Annual Vacation Budget?

About how much would estimate you spend of vacations annually and how many people in your household family are included? This includes long weekend trips and having to stay at a hotel if visiting friends/family.

I just got to wondering because it seems everyone I meet is constantly on vacation, not wealthy people or anything, and I wonder what the average is now.

My current budget is zero, but during better times we probably spent about $6000 a year, all trips in driving distance.

Re: Annual Vacation Budget?

It depends upon the year and what my kids do for camp. When my kids attended expensive camp our vacation budget was very small. Once my kids kept saying they hated the expensive camp we went for much less expensive camp and upped our vacation budget a lot. Once I paid off my student loans and used more for savings I was also able to free up some cash for vacations too. Lastly, our families take us on a spring break vacation to spend time with our kids. I know a lot of people who visit family for vacations so they end up not having hotel expenses.

Edit: I use costco for our vacations. We got back this week from a 9 day vacation to Disney and Universal for $4,000 for 4 people including airfare, hotel, tickets, and uber. Camp cost $2400 this year.

Last year we went to Hawaii (Maui and Lanai) for 9 days for $7,000 including hotel (grand Wailea), air, car and breakfast for the kids). Camp cost $1200 last year.

We used to spend $7,000 on camp for 2 kids and go on $2,000 vacations. I would much rather go on better vacations and my kids are happier too.

We don't go on small trips. We may do a day activity and drive home, but we really only do one big trip. We do not go away for Christmas break. If we do smaller things we sleep at my parents or in laws which is free. We are also older. When we were younger our vacation budget was $1000 or non existent. Now we save and budget for vacations.

Message edited 8/25/2019 10:49:44 PM.

Annual Vacation Budget?

We used to spend $3000/ year, then we bought a house had twins and haven’t gone away since 2014 because life! We started a vacation fund last year and I’m a big fan of sinking funds! So I set one up for vacation for 2 small trips and one large trip. We budgeted $8k for this year. We decided to do 2 trips this year instead of 3 because our larger trip is much more then we planned but we do day trips a few times a month and I take my kids somewhere weekly during the summer for a day. This year we are doing PA in 3 weeks to Lancaster/ Thomas day out and then we are going to Aruba in December. We are a family of 4. Next year I plan to keep my savings the same $8k. We just set it up monthly to move to an account. I’m hoping we have money left over from Aruba from our vacation account to roll into next year since we already have 1 trip for a wedding! I envied people going on vacation but you never know if they are just charging it and paying later. My husband used to ask the same thing but we both agree save now and pay now rather than later. Our money was so tied into our house and fertility treatments and raising 2 infants that the last 4 years have been a blur and our money went to those things rather than trips

Message edited 8/25/2019 10:23:35 PM.

Annual Vacation Budget?

It depends on the year. This year, about 1k between a short trip to Lancaster and dh taking a boys trip to miami.

Next year, probably about 5k-we’re planning Disney and another trip.

Before kids, there were years dh and i spent about 5-7k for the 2 of us and went on some amazing vacations. Then we bought a house and had three kids lol

Annual Vacation Budget?

We don’t budget or plan vacations. They end up more of a short term pop up plan. We do weekend type things and my parents live in FL so we are able to do that for next to nothing most times.

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When our kids were in preschool we only did small, under $2000 a year vacations because we knew they would not really remember them and it was what we could afford. We saved up for years for our more expensive vacations that we took recently.

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It's hard to say because it depends on the year. This year we have gone to Disney and rented a beach house for a week. We are also headed to Hershey in a few weeks and have had some other little trips here and there. We are probably up around $20K for this year but that's not the norm. Usually around $10K I would say.

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I honestly have no idea what we spend. I never keep track.
We don't go on big or long trips though.

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Family of 4. We try to do a "big" trip every other year, but every year we always go to Hilton Head Island in SC.

The "big trip" years (Aruba, Disney, Hawaii next year) range anywhere from $6000 to $10,000 depending on where the big trip is and that also includes the annual HHI trip.

The off year, we just do HHI and maybe Hershey or Kalahari, something smaller. So those years, are like $2500-$3500.

Since we try to do a big trip every other year, we save for 2 years for it.

My husband bartends on the side, and we basically put that money away to pay for vacations.

Message edited 8/26/2019 2:35:20 PM.

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I dont keep track of how much. My bank offers a holiday fund account. It is usually used for saving for the holiday, but we put $$ in every check and use it to go away. We usually go away Thanksgiving, and now started going away Fe. Break, and go away in the summer. I just think it is what you can afford.

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I don't keep track but I would say maybe 3-4k? This year more since we are doing Disney in November. Family of four.

Message edited 8/26/2019 4:38:22 PM.

Re: Annual Vacation Budget?

