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.

Whatever works for you. Dumb question.

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.

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 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.

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 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 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 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.

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

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 wrote:Are you saving for college?

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

Are you saving for college?

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.

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!