AIBU to spend £15k-£20k yearly on holidays with £150k income?

[hangak]

If your combined take home is around £150k a year, is it unreasonable to spend around £15k-£20k on holidays for a year.

This would be a few UK and EU city breaks, plus 2-3 long haul trips.

Life is for living and if that’s what brings you joy and you aren’t massively in debt as a result, then you do you

We don’t have your income OP, ours is probably a joint income of 95k per annum, but we don’t have a mortgage and yet we still spend about 15-20k on holidays each year. It’s no one else’s business what you spend it on and nor is it unreasonable!

I'm a pensioner and might spend £20k on a holiday, maybe I should start a thread

A couple of years ago a friend of ours said to me that they budget around £15K a year for holidays. I figured they were roughly as affluent as we are and immediately that became the budget in my head, more or less doubling what we used to spend, which did mean shifting a few other priorities. It's been a revelation. Lovely holidays, actual relaxation, a lot less fuss about getting the cheapest flights or whatever. We generally have three holidays out of that at easter, summer and Xmas with Xmas being the most expensive and Easter the least, to the tune of about 3K, 5K, and 7K. This year we have gone over by about 5K due to having some extra holiday allowance for long service. I have occasionally wondered if it's a bit much so I'm very interested in this thread. I do very much agree that one should prioritise experiences and family time (and if you can only prioritise one it should be family time).

Why would it be unreasonable for someone to spend their own money on things they like? It's nobody's business. Unless you're constantly on holiday and your colleagues have to pick up the slack. But that's your employer's issue.

I'd love to have that amount to spend on holidays. You've earned it, so enjoy it!

Why would you be envious of someone spending less on holidays than you? You could easily do that if you want to.

If we had the available cash, I'd spend more on holidays, but would probably be limited by not wanting to fly loads for environmental reasons.

That said, there's plenty to do by train or car.

Has someone told you YABU in real life? As per everyone above, it’s only unreasonable if you are shorting yourself on essentials to do it (I include pensions and savings as essentials). We used to spend that on an equivalent pre tax income (3x decent holidays a year for 3 outside of school holidays) but then we moved DC to private school so now we don’t!
Spend it however you like @hangak

What an odd question. Only you can decide what's reasonable, on your budget, to spend on holidays. Different people prioritise different things. Some people prioritise a flash car, or owning a horse, and go on cheap holidays, others prefer to spend their hard earned cash on holidays. We have old cars but spend c.20k a year on holidays, and we really don't care whether other people think that's reasonable or not. It's nobody else's business!

I’m surprised you can do that number/type of holidays on that budget tbh. Other than that, your money, your choice.

That's not a lot for several holidays each year. Why do you think that it is?

We earn 120-130k and spend 12-15k a year

Fuck me what an obvious Stealth Brag!!!!!!

🙄

Could you just buy a yacht and save some money that way?

“I am considerably richer than you”

If you can comfortably afford that budget for holidays, crack on. Good for you.

I would want to be completely debt-free, including having paid off my mortgage & accumulated a substantial quantity of ‘rainy day’ savings before spending anything like that amount on holidays though.

Wow, how much annual leave do you get, sounds like a lot of weeks. My hubby gets 20 days plus bank holidays, we couldn’t take that many jollies, unfortunately, I would if we could. You enjoy yourselves, as they say, “life isn’t a dress rehearsal “, go for it 🤩

Spend your money how you wish. Why not have great holidays if you can afford them.

Why do you need the validation of internet strangers, or is their envy what you’re after?

We prioritise holidays, trips and experiences as our mortgage is paid off, we have invested in pensions, have savings and no debt. Our household income is around £140k and we budget £14k for family holidays for the 4 of us: 2 weeks in summer abroad, 1 week in spring Europe city break, 1 week in UK cottage break, then a few weekends here and there and DH takes younger teen camping a couple of times a year.

You can spend your money how you want OP. Is someone telling you otherwise?

Sounds lovely, I’m jealous! It’s a valuable use of disposable income - might as well enjoy yourself OP - and easy to cut back if other expenses crop up.

your money, you spend it how you like

I'll never understand why people would ask strangers on the internet whether it's ok to spend their money on something they want to spend it on. It really is the strangest thing.

Have you any debts (other than mortgage)? Have you an emergency fund that’s easily accessible? Have you longer term savings or pension? Do you need to put those holidays on a credit card or are they paid for from money put aside for the purpose?

If your finances are generally healthy, and you are spending from money already there rather than going into debt, and you have sufficient cushion for day to day spending and any emegencies…then absolutely no issue. But if you have any other issues in your finances, I’d drop the number and cost a bit and fix the other holes first - I’m not saying no holidays, but reduce them a bit temporarily until you have a sound financial footing and then you can enjoy all of the holidays again.

We budget about 10% of take home for the following years holidays, we have quite variable incomes so some years that’s a LOT some years much less but to me what you’re suggesting sounds about right at that level
of income. We own one car outright though and don’t pay for schooling, our mortgage debt is less than 1yr gross income.

If I had just taken out an £800k mortgage and had 2 kids in full time nursery I’d be giving a very different answer… all about the detail

Perfectly reasonable. We spend about 20k pa on holidays.

Our net income is around £110k, we spend around that. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Its reasonable if its want you want to spend your money on really.