with my 84-year-old dad on the West Coast, we spend a lot in airfare ... but visiting him doesn't feel like a vacation, exactly ....

if I don't count trips to just see him, but do count trips where we see him but also do something else, we will probably spend a bit over 3 percent of pre-tax income on vacation, and that includes using frequent flier tickets for a trip to the UK last spring, so if we paid for those airline tickets we would have been well over 3 percent.

While I'm not surprised, exactly, that our vacation spending is above average, I do find it interesting that for four weeks of paid vacation time this year, all of which I am taking, we are staying with friends or family for three-quarters of our travel time and still exceed the average. Damn those high airfares!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We spend about 10-15% of our gross on multiple vacations each year, covering a total of about 4 full weeks and 6-10 weekends away. We spend very little on things, prioritizing experiences.

Wow - how old are your kids? Where do you go for weekends? My kids have so much going on on weekends with school and club sports that it is hard to get away more than a couple of weekends during the school year - unless you count soccer tournaments in Richmond or a cross country meet in Mercersburg PA as a weekend away. Plus we both sometimes end up traveling for work on a weekend (like a Sunday flight, or a late Friday return) which further limits the weekend options. I'm impressed.

1 kid who is only four. We limit weekend activities, especially in the summer. This may change at some point, but we plan to maximize trip times (if possible, we would turn the tournaments into mini-vacations). This year so far we have done weekends/long weekends in Deep Creek Lake, NYC, Shenandoah, Long Island, and Kentucky (long drive, not optional). We have also taken longer trips to central America and a horse camp. We have also each added on a couple fun days alone after business trips to Italy and San Francisco. We currently have scheduled: a music festival outside Philly, Virginia Beach, Connecticut, another Shenandoah trip, a trip to see family and an undetermined foreign trip with just the two of us. Aside from the foreign trips, they are all pretty budget friendly, but they add up.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess it depends on your math. Our family vacations add up to about 14 days per year, which represents about 4% of the year. We're probably right around 3%-5% since we're driving to relatives' homes and going to the supermarket, which isn't so different from the other 96% of the year.

Yeah, but you forgot a few things. (1) taxes, (2) savings, and (3) school. You spend way less than that on an average day, because of these three things.

I suppose for some. My overall federal tax rate plus my overall savings rate is less than 10%. We homeschool and vacations present a lot of opportunities for field trips and other fun learning stuff so our vacations look a lot like our other days.

We make abut $240k, so 3% would be about $7000. This year we spent about $4000 on a trip to the West Coast and are planning to go to the beach or a week in September, which will probably run another $2000. So a bit under for us ths year.

Anonymous wrote:We like to ski so that drives our costs way up. Easily $7-8k for each of Christmas and spring break in Colorado or Utah. Plus a long weekend or two closer by if we can swing it. Sometimes I can use frequent flyers for some of the flights but lift tickets alone run $400/day. Summer vacation tends to be more modest.

I love the ski vacations and DH loves the beach ones. So I can't bring myself to actually calculate what we spend a year on vacations for our family of 6.

We make about $115 and will spend no more than $2k traveling (inc. accommodations/food) this year, some of it to see family.

Anonymous wrote:We spend about 10-15% of our gross on multiple vacations each year, covering a total of about 4 full weeks and 6-10 weekends away. We spend very little on things, prioritizing experiences.

Wow - how old are your kids? Where do you go for weekends? My kids have so much going on on weekends with school and club sports that it is hard to get away more than a couple of weekends during the school year - unless you count soccer tournaments in Richmond or a cross country meet in Mercersburg PA as a weekend away. Plus we both sometimes end up traveling for work on a weekend (like a Sunday flight, or a late Friday return) which further limits the weekend options. I'm impressed.

We spend about 10-15% of our gross on multiple vacations each year, covering a total of about 4 full weeks and 6-10 weekends away. We spend very little on things, prioritizing experiences.

make $240K, spend $5-8K/year on vacation. This year it will be $12k (going to New Zealand).

We make $200k and spent about $500 this year for a five day trip to Bethany (mom's house). Will probably do another similar type of trip in late August or early fall.

We fly to my husband's home country every other year. That trip usually costs about $5,000.

That all probably averages out to $3,500 a year.

That may change as my son gets older. I'd like to take him to Europe at least once. That will be some serious $$$ for us.

a vacation - what's that? we haven't taken one in several years, unless you count the obligatory trips to visit family or attend events. It costs $1200 just to fly 3 people to visit his family halfway across the country.

We like to ski so that drives our costs way up. Easily $7-8k for each of Christmas and spring break in Colorado or Utah. Plus a long weekend or two closer by if we can swing it. Sometimes I can use frequent flyers for some of the flights but lift tickets alone run $400/day. Summer vacation tends to be more modest.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our HHI is $170K and we spend about $4K a year on vacations.

So you're spending less. How many people, and where? I'm curious, airfare alone would kill that amount for us.

Four people.

In the summer we do one week at a family camp - $2K. Sometimes we do five days at the beach as well, another ~$1K (condo rental). I then added another $1K for weekends here and there. Some years it might be $5K, but really, never more than that (and sometimes less if all we do in a given summer is family camp).

We do driving vacations. Our kids are getting older, though, and we plan to use some savings to do bigger-ticket-type vacations in the next several years - I want one trip abroad (possibly two), and one to the West Coast or Hawaii.

Can you recommend your family camp? Sounds fun

http://www.deervalleyymca.org/

It is a blast - we have been going for years (and dh and his family went when he wad a child!).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our HHI is $170K and we spend about $4K a year on vacations.

So you're spending less. How many people, and where? I'm curious, airfare alone would kill that amount for us.

Four people.

In the summer we do one week at a family camp - $2K. Sometimes we do five days at the beach as well, another ~$1K (condo rental). I then added another $1K for weekends here and there. Some years it might be $5K, but really, never more than that (and sometimes less if all we do in a given summer is family camp).

We do driving vacations. Our kids are getting older, though, and we plan to use some savings to do bigger-ticket-type vacations in the next several years - I want one trip abroad (possibly two), and one to the West Coast or Hawaii.

Can you recommend your family camp? Sounds fun

We spend about 10 percent of our income on vacations.