Holiday budget

[Jdi2hdiw]

Our take home pay is 8k per month. Have been trying to budget with DH for our annual holidays. Just finished paying nursery fees and it finally feels like we can actually have some holidays. Whats your holiday budget if you get 8k per month? We thought 10% so would have to save 800 pounds per month. What do others do?

Our take home pay is just over half of yours and we save about £400 a month towards holidays so for you £800 seems reasonable.

I imagine you’d be after more spendy holidays than we go for so will need a decent amount.

Our take home is about 5.5k, and we save between 500 and 1000 depending on other expenses (and what holidays we have booked!) 800 is a great amount to save.

In our household everything left over at the end of the month gets funnelled into a interest earning 'holiday' account, but not all of it necessarily gets spent on holidays. The amount per month does vary, like one month has car tax, insurance and MOT/service all to be paid in the same month, and obviously lead up to Christmas is way more expensive than most other months. I don't spend a lot though on other luxury things, I'm a bit anti-social and holidays are priority, so no many temptations in our household to spend it on other things. A target like 10% might good to aim for if you are likely to be tempted by other things.

This isn't how we work our finances. We earn a bit less, but no kids so probably have lower outgoings too. Our bills come out, we spend what we spend, and anything left over goes in savings. Then we see what we can afford/want to spend/where we want to go. We also usually have multiple holidays a year so it's not as straightforward as saving X a month.

Similar income here for a family of four with 2 primary aged DC. Last year we spent £7600 on holidays, so around £650/month. Most of that was on a 2-week trip to the US in the summer hols (1 week of which stayed with friends and family). But we also did:

Derbyshire - long weekend in a cottage
Lakes - few days in a cottage in Easter hols
Cotswolds - weekend camping
Cornwall - weekend for a wedding

This year it will probably be similar. Not booked yet but thinking:

City break in Europe - £2000
2 weeks summer hols in Europe s/c (eg Eurocamp or Airbnb) £3500-£4000
Weekend camping £100
Long weekend in Yorkshire Dales or Wales £600
etc

10% seems sensible, but it all comes down to priorities/affordability.

Mine has crept up to 15% the last few years but it's affordable as am past the nursery years and DS doesn't have a penchant for expensive tech/clothes yet 😂 I'm sure it will go back down in future but holidays are very important for us right now.

We were thinking of setting up a separate account earmarked for holidays. Reading uo on MN holiday boar - can't believe how expensive everything got since Covid.

We have £9k income and I save £700/month into a dedicated savings account.

We could do more but we overpay the mortgage currently and need to budget that DD will start uni this year.

But we also add things like a portion of my bonus and any tax return DH gets.

We spend about 15% but don’t have any children

It might help to manage expectations - no point aiming to save say £5,000 when the holiday you want costs £10,000. Chuck in some rough dates and have a look at typical prices to give you something to aim for.

We take home about £5000 a month and will probably spend around £10-12,000 over a year (family of 5). That will include a week in February self catering in Europe (~£1500 total), 7-10 days typical beach resort AI (~£6000), October self catering break either UK/EU (~£500-£1000), two or three long weekends away in UK (~£500 each), plus a short break at Christmas UK/EU (~£500-£1000).

We don’t tend to have separate account to budget for holidays. We go away about 3-4 times a year and then some odd weekends away. We always pay for it on a credit card for protection and then pay off in full. Maybe we should start having a dedicated account?!