How do people afford the countless vacations?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I sometimes wonder the same thing as you. I think it's a combination of taking advantage of work trips (if one parent is traveling to a conference in an interesting location, the whole family goes) and paying less for housing. All our friends who travel a lot live in small apartments. Also, looking at Facebook it may seem like everyone is on vacation all the time because it allows you to keep up with a lot of people. So at any given time several of your friends are probably on vacation, but each individual family may only be taking 1-2 trips a year.

Not OP but I would say the average UMC family in DC that I come across vacations 3-4 times a year and usually includes at least one big international trip.

[Anonymous]

We make about 250k, have a 3500k mortgage, save for retirement and college, and travel twice a year with a budget of about 10k for both. At least one of our annual vacations is a driving vacation and for hotels we use points from our credit card, which we use to pay for everything (and then pay off every month), or we do airbnb. Every other year we fly somewhere grand like California or Europe and I start looking early for deals on plane tickets. There are so many great places you can drive to from here, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We take 2-3 week long trips a year on $300k, but I know the people OP is talking about. It's the types of destinations - Disney Cruise, Beaches, Atlantis, Hawaii, etc. Trips at are $10-12k per week. Our trips are $5-6k/week and we feel like that is a lot and constantly wonder how people spend so much more.

+ 1

I know many people like this. They must spend 30-40k a year on travel. I really wonder how they can afford that on incomes that must be in the 200-400k range.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I have plenty of friends (grown adults in their 30's) with parents who pay for their many vacations. "Let's all go to Disney!" courtesy of Grandma and Grandpa.

Having free vacations sounds wonderful in theory, but sharing all my time off with my parents? ...*shudder*

LOL. Well I got the short end of that stick. We pay our own way AND vacation with my parents. We enjoy it immensely though! Love spending time with my parents on vacation. What I hate is wasting my annual leave visiting my inlaws in their own house and not doing anything.

My stick is shorter - we took a Disney cruise with my in-laws and we paid their way.

Eeek. Disney cruises are pricey too. We just booked a 4 night one to the Bahamas for 5 people for the week following next Easter. $7k something and that is before the 2 nights at a Disney hotel and 2 days at the MK and airefare. It'll be well over 10k all in. LOL.

That's nothing to laugh at. Absurd actually. Instead of a fake $$$ trip like that, you could go so many other places.

It's one of those laugh so you don't cry scenarios In all honestly I'm sure we'll have a wonderful time. Kids are young and at the perfect age for Disney. It is expensive though. Probably the only the we'll do a Disney cruise. I wanted to try it out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We make about 250k, have a 3500k mortgage, save for retirement and college, and travel twice a year with a budget of about 10k for both. At least one of our annual vacations is a driving vacation and for hotels we use points from our credit card, which we use to pay for everything (and then pay off every month), or we do airbnb. Every other year we fly somewhere grand like California or Europe and I start looking early for deals on plane tickets. There are so many great places you can drive to from here, though.

How much goes to college and retirement each month?

[Anonymous]

Am I the only one who finds these vacations to be a lot of effort and hassle? I love being with my family, but jeez it's a lot of work.

[Anonymous]

As others have said it's about priorities. Some of the people who do expensive vacations now are going to end up telling their kids they have to take out huge loans for college or attend state school because they don't have enough saved up.

[Anonymous]

1. FB is full of lies, just ignore it. You can't post your investment portfolio on FB (well, you could but I'm not gonna)

I always think it's funny when people set up a dichotomy with in consumer spending (granite counter tops not Disney, travel not new furniture)

But there is a third option. Don't spend it, save it. We try really hard to save as much as we can. People must think we are barely scraping by, but my husband is going to retire by 45. So I guess that's our status symbol?

[Anonymous]

My husband travels every quarter for work and I just got a job where I travel every quarter for work, so the next vacation we take should be free air fair for us and our two kids (airline miles). Maybe even free hotel. Then in the summer we go to my in-laws beach house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They are probably not saving for the future the way you are. When it comes time to send the kids to college, they'll be looking for financial aid or upset that they can't afford the schools their kids worked so hard to get in to. And then there's retirement. You can't take out loans for retirement, so if you haven't saved enough, it could be a rocky road.

OP, don't worry about other people. You are the smart one because you are being responsible in preparing for your future. The bonus is that you will be able to sleep at night because you will not have the financial worries that others who have spent freely will have.

I would rather have my kids go to a reasonably priced state school and have vacations with my family than save it all for an overpriced school that charges $65,000 a year.

[Anonymous]

Different people have different priorities and/or different expenses and/or have saved up more money in the past. I have a good friend who takes at least 2 extensive vacations a year plus she and/or her husband take multiple weekends away -- but she and her DH went to a state school so they have no student loans, both of them lived with their parents at some point (she did during and after college, he did for a while after graduate school) so they saved up enough to put 20% down on their first home which they bought at a great time so their mortgage was cheap to begin with and they just refinanced into a super low rate 10 year mortgage, and they drive cheap cars bought with cash. They probably make as much as you do, OP (I have no idea - but one is an attorney, the other a GS-14 in the government). Oh, and her mom is a former preschool teacher so they never paid for daycare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As others have said it's about priorities. Some of the people who do expensive vacations now are going to end up telling their kids they have to take out huge loans for college or attend state school because they don't have enough saved up.

Nothing wrong with state school! Overpaying for an undergrad degree is the real financial mistake.

[Anonymous]

Vacations are money well spent for great family memories! We live in a small house with a small mortgage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1. FB is full of lies, just ignore it. You can't post your investment portfolio on FB (well, you could but I'm not gonna)

I always think it's funny when people set up a dichotomy with in consumer spending (granite counter tops not Disney, travel not new furniture)

But there is a third option. Don't spend it, save it. We try really hard to save as much as we can. People must think we are barely scraping by, but my husband is going to retire by 45. So I guess that's our status symbol?

But the question was how do people afford vacations. Not how do people retire at 45.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I love how people here think their teavel is NOT luxurious, when most Americans can't even afford one decent vacatiom each year. This whole thread is bourgeois entitlement run amok.

Right! It's such BS. There are thousands of people within a mile radius of you (probably all of you) who would consider a week at the beach in a rental house a once every decade kind of extravagance. Bragging about your budget vacations is like bragging that your BMW isn't x-class (or whatever it is that makes one BMW more expensive than another.) I want to hammer some people in the head, honestly.