I have to say don’t compare yourself to others. For example where you will spend 6k on a few local trips, I may spend that on two Caribbean trips or 1 international trip. Ex. So It probably cost me 6k or maybe less to go to Bahrain and Dubai. Basically on social media this looks so grand even though you went on like 4 trips for this price. Bahrain will look amazing compared to me going to Baltimore & lake George etc... However, my cousin was in the military so aside from expensive flights, we had no hotel and ate cheap good food.

My point is it all depends on your priorities. I’m not rich but I do only have 1 child, so it is easier for us to plan trips. I also don’t do bday parties for him every year or big parties in general. Instead of having a big baptism party we went to Aruba as family instead. This year right before his 11th birthday we are going to India. So we will just have a cake. Cutting out a party in a place or house party saves me a cpl hundred or thousand to use towards a trip.

I want to add, my point isn’t to say I’m right and you’re wrong. But to add context behind what you see. Because I’ve had people ask how do we do it and they think we are some secret Rich people when trust me “I wish”!! Because then I can quit my job when they Piss me off lol.

But to answer your question we don’t do a yearly budget, however I think you’re on to something and we should. We are like several months beforehand research the deals we can get type of family.

Message edited 8/27/2019 3:05:50 AM.

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We do not budget. Most of our trips are planned a few weeks before we go and less than 2k for everything. This year we did disney and planned 2 months in advance, which for us was a long time.
We have a timeshare and usually bank it because I can not go to the Caribbean due to Zika. So we look at what is available when we bank our timeshare.

Annual Vacation Budget?

$0

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Depends on the year. We were saving money per month In a separate account but we had to just use that to pay for our car. So I’m not sure about next year but we will prob do one airfare trip in feb and one driving trip in August.

The driving trip doesn’t actually save much money by the time we do food and activities.

I agree with others, looks aren’t always what they seem. So just do what you can afford and what makes you happy. We live debt free (other than mortgage) and do some things to save while on trips while splurging on the items that make us happy. Basically you do you.

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I would say we average 10-15k a year on vacations. We usually do a cruise in January and then at least one big trip a year. We've done Ireland, Paris, Alaska, California Coast.

Wanted to add that I love planning trips. I do a lot of research find best deals etc. So what we spent as a family of 4 to go to Paris others might spend for a week in Disney.

Message edited 8/28/2019 12:18:40 PM.

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I don't add it up and we go on vacation like once a month. Travel addict

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This year we splurged and took 2 fairly big vacations ($10k+ total) but we took none the year before and only did Sesame Place 2 years ago. Next year we're planning on 1 vacation and 1 out of town wedding (maybe $7k total).

Annual Vacation Budget?

Since we got married (bought a house, had kids, etc.), pretty much all our vacations have been business conferences for my husband that I tagged along for. So most of the expenses are covered by his work, and maybe we spend $500 or so on my flight, food, and our entertainment.

This coming year, we're doing a trip to Disney. We planned to go all out, because it will be our one big vacation before the kids are school aged, so we're spending around $5k.

We have friends who go on vacation all the time. I know some of them are going into debt for it. Others save up but still basically live paycheck to paycheck for it. We don't go into debt for it, and we save for it separately from our emergency savings, which is for unexpected household expenses, e.g., when our sewer line collapses right before the holidays.

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We probably spend about $15k a year on vacation. I love to travel and we also get opportunities to go great places thru a vacation home exchange program that we participate it. It's amazing. I feel like my kids are getting to see and do amazing things that I only dreamed of as a kid. For me I would rather spend money on experiences than material things.

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When I was married, the budget was about 10,000-20,000 a year (depends if we took a really big trip or not).

Now that life has happened and divorce was expensive, it has really been cut down. I need to save money to just be able to see my family. I’m hoping I can go this year to NY because I haven’t seen my family in 2 years.

SO and I put aside some money and do weekend trips and stay with family and friends. We have a really nice weekend trip coming up at a spa in Austria in October. We got a great price and the last time we went away alone without family and friends was two years ago. We can’t wait. Since we can’t really afford (time and money) to do big trips right now, we do a lot of day trips in the area (Alps, lakes, etc.).

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every week we budget $100 out of our paychecks into a vacation fund. We usually do 1 big trip with a smaller trip in between and day trips.
Money from tax refund or any bonuses will also go to this fund during the year.

We just recently did a week in Denver, Wyoming, Nebraska and Mt Rushmore, and with airfaire and spending $$, hotels, car, etc. it was 4K.

This year is a little different b/c we are doing DIsney in Nov for DS birthday. So thats 2 big trips we had to budget for this year.

Annual Vacation Budget?

I don't add up. We own a condo in Myrtle Beach, a timeshare and have a lot of hotel points so typically we don't pay extra for lodging.