If you had a take home of £120k a year… would you spend £10k on travel?

[rockgardener]

We get 5 weeks annual leave a year plus bank holidays. Our take home income is £120k a year.

I want to spend 4 weeks of that abroad and 1 week in the UK. We do most flights in premium economy on points.

Holidays abroad planned are:

2 weeks in South East Asia = £4k
1 week Caribbean = £2k
1 week Mauritius = £2k

UK weekends away = £2k

I don't think you've looked at costs properly if you're going to do it on that budget, unless you're travelling like student backpackers, which I wouldn't do on that income.

I have less than that and spend that on travel

Nothing stealth about it!

Well I also wondered if I was a stealth boast, as you wouldn't expect someone with the wherewithal to earn that kind of money to need help working out what is a reasonable amount to spend on holidays.

Regardless... OP as long as your other outgoings are covered and you're making sensible provision for your retirement, go for it. Life is too short.

I don't think it's unreasonable at all. Life is to be lived and if you can afford it, then go and enjoy yourself!

But, like others, I'd love to know where you're booking for this kind of money as we've booked 10 days in Turkey at a cost of £9k (4 of us in school holidays)

Have you found holidays which match your budget or have you budgeted this amount for your holidays?

Where are you going for £2k in the Caribbean / Mauritius?!

Weird question, we spend about 20% of annual income on holidays. Holidays are a priority for us.

Off you go! - lots of pollution!

Obviously it depends, what's your mortgage like, how about savings and pensions, will you continue to have this income long term, are you about to put three kids through uni, or is it mostly disposable income?

Only 10k.

Are you going backpacking for that price.

I also think that’s very cheap!! We are looking at Europe outside of school holidays and a villa for the three of us is £3k. We also get reduced priced flights with points, but I can’t see how our 10 day holiday with food and other sundries is going to be less than £5k.

Personally I like a holiday to be nicer or at least equal to my own house as it doesn’t feel like a treat, but if you don’t mind about your accommodation so much I guess it’s doable?

That’s interesting. So how much do you run through credit cards like Amex to get points? Am I understanding this correctly?

We earn half that and spend about £8k on holidays.

What's the point of being a high earner if you can't enjoy it?!

Not sure what the point of this post is. Of course you can spend £10k on holidays if you want to, assuming you are not living beyond your means. High earning does not necessarily mean high disposable income if you're spending it all every month on expensive mortgage, car, childcare etc., but if you can afford it then go for it. It's not even that excessive, we earn less than you so but spend more than that on more holidays, but our outgoings are relatively small each month so have plenty of savings.

It absolutely depends on what your priorities are, what your other spending commitments are and how you both feel about saving.

In my family I could happily do less holidays and more on the house. DH has a progressive disability so he is more 'need to see stuff now!'

Between us we do a happy medium which generally means holiday with cheaper accommodation.

@Sandwichblock I had a colleague who earned a bit less but her only way to do holidays was packing a 60l hiking backpack and off. Sjhe managed to go to Bali, India, New Zealand for 4 weeks for not a lot of money but for her holiday wasn't luxery, it was exploring.

It wasn't for me but some people do prefer the low key approach.

If you have take home of £120k your gross is probably circa £200k depending on how you earn that money eg the split between two people and whether its dividends/PAYE etc

So yes £10k on holidays would be normal (I'm impressed you're doing all of that so cheaply though)

We spend about 15% of our income on holidays and weekends away so YANBU. We live in a cheap area and don't spend money on anything else (no hobbies, no meals out, don't drink etc) so it works for us.

Definitely reasonable. Sounds great!

My Dh are fairly recently retired, before this take home pay was 120k (just under 200k before tax) and we spent 20k on holidays.

Our main summer holiday world cost about 10k -14k.

We do and we do - but there are 5 of us so it doesn't get us to the Caribbean very often!

That looks cheap for Carib and Mauritius?

Well surely it depends on your essential costs and also savings and the stability of your income.

If you have a secure income, savings, good pensions, low mortgage etc etc, it's fine.

If the £120k is largely spent on mortgage, car payments, childcare etc, you have hardly any pensions, no savings and an insecure income, then it would be very unwise.

Depends on outgoings 😎

Why not if you can afford it.

I don’t think your budget looks very realistic though - you can spend £4k at the moment on return flights to Asia in economy!

And £2k for a week in the Caribbean… not going to touch the sides IMO.

That’s a really low budget for what you describe, even if you do have points.