Family of 5 Travel Budget

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:According to DCUM the only way to not waste money on travel is to cram everyone into one hotel room. Everything else is fine as long you don’t get two hotel rooms. The rule of travel, is that there is no two room travel.

We always stay in a king suite or a two-room suite. Family of 5. We like each other, so no problem. We actually enjoy being together. But the suite has to have two bathrooms.

It does save money to get a suite instead of two rooms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Family of 5 here.
Our trip from this school year will be
- 1 week west to visit family; we get an Airbnb so we don’t have to cram in anyone house
- 5 day Caribbean trip
- 1 week California over winter break
- 1 week Hawaii for spring break
- 2 weeks Europe over the summer

Plus 2 girls trips (4 days each) for me with friends (no kids)
5 weeks vacation and I travel for 4 of them.
Not including food and activities on trips, probably $35k at least; I don’t typically budget or total the cost; I just pay for each trip as we go.
HHI $650; travel is the thing we love, so we spend less on other things that don’t matter to me

Wow! How do you make so much money but get so much leave!

DH makes a little more than that and never has to be in an office. Really he just needs to be able to respond to calls/emails within 24hrs. He makes his own schedule and maybe travels for work 2-3 times a year. We pretty much travel whenever we want. Know plenty of people in the same boat.

I know only one person "in the same boat." He's a partner in a San Francisco law firm. Travels about 3 months a year.

What profession(s) OP? What part of the country?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Family of 5 here.
Our trip from this school year will be
- 1 week west to visit family; we get an Airbnb so we don’t have to cram in anyone house
- 5 day Caribbean trip
- 1 week California over winter break
- 1 week Hawaii for spring break
- 2 weeks Europe over the summer

Plus 2 girls trips (4 days each) for me with friends (no kids)
5 weeks vacation and I travel for 4 of them.
Not including food and activities on trips, probably $35k at least; I don’t typically budget or total the cost; I just pay for each trip as we go.
HHI $650; travel is the thing we love, so we spend less on other things that don’t matter to me

Wow! How do you make so much money but get so much leave!

Not PP but lots of companies (including mine and dh’s) give unlimited PTO now. This kind of time off is not unusual.

What? 365 days a year would be "unlimited"

What do you mean?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Family of 5 here.
Our trip from this school year will be
- 1 week west to visit family; we get an Airbnb so we don’t have to cram in anyone house
- 5 day Caribbean trip
- 1 week California over winter break
- 1 week Hawaii for spring break
- 2 weeks Europe over the summer

Plus 2 girls trips (4 days each) for me with friends (no kids)
5 weeks vacation and I travel for 4 of them.
Not including food and activities on trips, probably $35k at least; I don’t typically budget or total the cost; I just pay for each trip as we go.
HHI $650; travel is the thing we love, so we spend less on other things that don’t matter to me

Wow! How do you make so much money but get so much leave!

DH makes a little more than that and never has to be in an office. Really he just needs to be able to respond to calls/emails within 24hrs. He makes his own schedule and maybe travels for work 2-3 times a year. We pretty much travel whenever we want. Know plenty of people in the same boat.

I know only one person "in the same boat." He's a partner in a San Francisco law firm. Travels about 3 months a year.

What profession(s) OP? What part of the country?

PP here, DH is a product rep, basically sales. Live in the DC area during school year when not traveling. SC beach in summer./holidays.

[Anonymous]

Two weeks vacation a year. That's it. DH gets 5 weeks. Welcome to the real world of the middle class. We take an annual summer vacation - rent a beach cottage in a place we love. Costs about $3K total. We go on weekend trips to NYC and stay with friends and family. Used to go to Europe, but can't manage it with kids in public and private - vacations don't line up.
I agree with the PP who said life is short! Travel! I'd love to spend a lot more time traveling, but money is short too! Most of us have to scrimp and save just to afford an annual beach vacation, and believe me, ours is nothing fancy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Family of 5 (but often bring our ap so 6), hhi 900-1.2m, we spend most weekends at our second home in winter to ski, and a lot of the summer there as well. We also take 3-4 other vacations in normal times, plus 1-2 trips to see family. I think we probably spend @$50-100k/year on travel depending on the year. That’s not for first class and 5* hotels, that is just what it costs. We usually do europe at least once a year (haven’t been since 2019) and often rent a house and just stay for 3-4 weeks, doing day trips. Hoping we can resume that this summer especially since working remotely is accepted as a norm now. Big expensive trips in the past was @$25k for taking extended family to Disney for Christmas week, Hawaii for 9 days in Feb (rented a house with pool in one place, stayed in a resort just a couple of nights), dh and I try to take one nice trip a year just us. Jade Mountain was probably our fanciest, we’ve also done long weekends in various places in the US and Europe.

Do you mind sharing where your vacation home is that you ski from?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Family of 5 (but often bring our ap so 6), hhi 900-1.2m, we spend most weekends at our second home in winter to ski, and a lot of the summer there as well. We also take 3-4 other vacations in normal times, plus 1-2 trips to see family. I think we probably spend @$50-100k/year on travel depending on the year. That’s not for first class and 5* hotels, that is just what it costs. We usually do europe at least once a year (haven’t been since 2019) and often rent a house and just stay for 3-4 weeks, doing day trips. Hoping we can resume that this summer especially since working remotely is accepted as a norm now. Big expensive trips in the past was @$25k for taking extended family to Disney for Christmas week, Hawaii for 9 days in Feb (rented a house with pool in one place, stayed in a resort just a couple of nights), dh and I try to take one nice trip a year just us. Jade Mountain was probably our fanciest, we’ve also done long weekends in various places in the US and Europe.

Do you mind sharing where your vacation home is that you ski from?

We live in NYC so our vacation home is in NW Connecticut.

[Anonymous]

There’s nothing wrong with what you’re spending given your income level. Don’t know how old your kids are but I would make the point that, if they are pretty young, make sure the overseas trips are for you rather than for making memories for them. I assure you they won’t remember after enough time has passed. My kids are now 14 and 12 and now have almost no memories of any overseas trip we took before the age of seven. They remembered for awhile but eventually those memories faded. Our families are overseas so that was the reason for travelling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:According to DCUM the only way to not waste money on travel is to cram everyone into one hotel room. Everything else is fine as long you don’t get two hotel rooms. The rule of travel, is that there is no two room travel.

Those poster clearly do not have mixed-gender teenagers. I can’t make anyone share a bed with a teeenage boy, especially not his teenage sisters. There are certain biological issues. We need at least three beds, so at least two rooms (which is almost always cheaper than a suite with two beds and a pullout couch, surprisingly).

DP, we have teens DD who actually enjoy sleepovers at home, so it is easy for us

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Family of 5 here.
Our trip from this school year will be
- 1 week west to visit family; we get an Airbnb so we don’t have to cram in anyone house
- 5 day Caribbean trip
- 1 week California over winter break
- 1 week Hawaii for spring break
- 2 weeks Europe over the summer

Plus 2 girls trips (4 days each) for me with friends (no kids)
5 weeks vacation and I travel for 4 of them.
Not including food and activities on trips, probably $35k at least; I don’t typically budget or total the cost; I just pay for each trip as we go.
HHI $650; travel is the thing we love, so we spend less on other things that don’t matter to me

Wow! How do you make so much money but get so much leave!

Not PP but lots of companies (including mine and dh’s) give unlimited PTO now. This kind of time off is not unusual.

What? 365 days a year would be "unlimited"

What do you mean?

A lot of companies have this policy as ling you get your work done.

[Anonymous]

We do similar amount of traveling, but we look at the deals and plan accordingly. So it could be spring break to Europe instead of Hawaii. Summer trip to Australia instead of Europe, or go to different Europe destination based on flight deals
Being flexibility save money, similarly for hotel, try to use hotel points if possible

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Family of 5 here.
Our trip from this school year will be
- 1 week west to visit family; we get an Airbnb so we don’t have to cram in anyone house
- 5 day Caribbean trip
- 1 week California over winter break
- 1 week Hawaii for spring break
- 2 weeks Europe over the summer

Plus 2 girls trips (4 days each) for me with friends (no kids)
5 weeks vacation and I travel for 4 of them.
Not including food and activities on trips, probably $35k at least; I don’t typically budget or total the cost; I just pay for each trip as we go.
HHI $650; travel is the thing we love, so we spend less on other things that don’t matter to me

Wow! How do you make so much money but get so much leave!

