Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. We do max out retirement (59k for me 20k or so for dh), we use public schools, and put away 15k or more for college between the two kids. Even with that, we worry about falling short when it is time to send them off. Last year, the flop vacation was really expensive. It involved car rentals and several hotels. That scared us enough to really trying to do the Grand Canyon this year on a tight budget.

Still don't understand where the rest of your money is going that you can't vacation often or decently well. I take time to price our trips for max value. It's also a huge priority for me. I hope you find some way to spend relaxed family time together. Yes having college paid for will help, but to have thoSe memories and that time spent together is invaluable.

$79K is not maxing out retirement, it's more like maxing out retirement plus saving another ~30-40 grand in after tax investment accounts and calling it "retirement".

Good for you for saving aggressively, but seriously, begrudging other people their vacations because you "can't afford" them? You're being totally ridiculous OP.

That's really not true. I do $59k a year as well, and DH does $53k all in tax deferred retirement accounts, plus an HSA that we use for retirement savings. We could actually do more on a tax deferred basis if we wanted to look at some other plans but haven't done that yet. So that's $120k and we aren't technically "maxing".

That being said, I agree that the OP could easily afford to take a decent vacation or two, even one that involves "car rentals" without breaking the bank or jeopardizing retirement and college savings.

OK, forget about the OP. HOW are you doing it? Specifically, the tax deferred part? 401K is 17.5K per person, catch up contribution is 5K, and if you have 401K i believe there is an income ceiling for traditional IRA contributions. Which means there is a huge gaping hole in what I know about taxes and retirement, so please do tell how you do $59K per year per person? The difference cannot be HSA simply because it would be to the tune of $30K.

This is potentially the most useful thread on DCUM ever!!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm listening to Diane Rehm right now and she is talking to an expert on Alzheimer's. She asked him what people should do to prepare for the possibility that oneself or a loved one might get Alzheimer's. The answer: save as much money as you can now. He said many people are not saving enough.

End of life care is very expensive. A vacation now might be nice, but being able to provide for your own care in retirement is priceless, as they say. My husband and I do not want to be burdens on our children, so we save our money now so that we can be sure of good health care in the future. We feel that this is our responsibility and we do not want to have to rely on others.

So our priorities are college for our kids and then retirement savings for ourselves. Vacations are low on the priority list.

On the flip side - you could die at 40 like a friend of mine. That in itself made me re-prioritize traveling and experiencing life. I'm not going crazy but I am planning trips instead of just putting them off.

Sure, that could happen, but statistically it is unlikely. I have a neighbor whose elderly father recently passed away. His mother is still alive and the adult children have been helping her to adjust. In going over her finances with her, they found out that she not only has no money, but she is seriously in debt. The kids thought the parents were wealthy: they had lived in a large beautiful house in a great school district, college had been fully paid for with no student loans, and the family had gone on multiple vacations every year growing up. It turns out that at some point some investments had gone bad but the parents had gone on living the same way for years, taking out equity lines of credit and using credit cards. The kids were shocked. They all said they would have been happy to give up all the vacations and live in a smaller house if they had only known. Their mother will now have to live a few months each year in each child's house because she cannot afford her own place, but this is not the way she had expected to live her retirement years.

Maybe this is an extreme example, but I'd rather save my money now for the far future. My kids know that we are prioritizing their educations and our care in our old age. They will all graduate from college without loans and even get help with graduate school from us and they will not have to worry about our housing and care when we grow old.

Our HHI is less than half of yours and we go on lots of vacations every year. But we have a tiny, paid-off house and no debt. We have kids in public school. We drive to our vacations -- we don't go overseas.

Anonymous wrote:I know a lot of people who vacation a lot and none of them make anywhere close to what OP makes (and most of them are below 100K--most are not in DC area).

Two things: 1. vacations are put on credit cards and 2. grandparents paying for the vacation. That accounts for most of it.

I agree this is most of it. With the rest being people with minimal/no savings for college and retirement. I know people who spend it all because their parents are wealthy and will pay for grandkids college and they'll inherit the rest, even if the parents don't give money regularly now. I know several people whose parents are paying the whole grandkids college bill.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If one of the parents travels for work, they could have miles they can use for trips.

