S/O: average family vacation: 3% of your HHI?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess it depends on your math. Our family vacations add up to about 14 days per year, which represents about 4% of the year. We're probably right around 3%-5% since we're driving to relatives' homes and going to the supermarket, which isn't so different from the other 96% of the year.

Yeah, but you forgot a few things. (1) taxes, (2) savings, and (3) school. You spend way less than that on an average day, because of these three things.

I suppose for some. My overall federal tax rate plus my overall savings rate is less than 10%. We homeschool and vacations present a lot of opportunities for field trips and other fun learning stuff so our vacations look a lot like our other days.

See, I would exclude your normal daily costs from your vacation budget. To me, vacation costs are the amount above and beyond what I would normally spend during the same time period. From a budgeting perspective, it's easier for me to think about the "extra" amount when figuring out if we can afford a trip. So in your case, the cost would be the driving expenses plus any admission fees/souvenirs you might buy.

Not that my viewpoint on the method of calculating this is gospel or anything, just putting it out there. My guess is that when a study talks about a percentage that people spend, most people are thinking about expenses above and beyond their normal baseline and not including things like the proportion of their mortgage they're paying while on a trip.

[Anonymous]

The study was talking about the gross percentage of your household income that is spent on your vacation. It didn't have anything to do with your mortgage or budget. Just the overall amount.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We like to ski so that drives our costs way up. Easily $7-8k for each of Christmas and spring break in Colorado or Utah. Plus a long weekend or two closer by if we can swing it. Sometimes I can use frequent flyers for some of the flights but lift tickets alone run $400/day. Summer vacation tends to be more modest.

I love the ski vacations and DH loves the beach ones. So I can't bring myself to actually calculate what we spend a year on vacations for our family of 6.

Ha, this is pretty much us. We ski Christmas and Easter (Christmas in Europe, Easter usually in CO or Whistler), and then Carribean for the beach. Family of 4, though. It does add up....sigh.

[Anonymous]

We are closer to 5% on average. We usually do a nicer/more expensive trip every other year so that the costs average out. This year we did a 6% vacation and next year will likely do a 2% and when we go to Europe in 5 years, that will be a 10%.

HHI is $240k.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We like to ski so that drives our costs way up. Easily $7-8k for each of Christmas and spring break in Colorado or Utah. Plus a long weekend or two closer by if we can swing it. Sometimes I can use frequent flyers for some of the flights but lift tickets alone run $400/day. Summer vacation tends to be more modest.

I love the ski vacations and DH loves the beach ones. So I can't bring myself to actually calculate what we spend a year on vacations for our family of 6.

Ha, this is pretty much us. We ski Christmas and Easter (Christmas in Europe, Easter usually in CO or Whistler), and then Carribean for the beach. Family of 4, though. It does add up....sigh.

Curious where you spend Christmas in Europe and ski? Do you squeeze into one room or get 2? We've been getting 2 rooms since DC#3 but am always surprised at the lack of available "family" rooms (or rates).

[Anonymous]

We take one vacation a year and spend about 1% of our HHI.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We spend about 10 percent of our income on vacations.

Wow, how much of your income do you save? How do you get all that time off, or do you spend lavishly on one or two weeks a year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We like to ski so that drives our costs way up. Easily $7-8k for each of Christmas and spring break in Colorado or Utah. Plus a long weekend or two closer by if we can swing it. Sometimes I can use frequent flyers for some of the flights but lift tickets alone run $400/day. Summer vacation tends to be more modest.

I love the ski vacations and DH loves the beach ones. So I can't bring myself to actually calculate what we spend a year on vacations for our family of 6.

Ha, this is pretty much us. We ski Christmas and Easter (Christmas in Europe, Easter usually in CO or Whistler), and then Carribean for the beach. Family of 4, though. It does add up....sigh.

Curious where you spend Christmas in Europe and ski? Do you squeeze into one room or get 2? We've been getting 2 rooms since DC#3 but am always surprised at the lack of available "family" rooms (or rates).

Not the poster who goes every year but we've gone a few times and gotten two rooms. We've tended to stay in smaller hotels that aren't as expensive so getting 2 rooms, which I prefer anyway, isn't too expensive. Of course my kids are old enough to stay in a room by themselves so that's not a factor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We spend about 10-15% of our gross on multiple vacations each year, covering a total of about 4 full weeks and 6-10 weekends away. We spend very little on things, prioritizing experiences.

Wow - how old are your kids? Where do you go for weekends? My kids have so much going on on weekends with school and club sports that it is hard to get away more than a couple of weekends during the school year - unless you count soccer tournaments in Richmond or a cross country meet in Mercersburg PA as a weekend away. Plus we both sometimes end up traveling for work on a weekend (like a Sunday flight, or a late Friday return) which further limits the weekend options. I'm impressed.

+1