How important are holidays to you?

[nkf]

I don't mean time off work but the going away etc...
My husband is mad about them and I want to rein in our expenses. I can't bear how much our summer holiday this year cost us. And yet I feel like such a meanie for saying we shouldn't.

ahh, it is all in german, I wouldn't have a clue where to start - thanks anyway.

Google translate and Babelfish helped me sort it out though I do speak a little German which I guess helped.

I think its massively important, although it doesnt have to be massively expensive.
Our holiday is the one time of year which re-affirms by belief in our family and how great we all are together, me and dh get on great, the kids are always angels because they are busy and entertained 24/7 even if its just something simple like going out for food, or watching a rubbish show.
Its important quality family time to us that we dont get chance to do that often.

I have just booked next years, cost £1400 for two weeks in a 4* resort for 4 of us which IMHO is pretty good.

Is the £1400 all in? Including flights etc.

I think we must be doing something wrong in our house. We never have any spare cash for holidays.

Can I ask you holidayers...do you bung it on the credit card and worry later or do you have a fund you save into for holidays? How do you do it?

Well, we don't have the either. My husband insists we bung it on credit but this year was the turning point for me. Never ever again.

What do others do? I wonder if we are being stingy saying 'no holidays' because we don't want a huge credit bill.

But did anyone say on their death bed 'I'm so pleased I had no holidays, but kept my crdit rating up'??

We don't stick it on card, well I do for the element of protection you have but then pay it off when the bill comes in. Moneysavingexpert.com has been fab for us and we now have our budget under control with some spare at the end of the month (for as long as we are both employed that is)

Having card debt in the past and managed to clear it there is no way I'd go back to it. If things get too tight to go away we would do a house swap with our friends in Somerset. We've stayed there before when they were away on holiday, they stayed here last year whilst we were away so if things get too bad for all of us we will just swap to get a break.

nkf yes thats everything (apart from food because we like to do self catering so we can eat out every night), so thats apartments, transfers, flights and kids clubs.
I dont put it on the credit card although I prob should given the current climate. We just pay a bit when we can and save for the final payment, then those 10 weeks bewteeen then an holiday we save like hell for our spending money

Chasingsquirrels, I speak German, so if there's something you need to know about the farm, just ask.

Lots more German holidays here everyone (see link below), translated into English.

Germany is very child-friendly indeed. Kinderhotel chain in Germany/Austria is also good but expensive at peak times. However German school summer holidays are staggered a bit, with each area having slightly different dates, which means you might be able to find some bargains in our school holiday periods.

Hotel Steingenberger in Lam, near the Bavarian Forest, was doing full board weeks last year at 2000 euros for four people in two bedrooms, and when I say full board I mean absolutely full board all day whenever you want, including decent booze and a minibar stuffed with sweets and drinks. You also get sports, hiking tours, childcare and things like white water rafting thrown in for free. It rains a bit there, though. Fly to Nuremberg with AirBerlin to get there.

www.tiscover.de/home/winter08/index_de.html?_lan=en

www.steigenberger.com/aw/Steigenberger_Hotel_Lam/~bqyp/

Hotel Steigenberger in Lam, Bavaria. Pretty posh and lots to do indoors if it rains.

Holidays are so so vital for me, I moved from london to glasgow 3 years ago and basically summer does not exist here, although there are lots and lots of advantages!!! I have 3 children under 5 and am currently supply teaching full time til xmas, then back to part time, purely to raise the £1000 we need for our holiday. I need the sun, escape from home - its a mental health issue for me. last year we flew easy jet from glasgow to paris, hired a car and found a last minute gite in the loire valley. lovely weather but not too hot, split cost of gite with my sister and her family. very rural france, swimming in fresh water lakes, cooking our own meals, plenty of local wine in the sunshine, we managed to keep the whole 2 weeks to around the 1k mark which i think is good for 2 weeks in france, i worked hard to earn the money but it was really worth it

We used to live for our holidays, before children. We had endless holidays in all sorts of exotic places, and lots of UK holidays too. We thought we "needed" them. But since having children, 3 close together in age, holidays are a whole lot less enticing. Much more expensive for 5 in school holidays than for 2 in term time, much more work, and much less fun.

I've utterly changed my tune on holidays, we still have them but now I think that people can manage perfectly well without them, and just think they need them.

I don't mean people don't need leisure time. but we can have that at home. Holidays with several small childrne are often more stress than leisure, IME.

Interesting one - we've had an odd year on the holiday front.

I've always felt I "need" to go away for a holiday - only once a year, but definitely away somewhere to get a change of scene, clear my mind of home stuff etc.

