Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Money matters

Find financial and money-saving discussions including debt and pension chat on our Money forum. If you're looking for ways to make your money to go further, sign up to our Moneysaver emails here.

What proportion of you income do you spend on holidays?

31 replies

Doraemon · 15/10/2014 19:08

We are having our annual lengthy debate about next year's holidays. Leaving aside all the issues around how much fun a holiday can be with a toddler and two older children one of whom has ASD, I am struggling to define how much is a reasonable amount of money to spent. We are, relative to a lot of people, not badly off, but don't have much if anything left at the end of this month. Even staying in the UK this year we spent the best part of a month's income on one rainy week in a mobile home - everything seems to ridiculously expensive, especially when we factor in that the toddler will be 2 and have to have her own seat if we fly anywhere.
I don't want to know specifically how much you consider normal as I know there is a huge income range on here but I would be interested to know how much you would consider reasonable as a proportion of your family's income.

OP posts:
arna · 28/10/2014 21:27

I love travelling so we spend up to 10% of our net income on holidays. But....they are still viewed as luxuries so we do cut back on expenditure drastically if we need to - in fact, we have had staycations in recent years due to work on the house.
I do copious research and tend to go for half term holidays to avoid the august premium. I get a lot more for my money at the end of May/October than for Aug especially for accommodation. Less crowds, not stifling hot but still hot enough - what's not to like?
I tend to book budget short haul flights and depending on circumstances/my mood, I'd either splurge on high end accommodation (writing from a beachside villa with a heated pool right now!) or go for a value for money kid friendly resort. In a typical year, we have 2 one week short haul family holidays.

elQuintoConyo · 28/10/2014 21:38

I'd say about 1% of our joint income, net.

But we live on a Mediterranean beach and only have to book cheap flights to the UK, free accommodation from parents Grin

I am not working summer 2017 (weird work rota, I'll have 15th June -1st October free!) and we have been saving for a year already to fly out to Australia. If we paid for tickets in one go, it'd probably cost 6 months' wages from both of us for 3 tickets.

EldonAve · 28/10/2014 21:48

5% although sometimes it is more

arna · 29/10/2014 09:00

To be clear, we spend up to 10% of our net income per year, not per holiday!

Stripyhoglets · 29/10/2014 21:28

We spend about £800 on a week in the uk in the summer, holiday hire only then probably spend £500 a week while away doing stuff. Then probably the same again on weekends away, short break at Easter etc. All added up it is about a months net salary 3kish . We spend more now than we used to as kids are older so school holiday time and we want to do stuff with them while they are still young enough to want to do stuff! We have only been abroad once to France, the holiday home hire and ferry cost the same as only a week in the uk, so good value, but we probably spent about £1k on top over 10 days.

Captainweasel · 07/11/2014 11:48

So far, we've spent a months wages on our December trip. That's mainly for flights.

We are off to NZ for the month to visit family. flights are almost double the price we paid when we last went (2 years ago - in the February) because of the time of year we're going. We are managing to save in some ways by staying with family for parts of the trip. But have spent out on hotels, activities and will be eating out a lot.

Have budgeted throughout the year to pay for this though.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page