Reply to Family of 5 Travel Budget

Forum Index » Travel Discussion

Reply to "Family of 5 Travel Budget"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We earn less and probably spend more on travel than the OP (much to my husband's chagrin).

Here's the thing: you can't take it with you. Life is short, make it sweet. You only truly have control over your kids until college, so you *need* to squeeze in family travel before you send them off to college. It's a *need* not a *want* IMHO.

We earn $275k and are a family of 6. COVID slowed us down, but are planning to catch up.

I've never really budgeted for travel or tallied up every penny we spend towards it, but we typically go to the DE beaches several times throughout the year (including off season); we travel to NYC; we visit relatives who are a long drive away (and hotel rooms are required); we go away every spring break and winter break (often flying); big summer vacation (on top of DE beaches); sports related tournament travel (roadtrips plus hotels); random overnights or weekend trips (Williamsburg, Philly, Hershey, the beach, the bay).

It's got to be north of $25k considering the trips I'm eyeing right now are north of $15k.

Again: you can't take it with you. There's no such thing as too much when it comes to travel ;0)

PS - We haven't made it to Europe with the kids yet. That will definitely be north of $15k, and I have at least 2 trips we need to take.  We've done Canada, and it was fun and definitely less than Europe. We mostly find ourselves in the Caribbean since we love the beach and enjoy the vibe. [/quote]

I don’t think anyone disagrees w/ your sentiment! I’m sure every single person here wants to squeeze out as much travel as possible. The benefits are huge! Pesky pesky details get in the way…vacation time …and then of course cost! We spend about $15k a year on travel but also have college costs coming in four years and retirement..our dumb health insurance is 2k a month…we are a public school family..everything is costing more, our house needs work. Blah! Wish I could travel all the time. [/quote]

I'm right there with you, pp! (I'm the "you can't take it with you" poster.)

We skimp in other areas in order to have money for travel. We drive toyotas until they die (tip: they last a long, long time). Our furniture is the original furniture we bought when we started living together back in the 90s. We're still using the dishes we received as gifts at my bridal shower (Mikasa holds up well, apparently!). We opted not to have a cleaning service or lawn service, and I remind DH how much we save annually by not outsourcing. We have college costs, too (x4). And retirement. But I've told DH I'm fine with downsizing dramatically for retirement.

I've literally spent the day online researching for spring break and summer vacations. The problem is that i'm all over the place: FL, Caribbean, Europe, and cruises. I'm receiving all kinds of pop up and ads on various platforms, and some are actually pretty great!

FWIW, I found a package through Cosmos for air and hotels for a family-friendly multi-country tour through Europe that coincides with mcps spring break that was very reasonably priced. Tons of packages throughout the summer. You can find deals if you look and are up for being flexible.

Another tip: our local DC area airports are typically more expensive than Philly, Newark and JFK. If you plan to fly abroad, compare those airports. Flights from the DC area to europe are $1k while flights from Newark and JFK are routinely $500 (sometimes less!). Philly is easy to get to the day of the flight.  [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics