How much do you spend in a year on vacations?

[Anonymous]

We've managed a weekend away here and there but we actually haven't had an official family vacation in....gosh, almost 4 years.

So lately...less than a thousand a year for a family of 4.

[Anonymous]

For the past 3 years it has been between 10-13k for 4 of us. I've been trying to keep it under 10k and it's hard bc I love traveling. This year we are doing two weeks in Italy and a week in Florida, so I'm pretty sure it's going over 10k... sigh.

[Anonymous]

We like to travel so usually one big trip abroad for 2 weeks; then 3 weeks (a week each) trips - like a week at beach, a week skiing, a week doing something that is different (Disney, west coast, Maine). In between we try to take advantage of the holidays to do 3-4 day long weekends. I don't count food as an expense because you have to eat no matter what. Airfare and hotels maybe around $25k.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We bring a nanny on our vacations and tack vacations on to international travel for work. We are also somewhat prissy and would not consider camping to be fun or relaxing - our vacations involve luxury hotel suites and such. We're easily spending low six figures on vacations.

lucky dogs!!!

[Anonymous]

We spend about 25k per year

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Family of 8, $210k income, about $1500 a year for travel. We rent a cabin two to three times a year, somewhere rustic or farmy. Once a year we do a road trip down to grandparents in NC. Everything else goes to retirement and school tuition.

bag the tuition - go to public and travel!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Family of 8, $210k income, about $1500 a year for travel. We rent a cabin two to three times a year, somewhere rustic or farmy. Once a year we do a road trip down to grandparents in NC. Everything else goes to retirement and school tuition.

bag the tuition - go to public and travel!!!

This is what we do (previous poster who spends $25K a year on travel and whose kids have traveled the globe). Public school enriched with amazing life and travel experiences.

[Anonymous]

About $15-$20k per year for a family of 5 from NWDC.

[Anonymous]

About $2K a year, one two year old, and HHI of $180K.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Family of six with a HHI of $160.

-DE beach 3-5 times each year (one full week plus long weekends): $3k?

-Spring break trip (Caribbean, cruise or some such): $6-8k?

-NYE overnight (plus festive activity):$750?

-Thanksgiving weekend trip: $800?

That's a good ball park. My DH would probably say we spend more.

-Misc. day trips, long weekends, etc.: $2-3k?

You make 160K in DC, have 4 kids, and spend 10% of your income on vacations?

Most years. So?

We live in MoCo, and our mortgage is very low since we purchased a reasonably priced home and were able to put down 50%. We live rather frugally (no cleaning service, no lawn service, old cars, etc.). And we don't have significant child care costs since all our kids are in school (public school).

People have commented that we travel a lot, and they hint that they wish they could afford to. From what I've observed, most people piss away money. Tally up how much you spend eating out each month. Tally up how much you spend on beer, wine and booze each month (at home or going out). We don't have car payments since we don't regularly trade up. We would rather travel than drop thousands on fancy furniture or cosmetic home renovations. YOLO.

So you have college fully funded for all 4 kids?

Why is that a prerequisite for traveling with your kids when they are young? They will have far more life experience than those who never travel - so what if they have to take some amount of $ as student loans when they go to college or, gasp!, work and earn some of the money for themselves?

So, no, you don't have much money saved for the four college tuitions. Thanks for answering.

NP. I wouldn't fully fund college for my children, vacations or not. That just isn't how we do things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We bring a nanny on our vacations and tack vacations on to international travel for work. We are also somewhat prissy and would not consider camping to be fun or relaxing - our vacations involve luxury hotel suites and such. We're easily spending low six figures on vacations. [[u]/quote]

What? We want to feel like our vacations are a break from real life. (I did a camping trip once to try it after a friend gave me the "how can you be sure you hate it if you never try it?" I camped/hiked Yosemite for three days. I hated it.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Family of six with a HHI of $160.

-DE beach 3-5 times each year (one full week plus long weekends): $3k?

-Spring break trip (Caribbean, cruise or some such): $6-8k?

-NYE overnight (plus festive activity):$750?

-Thanksgiving weekend trip: $800?

That's a good ball park. My DH would probably say we spend more.

-Misc. day trips, long weekends, etc.: $2-3k?

You make 160K in DC, have 4 kids, and spend 10% of your income on vacations?

Most years. So?

We live in MoCo, and our mortgage is very low since we purchased a reasonably priced home and were able to put down 50%. We live rather frugally (no cleaning service, no lawn service, old cars, etc.). And we don't have significant child care costs since all our kids are in school (public school).

People have commented that we travel a lot, and they hint that they wish they could afford to. From what I've observed, most people piss away money. Tally up how much you spend eating out each month. Tally up how much you spend on beer, wine and booze each month (at home or going out). We don't have car payments since we don't regularly trade up. We would rather travel than drop thousands on fancy furniture or cosmetic home renovations. YOLO.

So you have college fully funded for all 4 kids?

Yep. We can cover in-state tuition.

[Anonymous]

I've wondered what is "normal" to spend on vacations too. My family of 2 has a 175K HHI, which we've only had for the past three years (we were in grad school before). We're still trying to figure out what we're comfortable spending on vacation. We spent just under 6K in 2016. Most of that was two international trips (Peru and Mexico), but we did a fair amount of domestic travel by plane (Atlanta, Cleveland, Providence, Albany) and by car (Charlotte, Pittsburgh, Finger Lakes) last year. The domestic travel was primarily to visit family and dear friends. We also did a couple of camping trips in nearby state parks. One of our domestic trips was with my in-laws, and they covered everyone's costs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've wondered what is "normal" to spend on vacations too. My family of 2 has a 175K HHI, which we've only had for the past three years (we were in grad school before). We're still trying to figure out what we're comfortable spending on vacation. We spent just under 6K in 2016. Most of that was two international trips (Peru and Mexico), but we did a fair amount of domestic travel by plane (Atlanta, Cleveland, Providence, Albany) and by car (Charlotte, Pittsburgh, Finger Lakes) last year. The domestic travel was primarily to visit family and dear friends. We also did a couple of camping trips in nearby state parks. One of our domestic trips was with my in-laws, and they covered everyone's costs.

This seems really reasonable to me. We are spending $3000 this year just on rental houses. And our HHI is only 125.