Can I ask, how do you calculate your family holiday budget?

[Honesttodog]

My DH works, i don't , and I want to try and figure out how much we should spend on holidays. DH works really hard and is reasonably well paid, so I feel we should all get a proper break - so I have looked at a holiday resort where all is provided, childcare, babysitting etc. but DH says it's quite expensive. I feel like we should be able to do a couple of holidays a year where we don't feel like we have to be arguing over childcare etc. - and this place has kiddy clubs etc so we would be able to read and nap in the mornign, eat meals together, but also have some time to hang out while kids were with babysitter in the evening, even if it's just to have a drink/chat.

Do you look at yearly income and take a portion of that (what percentage?) or do you set aside a bit of monthly income? Or something different?

we put a bit aside every month and spends have to come below that. we haven't had a holiday this year due to house move and new baby so the pot is pretty healthy at the mo.

I'm interested that your idea of a good holiday seems to be spending as little as possible of it with your children however.

We probably spend 10% approx but that's just how it works out. That's a week skiing in winter, a week somewhere hot in summer and prob x2 long weekends away ie in Venice.

We work out what we can afford to save each month, divide it by two (half to long term or bigger savings objectives) times it by 12 and that's our pot.
From that we use 1/3 for Christmas and 2/3 for holiday.

I put a fixed amount of money into savings/investments each month and the resulting pot is split into 'rainy day'... a few months' outgoings ... leaving the rest for 'irregular expenses' like holidays, replacing appliances, Christmas etc.

ok thanks. bit of number crunching ahead... Planning to do some work on house so need to factor that in too, but I was not sure how to manage our outgoings and calculate the holiday too.

We simply make the decision as to whether we can afford it at the time we would want to book. We both work and are high earners but there are always other outgoings. A holiday is a treat not an entitlement and so this year we have only had a week away (for us, a family of four, a week abroad must cost about £2k all inclusive). Next year however we are going to Florida for a fortnight since we have put aside a bit more cash this year. That will be our only holiday next year but its a real splurge.

As a percentage of income though holidays are quite low, about 3 percent.

I don't think you can really judge by what others do though. Everyone has different outgoings and different priorities. My parents spend about 30 percent of their income on holidays but they have no mortgage, an immaculate house, grown up children and few outgoings. We are focussing on paying off our mortgage and most of our spare money is going on that. Its a slippery slope measuring yourselves by what others do or don't do.

Get out the calculator and work out realistically you have spare each year once you've factored in absolutely everything, bills, childcare, christmas, birthdays, socialising, cars and transportation, hobbies, pension (do you have one if you don't work? If not you should look at this), savings, maintenance on house, emergency fund for car/boiler/roof etc.

Ours are about 3% of take home too - we put holiday money in a separate instant access cash ISA - so money for weekends out and a couple of weeks a year goes into there by standing order every month.

The idea of 10% of income on holidays makes me feel faint, but then my disposable income may be lower than others, and my priorities are certainly different. Like littleredsquirrel says, we judge at the time what (if anything) we can afford to do. Try to go abroad every 1.5-2 years, but certainly don't feel entitled to it, and sometimes it's a long weekend tacked on to the back of somebody's work trip to save on a flight one way!

Definitely no right or wrong answer to this one. It just has to be a compromise based on your disposable income and the relative importance to each of you.