Advice on annual travel budget with HHI of 300K?

[Anonymous]

What do you think is a good annual travel / vacation budget for a family of 5 with HHI of appx 300K?

House expenses including mortgage, taxes, insurance are about $2800/month
Car payment - $500/month (for one car, other car is paid off)
About $1500/month on child care expenses
About $300/month on student loans

We generally have savings account, retirement accounts, and college saving funds that I consider to be in pretty good shape.

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

It all depends on what your other priorities are. We make around $200K and have a travel budget of $3K per year, but we also have two kids in preschool/private and live in a HCOL area so most of our income goes to those expenses.

If you're listing your only major expenses, you could have a much bigger travel budget if that's a priority.

[Anonymous]

Are you saving for college?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are you saving for college?

Yes. I think about $300/mo ($100 per month per child).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you saving for college?

Yes. I think about $300/mo ($100 per month per child).

NP here. That's not nearly enough, especially considering that you have a HHI of $300k. If that's all you're saving, then the right answer for your vacation budget is $0.

[Anonymous]

We have that HHI and one kid, and our travel budget is about $10K a year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you saving for college?

Yes. I think about $300/mo ($100 per month per child).

NP here. That's not nearly enough, especially considering that you have a HHI of $300k. If that's all you're saving, then the right answer for your vacation budget is $0.

Fair point. What is everyone else saving for college? I double checked, and that is correct that our monthly contribution is $100 per kid. We do put other money in there from time to time. The oldest is almost 9, with $20K in that account now. Grandparents have said they want to help too but I haven’t pinned them down on more specific details.

We are doing our mortgage on a 15 year plan, so it should be paid off about the same time the oldest would start college if that matters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you saving for college?

Yes. I think about $300/mo ($100 per month per child).

NP here. That's not nearly enough, especially considering that you have a HHI of $300k. If that's all you're saving, then the right answer for your vacation budget is $0.

Who says she needs or wants to fully fund college? Sure, her amount may not be enough but that doesn’t mean she gets a $0 travel budget. One is optional (college). Most don’t consider vacations optional. Even “staycations” usually require output of $.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you saving for college?

Yes. I think about $300/mo ($100 per month per child).

NP here. That's not nearly enough, especially considering that you have a HHI of $300k. If that's all you're saving, then the right answer for your vacation budget is $0.

Fair point. What is everyone else saving for college? I double checked, and that is correct that our monthly contribution is $100 per kid. We do put other money in there from time to time. The oldest is almost 9, with $20K in that account now. Grandparents have said they want to help too but I haven’t pinned them down on more specific details.

We are doing our mortgage on a 15 year plan, so it should be paid off about the same time the oldest would start college if that matters.

At $100/month, you'll have in the neighborhood of $50k per kid, assuming 18 years of savings. We're shooting for between 2 and 3 times that.

With HHI around $250k, we spend about $10k per year on leisure travel.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you saving for college?

Yes. I think about $300/mo ($100 per month per child).

NP here. That's not nearly enough, especially considering that you have a HHI of $300k. If that's all you're saving, then the right answer for your vacation budget is $0.

Who says she needs or wants to fully fund college? Sure, her amount may not be enough but that doesn’t mean she gets a $0 travel budget. One is optional (college). Most don’t consider vacations optional. Even “staycations” usually require output of $.

Wait are you honestly arguing that college is optional but "travel" is not? Weird... I like travel a lot, and I also fully intend to pay for my kids' college. But if I had to eliminate one of them, it wouldn't be the college. But you do you, different strokes and all that.

[Anonymous]

Our stats are similar. $300k income, $3k/month mortgage, childcare is slightly higher especially for summer care, but we have no car payment or student loans. We normally spend about $10-12K on one big vacation per year, and another $5K-ish throughout the year. The total goes up or down a few $k each year depending on what we are doing.

Travel is our one big luxury, though. We don’t spend a lot on clothes, fancy restaurants or entertainment.

College accounts are already funded to the level we want them, maxing out both 401ks and backdoor Roth IRA, etc.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

Whatever works for you. Dumb question.

[Anonymous]

We have a HHI of about $200k (no kids and don't plan to) and spend about $6k a year on a big 2 week trip.