My DH on the other hand, finds holidays stressful and gets very little benefit.

This year we had a rather grim holiday in the UK, with lots of rain. Soon after, DH took a week off and we just had a week at home together. And we got so much benefit from just relaxing in our home, with our kids, and going out on day trips. And I watched DH relax and smile in a way that he hadn't for months.

So now I'm having to reappraise whether it is really "essential" for us to go away for holidays, or whether sometimes we might be better to give ourselves some quality family time at home, where we can all relax.

I do wonder whether we're particularly hampered by our children. My 3 dds (8,7 and 4) are in general - in termtime, in school and preschool, in the evenings, at weekends - pretty well behaved and happy. Really quite nice children to be around a lot of the time.

But as we approach a holiday, they are appalling. The packing sends them into an absolute frenzy of excitement, they screech around and overpack and take things out and quarrrel and get upset and then overexcited. The mood continues as we go on holiday, and they often get worse as the holiday progresses. We were in Spain for 10 days last year and my Spanish friend noted with amazement that they got significantly worse in behaviour by the day.

We start to think we have awful, badly behaved nightmare children. And then we come home. and they calm down. And are lovely again. This keeps happening but I wonder how common it is. It surprises us every time.

I'm a big fan of holidays - I feel it's one of the good things in life that dh and I work towards and I love spending time with the dcs when I am not fed up about the state of the house/the piles of laundry/work deadlines or what have you. I also have v different rules about bedtime (whenever) and meals (bread, tomatoes, cheese and nutella covers all the food groups) on holiday so everyone has a fun time. We went skiing last year which was ££ but wonderful, but our other holiday was a house swap and we are planning another swap or two for 2009 so it works out reasonably over the year.

very important.

but can't afford one.

I love holidays and they are one of our big luxuries but we have never spent £6K on one - not even our honeymoon, but that was 10 years ago, so inflation etc will have occured since then.

I think to go abroad, £1K is quite tight. What did the £6K include - was it all spending money and food, everything or just flights/accommodation/car hire? Generally we spend about £2-2.5K for a fortnight in Europe in the summer holidays for a family of four including spending money and everything else.

We love our holidays. Pre kids, we did longhaul and stayed in some really exotic places. With 2 young children, we've done short haul mostly and the big change for us is that I'm become a fan of ownersdirect and holidayrentals too like another MNetter where you rent places directly from the owners. It's a hell of a lot cheaper plus we can always get a 3 bed place (so allow the children their own room) plus a pool. Car hire is a must and flights are only cheaper during holidays if you book them as soon as they're released (not us!). This is the 1st year that we have been tied to school holidays so I've resigned myself to dearer flights. In fact, we're braving a longhaul Xmas holiday and I truly resent the fact that our economy flight tickets alone cost more than any short haul holiday we've had in Europe so far. My parents are travelling ahead by a month and their tickets are half the price of ours - they were truly shocked but hey, they've never had the issue of having to travel during peak school holidays for the entire world! We self cater normally but only for the evenings (which will change when my youngest is of an age when she no longer needs to be in bed by 7pm). From experience, it will be impossible to do 'budget' if you don't want to drive or arrange your own excursions but it's all relative. I still like my luxury but I have a frugal streak which makes me research where I can get the most luxury for my money!

Cat64, I'm only any use if it is a French gite, German Farm or Spanish villa in Javea I'm afraid !

But I would guess that if you chose where you go carefully so it is relatively close to the airport then you could get a taxi. We've done this is the past from Cologne Airport when DD was little and DH has done it in Spain when he had to go and see his Mum and managed to misplace his driving licence - I guess you then look up the rules for car seats in each country. Cologne was easy, there were loads of taxis waiting and we weren't going too far, about 30 - 40 mins. DH had to pre-book his and cheated as his Dad sorted it with a local. I have also seen on some properties they say they can arrange transport to collect you from the airport so maybe you could find someone who would do that.

A car would be a lot easier though, you just grab it from the airport. But I know the idea of driving on the other road can be very daunting and I have always left that to DH who lived with his parents for a few years in Spain and was used to driving on the other side of the road. I had a go in France this year, convinced I would be rubbish, it wasn't anywhere near as bad as I thought.

We've tried holidays at home but because we both work from home it tends to fail miserably, hence my new found enthusiasm for holidays!

Hugely important in our house. We always go long haul even if there are far better things to spend the money on.

Sometimes I cringe when I tot up what we've spent on holidays over the last few years. But you only live once and the memories get us through the crappier parts of the English year!

Holidays are such an important bonding time and they don't have to be expensive. Lots of shared family fun and experiences - that is what memories are made of!