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!

£0 budget. We don't do holidays. Income as a household is over 120k including all pensions etc (DH mainly retired, but when he does work his charge out rate makes it worthwhile).
If we go away it's spontaneous spur of the moment couple of days maximum and we shop about for a good deal for a B&B/hotel where we want to go
(we have no mortgage, credit card debts, loans, car loans, contracts for TV etc either, no dependant kids now all earning hoorah, and we can leave them home to look after the menagerie!)

We're a comfy 6 figure household and usually spend approx £4k on a week in summer and the same again on a week in October, plus a few weekends away/days out during the year, so about £10k or so altogether (not including spending money. Probably another £1k, as I do not consider self catering a holiday - for me at least - a holiday..). 2 adults, 1 child.

Our household income is around £95k and while we don't have a set budget we would normally spend between 8 - 12k on holidays in a year. Sometimes that's just one holiday and a weekend break if we're going somewhere like Florida or Mauritius, or it could be 3 smaller holidays.
It seems a lot in comparison to what others spend but our mortgage is small, we have no childcare costs and no debt so it's our main expense.

We earn similar (slightly more after recent promotion) and save £500/month for holidays but I would not spend that on one week in the sun. Thisv year doing two week family camping trip, one week me and kids camping (both in UK), couple of long weekends plus a ski trip (this is more like every other year). Have you looked at eurocamp? We got a week at one in half term last year including travel for less than £1k and summer prices likely to be more but still good value and loads to do with the kids

The tip is to look for places that are more unusual to spend less. I recommend Finland for instance, or if you like warmth, the Atlantic coast of Spain rather than the costas. West coast of France is best if driving though if you don’t mind doing overnight stops the Venician riviera is lovely as are the lakes - we drove across Germany.

for more traditional holidays, if you are in Scotland and going in English term time look for flights from England eg my family got a bargain from Bristol this weekend then drove down the day before

Joint income is £100k. Holiday for two weeks in summer hols is £6750. Plus spending money.

I think this thread shows gross income is sort of irrelevant it’s disposable income because on the face of it lots of posters earn less than my DH and I but spend a substantial amount more on holidays, I imagine this is due to varying levels of disposable income

Holidays in school holidays are so expensive. And they'll only get more expensive when your little ones turn into teens and are priced as adults. A cheap and cheerful holiday school holiday time costs us over £5k now, so enjoy that child discount. We'd spend £10k if we didn't have the much longer Irish school holiday period.
And as you are in Scotland, book next year's holiday for when school breaks up. English schools run into July, so you'll be a bit more value in June and early July.

Which is largely driven by age and when you were able to get on the property ladder.

Not once you break it down to net monthly income tbh. DH and I are now officially on a six figure household income and we're both in quite normal professional jobs.

We don't have a holiday budget as such, we don't have children and love to travel so each year we just sort of see what we can afford/what we fancy/what we can get off work at the same time. We're recently back from a week in Croatia, package but not AI, nice place but certainly not luxury, where we spent 3k all in so 5k including your children sounds about right.

If you actually think about it as return flights for 4 people (or 3 if one is under 2yo), plus the cost of each night in a hotel, plus food depending on board basis, plus transfers, £1250pp is not expensive for what you're getting.

ETA - £1800pcm is high for a mortgage I'd say, I'd assume you're Bearsden or Leith or somewhere with a mortgage like that.

These threads come up so often! OP the main answers you will get will be from high earners that like to show off what their household earns (they will badge it as ‘well the OP asked’)

you won’t get a good cross section as the many ‘we earn £200/£300k a year gang are out!

What you budget for holidays has many variables, what you have budgeted seems fair in terms of income and mortgage etc

I’d add to that where you live and the size of your family too x

We spend 3%. It gets us a spring/autumn break in a youth hostel plus a week in the summer/may half. Accommodation for each is max £500 for 4 of us and a further £500 for entry fees, meals, treats etc.

We cannot go anywhere abroad for less than about £6k so that is usually our starting point, generally 1k to 1500 per person. If it’s just for me and DH then we will spend up to 4K. We generally do one of each per year.

edited as you asked about income it’s around £180k,

Our household income is 76k and we probably spend about 1k on holidays a year, friends with similar income spend about 15k!

Yeah I’m on 50k (40k was entry level for me and it was a new career) so is on the first rung of management in his role and is on 70k neither are extortionate salaries but together they sound substantial. We both get paid for overtime too so we can top up our monthly pay whenever we need to

Do you have a very large family?

ie 4 kids?

About 90k is our take home.
this year it’s around £6k with spending money for 2 trips for 6 of us

next year we have done 7k plus spending money for 1 holiday for 7 of us.

10k is usually our budget. But we wait for an offer to be on as well.

£2200 for 2 week summer holiday to France including ferry/Airbnb costs. We'll self-cater while we're there and maybe go out a few times to cafes etc.

2 adults, 2 children.
Household income: £190000.

We try to vary by year - we're doing something cheaper this year for around £3k and will do a bigger hol next year for £10k. We earn around £130k between us, for a family of 4.

We do give to charity yes. There are lots of things that we spend money on that I think are more essential than holidays and also give a return. 40% of our monthly income is ‘spare’ and this is split between different investments, charity donations and home improvements which I suppose is also an investment. Maybe when I feel these other things are ‘enough’ I will feel able to spend like some on these sorts of holidays. I just cannot imagine being comfortable or having a holiday as such a priority that I’d spend 8/10k+ on only a week or two!

It’s not that much imo given your income but if you don’t feel comfortable spending that then don’t. Some people prioritise holidays, some fine wine, others spend on nice things for the house. As long as you don’t go into debt for a holiday or any of the above mentioned things, then I don’t see the issue.
Since you and DH disagree you should compromise and only do a big holiday every other year.

See, to me this sounds utterly joyless. Different strokes, as they say.

Imagine if you all didn’t go on hols for a year and donated these huge sums to charity, what a difference that would make for some people.

Err it would make a huge difference to some people, but not in the way you're imagining. 2020 impacted the economies of many tourism-based countries, lots of jobs were lost, and this affected some of the poorest people. 'Donating to charity' is not always the best way to help.

2 x self-employed in rubbish pay prestige jobs (arts/publishing).

4 nights self-catering in Scotland is costing us a grand, we will probably bookend with a night or two in Edinburgh.

We need to go to USA to visit friends later in the year and I'm seeing packages for £5k for 3 of us which I thought was pretty reasonable. Probably the impending global apocalypse.

A week in Italy cost us £7k for 3 adults and one child last year. Easyjet flights, nice hotel but nothing mindblowing.

It's just dead expensive now. Gone are the pre-Brexit pre-kids days where DH and I could get some luxury spa break in Tuscany on Voyage Prive or Secret Escapes for £600 each.

Driving through France and Spain this summer for a couple of weeks. Adding together villa, hotels and ferries/ train I reckon it’s about £9-10k and then will be food etc on top. Sometimes spend more, sometimes less. We don’t really have a budget as such. 2 adults and 2 teenagers. Usually try and have a couple of other holidays a year.