+1
This. Most of the families I know who take multiple vacations a year are using miles and points from their extensive work travel.

Must be nice. I work and travel extensively for a state university and I am not allowed to use accumulated miles for personal travel.

Anonymous wrote:I'm listening to Diane Rehm right now and she is talking to an expert on Alzheimer's. She asked him what people should do to prepare for the possibility that oneself or a loved one might get Alzheimer's. The answer: save as much money as you can now. He said many people are not saving enough.

End of life care is very expensive. A vacation now might be nice, but being able to provide for your own care in retirement is priceless, as they say. My husband and I do not want to be burdens on our children, so we save our money now so that we can be sure of good health care in the future. We feel that this is our responsibility and we do not want to have to rely on others.

So our priorities are college for our kids and then retirement savings for ourselves. Vacations are low on the priority list.

On the flip side - you could die at 40 like a friend of mine. That in itself made me re-prioritize traveling and experiencing life. I'm not going crazy but I am planning trips instead of just putting them off.

I know a lot of people who vacation a lot and none of them make anywhere close to what OP makes (and most of them are below 100K--most are not in DC area).

Two things: 1. vacations are put on credit cards and 2. grandparents paying for the vacation. That accounts for most of it.

Anonymous wrote:Three trips away is not "countless vacations."

Our travel in the past year included:

A summer mountain trip (drove, divided cost of house with several family members, took lots of day trips to scenic locations that could have made it look like a pricey family vacation in photos but it wasn't and husband stayed home and worked).

Kids went to grandparents while DH and I spent a week in Europe. Used miles and upgrades for business class seats, stayed in reasonable hotels.

An all expenses paid beach retreat for the family through work. Half work, half play, pricey resort. Drove, hotel, meals and outings/activities paid by firm. Spent almost nothing, was just 2 days but if we had posted Facebook photos you might assume we were off on yet another expensive jaunt.

Several days over Christmas spent at in-laws' winter house in a balmy location. Lots of semi-exotic photo ops. Lodging free, tickets bought with miles.

Ski trip to Rockies. Reasonable accommodations, found decently priced airline tickets, free lift tickets for kids.

All in all we used about two weeks of work vacation days (some working remotely), maybe 12 days of reasonably priced lodging, and four round trip tickets. If you didn't know this and just saw photos on social media you might think we spend a week a month traveling and pay out the nose for expensive resorts and air travel.

Right but the fact that you even have access to family vacation homes, miles, and luxury work trips is foreign to many people who still make a lot of money. Our HHI is $300+ and we don't have any of what you mentioned. No miles, no work travel, no family with second homes, etc.

Three trips away is not "countless vacations."

Our travel in the past year included:

A summer mountain trip (drove, divided cost of house with several family members, took lots of day trips to scenic locations that could have made it look like a pricey family vacation in photos but it wasn't and husband stayed home and worked).

Kids went to grandparents while DH and I spent a week in Europe. Used miles and upgrades for business class seats, stayed in reasonable hotels.

An all expenses paid beach retreat for the family through work. Half work, half play, pricey resort. Drove, hotel, meals and outings/activities paid by firm. Spent almost nothing, was just 2 days but if we had posted Facebook photos you might assume we were off on yet another expensive jaunt.

Several days over Christmas spent at in-laws' winter house in a balmy location. Lots of semi-exotic photo ops. Lodging free, tickets bought with miles.

Ski trip to Rockies. Reasonable accommodations, found decently priced airline tickets, free lift tickets for kids.

All in all we used about two weeks of work vacation days (some working remotely), maybe 12 days of reasonably priced lodging, and four round trip tickets. If you didn't know this and just saw photos on social media you might think we spend a week a month traveling and pay out the nose for expensive resorts and air travel.

We take 2-3 week long trips a year on $300k, but I know the people OP is talking about. It's the types of destinations - Disney Cruise, Beaches, Atlantis, Hawaii, etc. Trips at are $10-12k per week. Our trips are $5-6k/week and we feel like that is a lot and constantly wonder how people spend so much more.

