Nicer house no holidays, smaller house-holidays?

[Firstshoes]

Which would you choose?

You can't afford the nicer house.

It's overstretching you. It gives you no room to economise if have an unexpected financial issue or expense.

Your disposal income for holidays is also your safety net for other things.

We are staying in our just about big enough house that could be extended so we can have holidays and sped on other things. It is partly linked to me being risk avoidant due to an uncertain career future and being older now so 20 ish years to retirement. So keeping the mortgage down and being able to spend money on holidays and kids hobbies is important.

I'd love a nicer house, or to extend this one, but don't want to compromise the other things.

For me, bigger home.

Having space, warmth and nice facilities is fabulous.
I really value space, fewer neighbours and a large peaceful garden.
Its an investment that I can fall back on in the future.

Smaller house so I’d have disposable income.

I would happily have a smaller house - cheaper council tax, cheaper to heat, less to clean - but would it still have a garden? Would it be in a nice area? Is the other house actually nicer or just bigger?
I couldn't give up holidays whatever the case though tbh.

We've just sold our lovely house for a smaller one. Ditched the mortgage completely and intend to have 3 overseas hols a year.

In our opinion life is too short and the experience with are children are more important than a big garden.

Our new house is big enough to not feel cluttered and like we are on top of eachother though - it depends on if the small house allows you enough space.

It would depend for me on the sort of house size you're talking about and your general lifestyle.

We used to live in a small terrace which in principle had enough space for us but the lack of living space and space to WFH really ground us down

We now have a separate home office so nice separation of work and home life and a separate kids living room to adult living room. It's great.

I wouldn't sacrifice holidays to have a bigger place but I look back on our previous tiny home and am so grateful for this place.

Holidays abroad are by FAR cheaper than the UK.

We have done a week in the south of France and 10 days in Africa in the past cheaper than a 1 week caravan holiday in the UK. It can be more hassle or stress (especially if like us you live nowhere near a major airport or you have anxiety about travel) but its definitely cheaper.

I couldn't live with no holidays at all, so it would be the latter. But it's rarely such a binary choice - is there really no middle ground?

Nicer house because over time you'll often become better off and will be able to afford more holidays.

We chose smaller house and lots of holidays, we went overseas every year and more than once quite often. Biggest trip was a month long road trip in America. We live in a 3 bed semi, it’s a decent size with a big garden so it’s not tiny. It also meant we retired early.

You never get time back ever. Now I’m older I have zero regrets that’s what we did.

Nicer house, because holidays are frankly overrated shit.
Nicer house!
That's where you live (not a bloody olive 🫒).

People say this but I’ve never found it to be true,

we are on average £1000 per person to go abroad each holiday and we could get a top of the range caravan during summer holidays for £800/900 and that’s for us all. We don’t tend to spend much day to day on holiday in the uk.

also bigger house just means more bathrooms to clean! 🧼 🚽

We went for nicer house. Still have short holidays (perhaps one abroad every 2 years) and a couple of UK breaks each year.

happg with our decision: we both work from home and spend most of our time here. And when we retire we can downsize

This
I'm not a huge fan of expensive holidays, a week in Cornwall or France suits me fine but how does it look over all?
Expensive house with no buffer should interest rates shoot up or a life event/illness happen would be more pressing than holidays.
What do the figures/percentages of income look like Op?

We paid off our mortgage about ten years ago aged mid 30s on our small ish 3 bed semi. No desire to move anywhere bigger. It means we have a lot of disposable income and we use it for holidays and days out. No regrets at all. A lot of people our age are moving into bigger and grander homes but we’ve got no interest in that at all.

You need to shop around more as its definitely doable, we have never paid more than £150pp to go abroad.

Use the search functions and fly from the cheapest airport/time with the cheapest provider and stay in budget hotels (and to be honest some of them have been shockingly great value) its pretty easy it just takes research.

The UK has some of the highest accommodation costs of anywhere in the world and you can get a flight with ryanair or easyjet to somewhere with far cheaper accommodation costs from as little as £10 (less than a day trip on a coach).

You need to shop around more as it's definitely doable, we have never paid more than £150pp to go abroad.

Honestly, that doesn't sound pleasant, everyone has different preferences but I suspect a £150pp holiday would not be something I'd enjoy. There's a lot more to comparing holidays than purely basing it on whether it is abroad or not.

Yep same here. If I’m going on holiday somewhere it has to be nicer than my house at home. Otherwise it’s not fun to me.

I think cheap holidays abroad are dependant on the following:

1. living close to an airport with lots of options for cheap flights - we have to drive for 3 hours to get to one
2. being able to travel outside the school holidays (MIL was shocked when I told her what we would have to pay to visit SIL in Asia during the Xmas school holidays vs what she has to pay flying on a Tuesday in November)
3. having a small family so you can all fit in a single budget hotel bedroom. We have 3 teenagers so want 2-3 bedrooms
4. the type of holiday you want, and how popular the location is as a holiday spot.

Like a PP we usually end up spending ~£5K all in for a week long self catering holiday somewhere abroad. So, e.g. last year we had a week in a beautiful 3 bedroomed cottage in Scotland in the summer holidays and a week in a beautiful 3 bedroomed house in Greece in the October half term. The acommodation costs were actually very similar, museums and eating out was more expensive in Scotland but we had to pay for flights and car hire in Greece. So the Scottish holiday was much cheaper than the Greek holiday.

When our children were small we bought a trailer tent then a folding camper and had UK holidays in those but always had the best house we could afford. Like PP said, the house it where you spend the remaining 50 weeks of the year so why be somewhere that makes you miserable? Our two week camping holidays cost us max £1000 for 5 plus 2 dogs and that included all food, site fees, fuel etc. We spent a lot of time on beaches, or walking, rarely went to expensive amusement places even when the kids were very small. Rainy days were days for walking! We went camping in France twice - Eurocamp ready erected tents - which cost us double and we still didn't get two weeks of sunshine!

I notice a lot of people commenting they would rather have a ‘nice house’ since when was a smaller home not considered nice?

Nicer house. Holidays are a rip off.

Yes of course, you are right.

The op probably feels the need for something a bit bigger. Perhaps a medium type house would suit, we all have to compromise.

No doubt they will still have holidays, just not extravagant and expensive ones but can be fun just the same.

It’s a balance. Is the nicer house really going to make you happy everyday or is the smaller house perfectly adequate for your needs.

Life is about lots of things. If the bigger house is going to stretch you too much that you have to constantly consider finances is it worth it? If the smaller house does the job but enables you to have a more comfortable and flexible lifestyle that could make you happier then that’s worth so much more than bricks and mortar.