activities that align with our interests so I guess that can be done a bit more cheaply. With fussy kids and with all the organising done, I can see why people would pay for the AI option though - it makes for an easy holiday with little planning needed. £5K seems about right but you could probably do it cheaper. I wouldn’t want to spend any more than that on a European holiday.

I’d spend more if it was long haul, like Thailand or the Caribbean though as the experience would be more worth it to me. Our income is similar to yours.

Our joint income combined is 80k and we spend around 4k on our annual holiday, 2 adults and 3 children. We just came back from Spain, 7 nights all inclusive was £3,400 and we spent around £700 spending money (couple of meals out, taxi's, jet ski activities ect)

We save 10% of our income for holidays throughout the year. We’re doing a Cruise this summer, then Disneyworld next year, plus a handful of European city breaks in between. We really like travelling and prioritise it in our budget

With kids if you want a pool to break but still have the ability to sightsee then you can’t go wrong with a human travel type trip in Italy. Their sites are neatly Avas clean and they often have a mix of chalets, glamping, caravans and tree houses. Out of all the holidays we went on, these were BY FAR the ones the kids enjoyed most and they were amazingly well priced. We hired cars and went to park albatross and did Pisa and Florence and another trip we went to Rome and did the Vatican etc by public transport. The kids loved the pool complexes and it was perfect really. They enjoyed it more than 5*ai and cruises etc.