I'm listening to Diane Rehm right now and she is talking to an expert on Alzheimer's. She asked him what people should do to prepare for the possibility that oneself or a loved one might get Alzheimer's. The answer: save as much money as you can now. He said many people are not saving enough.

End of life care is very expensive. A vacation now might be nice, but being able to provide for your own care in retirement is priceless, as they say. My husband and I do not want to be burdens on our children, so we save our money now so that we can be sure of good health care in the future. We feel that this is our responsibility and we do not want to have to rely on others.

So our priorities are college for our kids and then retirement savings for ourselves. Vacations are low on the priority list.

The mortgage isn't bad for $400 HHI by any means.

OP must be putting tons of money into college savings. And if that's necessary, it's necessary.

But I am curious how much is put into college savings a year, versus how much is spent on clothing and restuarants.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Welll, our HHI and our mortgage is about 1/4th of yours. We still go on at least one big trip a year. Then we do smaller weekend trips during the year. Our retirements and college accounts are funded.

We're doing WDW soon. We have BOGO tickets from Delta, so our flights were only about $400 total. Got a $250 car, a DVC timeshare that we bought decades ago, and our tickets are from last year. So we'll have a grand time for a bit over 2 grand.

We are also going camping on the Great Lakes this year, and may make it up to Canada for a few days this summer.

You can have great vacations if you just plan and don't need to have everything deluxe.

Agreed. We stay places that are perfectly fine - but for many people would probably be unacceptable.

Why do people stay in hotels that are $200 a night? As long as there is a shower, bed, TV, and free internet, everything past that is a bonus. I just stayed in a Super 8 for 4 nights recently and it worked out really well.

I can take a cheap motel for one night if there is nothing else. But for me, staying all together in a nice hotel for a week makes a big difference. I would rather take less vacations and spend a lot, then take more vacations and spend much less.

I agree with you. I find cheap hotels kind of depressing and I'd rather make it a vacation than a "trip" for the sake of traveling somewhere. Some of that may come from age too - I had higher tolerance for cheap hotels when I was younger. Also influenced by the fact that I travel a lot for work and am usually in high end hotels.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Welll, our HHI and our mortgage is about 1/4th of yours. We still go on at least one big trip a year. Then we do smaller weekend trips during the year. Our retirements and college accounts are funded.

We're doing WDW soon. We have BOGO tickets from Delta, so our flights were only about $400 total. Got a $250 car, a DVC timeshare that we bought decades ago, and our tickets are from last year. So we'll have a grand time for a bit over 2 grand.

We are also going camping on the Great Lakes this year, and may make it up to Canada for a few days this summer.

You can have great vacations if you just plan and don't need to have everything deluxe.

Agreed. We stay places that are perfectly fine - but for many people would probably be unacceptable.

Why do people stay in hotels that are $200 a night? As long as there is a shower, bed, TV, and free internet, everything past that is a bonus. I just stayed in a Super 8 for 4 nights recently and it worked out really well.

I can take a cheap motel for one night if there is nothing else. But for me, staying all together in a nice hotel for a week makes a big difference. I would rather take less vacations and spend a lot, then take more vacations and spend much less.

So the answer is people have different priorities OP.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Welll, our HHI and our mortgage is about 1/4th of yours. We still go on at least one big trip a year. Then we do smaller weekend trips during the year. Our retirements and college accounts are funded.

We're doing WDW soon. We have BOGO tickets from Delta, so our flights were only about $400 total. Got a $250 car, a DVC timeshare that we bought decades ago, and our tickets are from last year. So we'll have a grand time for a bit over 2 grand.

We are also going camping on the Great Lakes this year, and may make it up to Canada for a few days this summer.

You can have great vacations if you just plan and don't need to have everything deluxe.

Agreed. We stay places that are perfectly fine - but for many people would probably be unacceptable.

Why do people stay in hotels that are $200 a night? As long as there is a shower, bed, TV, and free internet, everything past that is a bonus. I just stayed in a Super 8 for 4 nights recently and it worked out really well.

I can take a cheap motel for one night if there is nothing else. But for me, staying all together in a nice hotel for a week makes a big difference. I would rather take less vacations and spend a lot, then take more vacations and spend much less.