Advice on annual travel budget with HHI of 300K?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We don't really budget that way -- I track spending to see where the money goes, I don't arbitrarily set amounts for given categories in advance.

But, on a similar HHI, we typically spend between $8k-15k on travel each year.

Same amounts here, though a different framework. Each year, I save to prepay four categories of expenses for the following year: Vacation, Holidays, Insurance (car, life, homeowners, supplemental disability), and Camps (that's a new line item, much to my chagrin). We allocate $10,000 to the vacation account, but spend more than that (other amounts come out of monthly cashflow). It's probably about $15,000/year, and includes a week out west skiing, a week in New England in the summer, and several weekend trips, and every other year a longer international trip.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Traveling is a very wise investment opposed to typical American vacations to idiotic places like Disneyland. When you travel with your children they naturally become worldly just by waking up in the morning in a different country and that before you even visit Versailles that afternoon.

Amusement parks just on the surface have the potential to be dangerous. Furthermore the G-Forces on a child's brain can't be good.

If Europe is too expensive then take road trips across the United States. Turn every vacation into a learning experience and make them memorable.

lol ooooookay.

We spent $3k one year on a big ski trip, $700 a year for another 3 years straight (a couple weekend trips) then, gasp, $7k this year on Disney, because it’s something you take your lumps and do when you have kids. HHI of $700k.

Travel is never an “investment.” On the other hand, why have a high income if you can’t enjoy things sometimes. But it’s a self-indulgent luxury whether to Disney or Berlin.

Where on earth can you take a "big" ski trip for $3000? Even with two people, that seems unlikely; for a family, it's downright impossible.

[Anonymous]

I think it depends less on your gross income and more on your income after all fixed expenses (mortgage, taxes, utility, etc.) have been paid.

What do you have left after your bills and savings? Figure it out from there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Traveling is a very wise investment opposed to typical American vacations to idiotic places like Disneyland. When you travel with your children they naturally become worldly just by waking up in the morning in a different country and that before you even visit Versailles that afternoon.

Amusement parks just on the surface have the potential to be dangerous. Furthermore the G-Forces on a child's brain can't be good.

If Europe is too expensive then take road trips across the United States. Turn every vacation into a learning experience and make them memorable.

lol ooooookay.

We spent $3k one year on a big ski trip, $700 a year for another 3 years straight (a couple weekend trips) then, gasp, $7k this year on Disney, because it’s something you take your lumps and do when you have kids. HHI of $700k.

Travel is never an “investment.” On the other hand, why have a high income if you can’t enjoy things sometimes. But it’s a self-indulgent luxury whether to Disney or Berlin.

Where on earth can you take a "big" ski trip for $3000? Even with two people, that seems unlikely; for a family, it's downright impossible.

Yup we didn't bring the kids who were then too little to ski. It was in Vermont.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Traveling is a very wise investment opposed to typical American vacations to idiotic places like Disneyland. When you travel with your children they naturally become worldly just by waking up in the morning in a different country and that before you even visit Versailles that afternoon.

Amusement parks just on the surface have the potential to be dangerous. Furthermore the G-Forces on a child's brain can't be good.

If Europe is too expensive then take road trips across the United States. Turn every vacation into a learning experience and make them memorable.

lol ooooookay.

We spent $3k one year on a big ski trip, $700 a year for another 3 years straight (a couple weekend trips) then, gasp, $7k this year on Disney, because it’s something you take your lumps and do when you have kids. HHI of $700k.

Travel is never an “investment.” On the other hand, why have a high income if you can’t enjoy things sometimes. But it’s a self-indulgent luxury whether to Disney or Berlin.

The difference is the Brandenburg Gate and Check Point Charlie are real. The Magic Kingdom and Cinderella are just dopey. I you want to see something majestic and awe inspiring visit the Redwood Forest, Yosemite, or The Badlands.

And to answer your questions everything people spend money on is an investment and secondly why bother having a HHI if that money is not spent on experiences that enrich your children.

I’ve traveled extensively internationally and domestically so if I agreed with you I would know it but my eldest is still thrilled to talk about her Disney experience from earlier this year and has nothing to tell you about her Lewis & Clark fort visit.

I didn’t ask any questions.

Not to mention that going to Disneyworld and seeing historic/cultural/majestic things are not mutually exclusive. It's not like you are only allowed to pick one. For that matter, one could argue that the fantasy, creativity, storytelling, theming, art, design, etc aspects of Disney are equally a part of a well-rounded education and child-development plan. Kids, especially young kids, learn from pretty much everything--it doesn't all have to be classical music, nature, and Europe all the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it depends less on your gross income and more on your income after all fixed expenses (mortgage, taxes, utility, etc.) have been paid.