DH makes a little more than that and never has to be in an office. Really he just needs to be able to respond to calls/emails within 24hrs. He makes his own schedule and maybe travels for work 2-3 times a year. We pretty much travel whenever we want. Know plenty of people in the same boat.

I know only one person "in the same boat." He's a partner in a San Francisco law firm. Travels about 3 months a year.

What profession(s) OP? What part of the country?

PP here, DH is a product rep, basically sales. Live in the DC area during school year when not traveling. SC beach in summer./holidays.

Yeah sales never really has an “office” they either were visiting clients or working wherever on details of a deal. But in some ways he is never on vacation because of a client needs him, he needs to be there? But sales explains the high salary high flexibility. Just don’t miss your numbers, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Two weeks vacation a year. That's it. DH gets 5 weeks. Welcome to the real world of the middle class. We take an annual summer vacation - rent a beach cottage in a place we love. Costs about $3K total. We go on weekend trips to NYC and stay with friends and family. Used to go to Europe, but can't manage it with kids in public and private - vacations don't line up.
I agree with the PP who said life is short! Travel! I'd love to spend a lot more time traveling, but money is short too! Most of us have to scrimp and save just to afford an annual beach vacation, and believe me, ours is nothing fancy.

$3k is expensive for a rental. We spend $150-200 for a few nights at a hotel. Its a bit funny that you aren't real middle class, pretend you are with multiple kids in private school... you have a spending issue but plenty of money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Family of 5 (but often bring our ap so 6), hhi 900-1.2m, we spend most weekends at our second home in winter to ski, and a lot of the summer there as well. We also take 3-4 other vacations in normal times, plus 1-2 trips to see family. I think we probably spend @$50-100k/year on travel depending on the year. That’s not for first class and 5* hotels, that is just what it costs. We usually do europe at least once a year (haven’t been since 2019) and often rent a house and just stay for 3-4 weeks, doing day trips. Hoping we can resume that this summer especially since working remotely is accepted as a norm now. Big expensive trips in the past was @$25k for taking extended family to Disney for Christmas week, Hawaii for 9 days in Feb (rented a house with pool in one place, stayed in a resort just a couple of nights), dh and I try to take one nice trip a year just us. Jade Mountain was probably our fanciest, we’ve also done long weekends in various places in the US and Europe.

Super yawn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Family of 5 here.
Our trip from this school year will be
- 1 week west to visit family; we get an Airbnb so we don’t have to cram in anyone house
- 5 day Caribbean trip
- 1 week California over winter break
- 1 week Hawaii for spring break
- 2 weeks Europe over the summer

Plus 2 girls trips (4 days each) for me with friends (no kids)
5 weeks vacation and I travel for 4 of them.
Not including food and activities on trips, probably $35k at least; I don’t typically budget or total the cost; I just pay for each trip as we go.
HHI $650; travel is the thing we love, so we spend less on other things that don’t matter to me

Wow! How do you make so much money but get so much leave!

Not PP but lots of companies (including mine and dh’s) give unlimited PTO now. This kind of time off is not unusual.

What? 365 days a year would be "unlimited"

What do you mean?

A lot of companies have this policy as ling you get your work done.

Yup. My husband and I both work for companies that don’t track travel time. But I typically work 10-20 hours a week even on vacation, and he works more like 20-40 on a vacation week. They don’t care where we are so long as we keep cranking out the work. When the kids were little, we would work during nap times or after they went to bed. They still do need more down time than we do, so we build in a couple hours each day for them to read/relax and us to work or we trade off a bit sometimes (he’ll take them to the pool, I’ll take them to a museum). And of course we work on the plane. We’re never really off. Is that better or worse than having tracked accrued time? I don’t know.