Travel budget and HHI

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have a similar HHI and older children. I guess your travel budget depends on your fix expenses and disposable income. Our kids are older teens, pre covid we traveled with them 2 to 3 times per year and spent between 5K to 12K per trip, probably totaling 20K-30K per year, depending on the year. I do try to use hotel, credit card and miles to help offset costs.

Recommendations on credit cards for either hotel points or miles?

[Anonymous]

Our HHI is $150k. Last year we spent $5k total, including two weeks in Maine in the summer, a week in Asheville for spring break, a week at the Outer Banks at Thanksgiving and a few days in Philly and PA around the holidays. I use points whenever we stay in hotels but we also stay in a lot of vacation rentals.

For this year we have already spent $5k in airfare, including two weeks in Europe and a 10 day trip to the southwest. Car rental well add another $2k for those trips but accommodation will only be around $1k. So that’s $8k spent already without any activities or smaller trips. We’ll likely have three or four weekend trips during the rest of the year and possibly a trip to the beach in August. We travel well but inexpensively and it’s our one splurge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have a similar HHI and older children. I guess your travel budget depends on your fix expenses and disposable income. Our kids are older teens, pre covid we traveled with them 2 to 3 times per year and spent between 5K to 12K per trip, probably totaling 20K-30K per year, depending on the year. I do try to use hotel, credit card and miles to help offset costs.

Recommendations on credit cards for either hotel points or miles?

Not pp, but I get at least $1500 worth of free travel per year using Chase Sapphire Reserve points.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is such great info. I’ve been living in travel expenses guilt. HHI around 500 and we spent about 15K on travel last year with two small kids. But we’re early 40s and behind on everything, retirement, kids college, all of it. It’s a new income level for us and we’ve been pushing for years to get here…nice vacations makes it feel worth the sacrifice.

I hate to say this, but if you're behind on everything, $15k is too much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is such great info. I’ve been living in travel expenses guilt. HHI around 500 and we spent about 15K on travel last year with two small kids. But we’re early 40s and behind on everything, retirement, kids college, all of it. It’s a new income level for us and we’ve been pushing for years to get here…nice vacations makes it feel worth the sacrifice.

I hate to say this, but if you're behind on everything, $15k is too much.

PP, it is. I know—last year was pent up Covid travel. This year I’m trying my best…skipping the winter break/ spring break trips. Will do one nice summer trip but cap that 6k. In theory.

[Anonymous]

HHI $180k
Visits to see family: $2500-3000 airfare (household of 4) for two trips per year; Extra food/entertainment $$ Another $1k? to see one side; $1000k for expenses related to seeing driving-distance family
Vacation: $1000-$2000 per year for domestic travel; more for an international trip every 3-5 years

[Anonymous]

Depends on the year..one year we visited 3 safari parks in Africa over 3.5 weeks and satyed in beautiful safai camps and had a driver the entire trip, we even brought out auapair so.we could.havr some alone time. Cost more money than I care to remeber-i think i blocked it out of my brain. Some years we only go to the Beach for a week and then just do a ton of weekend trips. This spring break we are traveling to Germany since the world is opening back up.

There is no budget, the spend is sometimes very high or very low. Just depends on where we are going. Next big trip will be Japan (or vietnam) and that eill be a very expensive trip. The year after, who knows, it might only be the Adirondacks.

[Anonymous]

Hhi 180,000. Average 15-20,000 on travel, but that is a lot of trips for us. We usually stay in hotels in the 100-150 range or get a cheaper vrbo. Do a lot of one or two night weekends away. And a lot of driving vacations. We are frugal on other expenses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have a similar HHI and older children. I guess your travel budget depends on your fix expenses and disposable income. Our kids are older teens, pre covid we traveled with them 2 to 3 times per year and spent between 5K to 12K per trip, probably totaling 20K-30K per year, depending on the year. I do try to use hotel, credit card and miles to help offset costs.

Recommendations on credit cards for either hotel points or miles?

Not pp, but I get at least $1500 worth of free travel per year using Chase Sapphire Reserve points.

This is my preferred card for travel as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have a similar HHI and older children. I guess your travel budget depends on your fix expenses and disposable income. Our kids are older teens, pre covid we traveled with them 2 to 3 times per year and spent between 5K to 12K per trip, probably totaling 20K-30K per year, depending on the year. I do try to use hotel, credit card and miles to help offset costs.

Recommendations on credit cards for either hotel points or miles?

Not pp, but I get at least $1500 worth of free travel per year using Chase Sapphire Reserve points.

This is my preferred card for travel as well.

This is only worthwhile if you travel a lot, either on. What's the annual fee?

[Anonymous]

$195 HHI (DINKs), we usually do one big trip a year which is a week long. Last year we did Seattle and Portland and our rough costs were:

Hotel: $1400
Flights: $700
Food/drink: $2,500 (we splurged on a very fancy restaurant which was like $1,000 alone)
Ubers: $800 (We're big drinkers so we ubered everywhere)

So somewhere in the $5,000-$6,000 range for that one trip.

We also took a couple smaller trips - a long weekend in Richmond which was probably $1,000 all in, a trip to Colorado to visit family for Christmas which was probably $1,500 (we stayed with family so no lodging costs) and a 5 day trip to Vermont that was another $1,500 or so.

So probably somewhere around $9,000-$10,000 last year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is such great info. I’ve been living in travel expenses guilt. HHI around 500 and we spent about 15K on travel last year with two small kids. But we’re early 40s and behind on everything, retirement, kids college, all of it. It’s a new income level for us and we’ve been pushing for years to get here…nice vacations makes it feel worth the sacrifice.

I hate to say this, but if you're behind on everything, $15k is too much.

PP, it is. I know—last year was pent up Covid travel. This year I’m trying my best…skipping the winter break/ spring break trips. Will do one nice summer trip but cap that 6k. In theory.

I think it depends on in how far behind you are. At that income you can catch up quickly especially if you aren’t expanding other areas of spending as well.

[Anonymous]

HHI $300k, vacation budget currently $12k will be $15k later this year. We tend to do one "big" trip, one extended family beach trip, and a few small trips.

[Anonymous]

HHI is $225k for four people. Usually spend between $2-10k on travel each year.

We typically do two drive trips or one drive and one fly. The drive ones are to the north east or mid Atlantic and are AirBnB stays or hotels using points or budget hotels. The fly trips are either to visit family in FL (every other year) or an international trip (every 4-5 years). We don't really budget but look at what our major expenditures will be for the year and then adjust our vacation expectations.

Last year was FL ($3k) and a drive vacation to NH and Boston ($4500).

This year was a ski trip ($1500) and will probably be Hawaii this summer (will try to get it to $8k but might have to go to $12k).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have a similar HHI and older children. I guess your travel budget depends on your fix expenses and disposable income. Our kids are older teens, pre covid we traveled with them 2 to 3 times per year and spent between 5K to 12K per trip, probably totaling 20K-30K per year, depending on the year. I do try to use hotel, credit card and miles to help offset costs.

Recommendations on credit cards for either hotel points or miles?

Not pp, but I get at least $1500 worth of free travel per year using Chase Sapphire Reserve points.

This is my preferred card for travel as well.

This is only worthwhile if you travel a lot, either on. What's the annual fee?

$450 but you get $300 back immediately in travel credit, completely apart from the points.