What do you have left after your bills and savings? Figure it out from there.

With a $300k income and a mortgage of $2800, it's hard to see where $2k on plane tickets would be a stretch at all.

[Anonymous]

I’m sympathetic on the Miami tickets. We just bought 4 tickets and I had sticker shock due to the holiday. Believe it or not it was cheaper to buy two one way tickets with the inbound flight going to Ft. Lauderdale. That said, my time is worth money so there is no way I would drive 5 hours.

Our HHI is higher, $500k, and we spend on an average year about 12-15k on vacations and we don’t feel like we are missing out on anything. That said, we have two kids so we can get one hotel room and a sedan. Some years we spend more if we are doing a big trip, but we don’t do big trips every year.

Bonuses are a pain to budget. With our bonus we prefund a significant portion of the next year’s vacation budget and the college funds.

[Anonymous]

We prioritize travel, so spend around 14k for a family of 2 on that income.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Traveling is a very wise investment opposed to typical American vacations to idiotic places like Disneyland. When you travel with your children they naturally become worldly just by waking up in the morning in a different country and that before you even visit Versailles that afternoon.

Amusement parks just on the surface have the potential to be dangerous. Furthermore the G-Forces on a child's brain can't be good.

If Europe is too expensive then take road trips across the United States. Turn every vacation into a learning experience and make them memorable.

lol ooooookay.

We spent $3k one year on a big ski trip, $700 a year for another 3 years straight (a couple weekend trips) then, gasp, $7k this year on Disney, because it’s something you take your lumps and do when you have kids. HHI of $700k.

Travel is never an “investment.” On the other hand, why have a high income if you can’t enjoy things sometimes. But it’s a self-indulgent luxury whether to Disney or Berlin.

The difference is the Brandenburg Gate and Check Point Charlie are real. The Magic Kingdom and Cinderella are just dopey. I you want to see something majestic and awe inspiring visit the Redwood Forest, Yosemite, or The Badlands.

And to answer your questions everything people spend money on is an investment and secondly why bother having a HHI if that money is not spent on experiences that enrich your children.

I’ve traveled extensively internationally and domestically so if I agreed with you I would know it but my eldest is still thrilled to talk about her Disney experience from earlier this year and has nothing to tell you about her Lewis & Clark fort visit.

I didn’t ask any questions.

Not to mention that going to Disneyworld and seeing historic/cultural/majestic things are not mutually exclusive. It's not like you are only allowed to pick one. For that matter, one could argue that the fantasy, creativity, storytelling, theming, art, design, etc aspects of Disney are equally a part of a well-rounded education and child-development plan. Kids, especially young kids, learn from pretty much everything--it doesn't all have to be classical music, nature, and Europe all the time.

Yup and also there's something to be said for age appropriateness. I'm not taking my 6 and 3 year old to Musee D'Orsay, even though I would much rather do that than Magic Kingdom. A much more age-appropriate trip for them, for enrichment, is camping. And for pure joy, it's Disney every time. If they were 13 and 16, that'd be a different conversation.

[Anonymous]

You guys don't have a high enough income for you to let one partner make all the decisions. It is silly to not be saving more for college at your income level when you could be taking advantage of growth over time.

It is great your mortgage will be paid off but you will still have taxes, insurance, maintenance costs and your kids will be teens and most likely more expensive than they are now in elementary school.

Anyway, take an active role in budgeting with your dh. Yes you should not be squabbling over 2k in flights, that is ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Point taken on college so thanks for that, and I will actually plan to save more money for college but for vacation / travel budgeting purposes you should assume we make $300K and are putting $300 per month away for college and that we are happy with that amount.

(We actually make more than $300K with bonuses and commission but the bonus / commission thing drives me crazy for budget reasons so I am trying to set a “safe” number here for planning purposes - but where I will get the extra money to put in for college will come from the overage, if that makes sense.)

And the background is that DH and I differ on how much we should be spending on travel (spoiler - I want to spend more, lol). But at any rate I feel if we had a set amount we wouldn’t quibble as much.

It sounds like you could agree to set a percentage of bonuses aside every year for travel. Put it into a separate account that is vacation only. If it's not an item taken out of the monthly paycheck, he's probably less likely to care. I also do things like budget to our take home pay and then set our entire $5k/year Dependent Care FSA aside for travel. By putting it all into a separate account, you have a set limit to what you can spend per year, but you can also carry over year-to-year.

We're at $250k HHI with 3 kids, so much higher college savings, but otherwise similarish stats and spend ~$10k/year. It actually varies $6k-$14k, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Most of you are sounding like my husband, with these figures, lol.

This post is brought to you by our latest disagreement whereby we are going to visit his family in Miami, and of course we have to go during school breaks which are more expensive. It costs $400/ticket to fly to Miami when we are looking but $177/ticket fly to Jacksonville and drive 5 additional hours each way. Guess which one he wants to do? His revised idea, then, is to rent an RV and drive both ways - but also, I can only take a week off work. And apparently, I think time is money

We could theoretically go a different time of year but it’s also a milestone birthday for his mother.

We actually haven’t done a ton of travel this year because I was “saving” for an international trip next year that is now unlikely to occur (for non-monetary reasons). I put “saving” in quotes here because I didn’t actually put any money aside except in my own mind. That is where I think a budget would help . But it appears there is a wide range of what travel budget would be acceptable.

Good grief. I don't make what you do but I'd buy the more expensive tickets and save my time, which is precious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:TWENTY FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS A YEAR ON A THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND HHI OMG

If my DH proposed that I would hit the ceiling. Holy crap.

Different people have different priorities. I would rather spend money on travel than on fancy cars or kitchens or whatever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Most of you are sounding like my husband, with these figures, lol.

This post is brought to you by our latest disagreement whereby we are going to visit his family in Miami, and of course we have to go during school breaks which are more expensive. It costs $400/ticket to fly to Miami when we are looking but $177/ticket fly to Jacksonville and drive 5 additional hours each way. Guess which one he wants to do? His revised idea, then, is to rent an RV and drive both ways - but also, I can only take a week off work. And apparently, I think time is money

We could theoretically go a different time of year but it’s also a milestone birthday for his mother.

We actually haven’t done a ton of travel this year because I was “saving” for an international trip next year that is now unlikely to occur (for non-monetary reasons). I put “saving” in quotes here because I didn’t actually put any money aside except in my own mind. That is where I think a budget would help . But it appears there is a wide range of what travel budget would be acceptable.

Where is all your money going? If you're not socking it away for college, and your DH is too cheap to spend $400/ticket to see his mother for her birthday, where is the money? What is the point to making $300k if you're going to live like a miser?

Well that my question here and what I often say lol. It’s 400x5 = 2000 on plane tix which I get is annoying but what can we do? That’s what it costs. We admittedly spend more than we should on food / eating out but that’s not all the money. It goes in the savings / retirement accounts I mentioned and I do plan trips but the recurring theme is how much money I’m spending on the trip.

Fly into Ft. Lauderdale on Southwest and spend a lost less on plane tickets. But seriously ... set a total max travel budget that you both agree upon. Both agree upon general locations and time, and then the non-planner needs to stay out of the planner's hair on the details.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Most of you are sounding like my husband, with these figures, lol.

This post is brought to you by our latest disagreement whereby we are going to visit his family in Miami, and of course we have to go during school breaks which are more expensive. It costs $400/ticket to fly to Miami when we are looking but $177/ticket fly to Jacksonville and drive 5 additional hours each way. Guess which one he wants to do? His revised idea, then, is to rent an RV and drive both ways - but also, I can only take a week off work. And apparently, I think time is money

We could theoretically go a different time of year but it’s also a milestone birthday for his mother.

We actually haven’t done a ton of travel this year because I was “saving” for an international trip next year that is now unlikely to occur (for non-monetary reasons). I put “saving” in quotes here because I didn’t actually put any money aside except in my own mind. That is where I think a budget would help . But it appears there is a wide range of what travel budget would be acceptable.

Where is all your money going? If you're not socking it away for college, and your DH is too cheap to spend $400/ticket to see his mother for her birthday, where is the money? What is the point to making $300k if you're going to live like a miser?

Well that my question here and what I often say lol. It’s 400x5 = 2000 on plane tix which I get is annoying but what can we do? That’s what it costs. We admittedly spend more than we should on food / eating out but that’s not all the money. It goes in the savings / retirement accounts I mentioned and I do plan trips but the recurring theme is how much money I’m spending on the trip.

Fly into Ft. Lauderdale on Southwest and spend a lost less on plane tickets. But seriously ... set a total max travel budget that you both agree upon. Both agree upon general locations and time, and then the non-planner needs to stay out of the planner's hair on the details.

DCUM FTW!!!!!!!!!!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You haven't solved ALL of my travel problems, but you solved my immediate one!!!! I had checked both Miami and Fort Lauderdale to see if prices were any better, but I neglected to check Southwest!!! I just did and it cost $300/ticket and I just bought them! Thanks again.