Do you have a yearly budget for vacations?

[Michelle T]

How do you figure out if you can afford a vacation of some sort each year? Do you budget a certain amount of money? Or just play it by ear?

 

Also, does your DH ever go on vacation trips without you?

Michelle T

[JFSinIL]

to hold onto most of any holiday bonus hubby gets at work, and/or tax refund, and every two or three years do a big vacation. For us, that means a week at least of road trip, with many stops along the way, and cramming six people into a single motel room (well, at least when the kids were smaller. Now we need two rooms - darn big teens!). These bigger vacations (whether to the east coast - DC, Gettysburg, Wmburg etc, or west to Yellowstone etc) work out to about $5000 or less for two weeks. In between mini-trips to Wisconsin Dells or Nashville or Michgan are far cheaper (think a few hundred dollars.)

 

My sister and her family has to go to Hawaii and do a cruise each year. They spend far more than we do (but they have fewer kids, too).

[Jennifer in MI]

We do. It's a matter of priorities. Our family decided long ago that we are going to travel. Not just travel, but vacation. A vacation to me includes staying in a hotel room large enough for six of us to sleep on beds. I don't cook on vacations!! We don't have to get in a car much. When the kids get older, we'll travel (not just vacation!). That means touring new cities and visiting foreign countries.

 

So, we pinch and save all year for one big trip (we budget $5000 - $7000) and a smaller trip. We are currently saving for a big trip to Europe in 2010.

 

And, no. Dh doesn't go on a vacation without me. Occasionally, he'll go somewhere fun for business, but not on vacation!!

[Laura Corin]

As part of that trip, the boys spend some time in camp, in order to maintain contact with their passport countries by hanging out with local kids. This trip takes most of our travel budget for the year, and Dh often comes for only part of the trip, or maybe not at all.

 

We also manage a one-week family trip within Asia - usually Thailand at present - and sometimes a short trip within China.

 

Laura

[Amy loves Bud]

We don't really budget, per se, but Bud bugged the kids for years to turn off the lights so we could affod to go to Disney. It worked, we went to Disney, and the kids are great at turning off the lights when they leave a room!

 

We just kind of look at things when the travel bug hits us and decide if we can swing it. Some years are good and we take several trips, some less good and we stay home. (Bud's income is 100% commission on sales he makes as an independent rep.)

 

Bud has taken a couple of ski trips with the guys without me, and I've gone to Cancun and Boston with girlfriends without him. These are long weekends, not full-blown weeklong vacations, though.

[littlefamily]

We do a budget of planned trips for the year. It always includes a big two week camping trip with the cousins and one other smaller trip for the family. (This year it was skiing.) Those two are musts and I always have them budgeted and put aside enough money each month.

 

We are probably odd in that DH never vacations without us, but we will go without him. I set the calendar at the beginning of the year and he has one of those jobs that we just can't count on him being able to take time off no matter how far in advance I plan. The girls and I also enjoy driving and seeing sights on the way and DH just doesn't have that time available, so we budget airfare for him. He has never made it the full two weeks of summer camping, but he will fly into wherever we are for about week and fly home. (We are headed to Newfoundland & Labrador to camp this year - wish me well on coordinating airfare for that one!)

 

He knows we love to travel. I love him dearly because he always tells me that he works so hard so I can stay at home and give our children all the great opportunities we have been blessed to be able to give them.... So budgeting travel/vacations is a must on our family.

[Tess in the Burbs]

we plan out where we want to go that year and I work through the budget to see if it's affordable and how we will save for it. Our Disney trip this past year was hard to save for($3K!) but we squeaked it out.

 

We have a timeshare now that I pay for in January of each year....so only if I transfer it do we have any additional fees with that. otherwise we are in the mountains every fall to go hiking :p

 

But this year we aren't using it...instead will go next winter for skiing and our regular week for hiking. So this year I am only saving for weekend camping trips.

 

But for us, it's a decision to go somewhere and then to save like crazy for it. We couldn't just do Disney any year...for a big trip like that we planned a year in advance. The ski trip is the same...a year in advance to get the room and save up. But our fall hiking trip is paid yearly, so only need food/gas $ for the week.

 

AND yes, Dh takes a ski trip every February for 4 days. I know to budget that in January/February. I get little weekends when I ask. This year I am taking 3 nights over 3 different weekends. ;)

 

getting away is important to us though. I grew up going to visit family every holiday and taking big trips in the summers. I think if you never did that then it's not something you strive to do. I can't imagine not getting away. Dh has quickly learned to appreciate travel :D

[Nancy in MI]

Every summer and at either Christmas or Thanksgiving we drive to New England to visit my family. We have done this for years, so we know just how much money it will cost. I put aside money monthly for these trips.

 

Also, every spring I use my frequent flyer miles to fly to Maine to have a "ladies week" with my mother, sister-in-law and a couple of friends. My dh takes the week off of work and stays with the boys. They eat pizza every night, watch too much tv, do no schoolwork and madly clean up the mess the night before I get home. :D I save money monthly for this as well.

 

We also try to do a family vacation each year somewhere other than New England. Last year it was Korea for a martial arts tournament (we saved money all year for that by getting rid of our cleaning lady and "paying" ourselves and raising money through the school to defray costs. We were able to do it for $2000!). The year before it was Hawaii (we sold some stock). This year it will probably be something more like Washington DC and staying with relatives to save money!

 

Nancy

[Jackie in AR]

How do you figure out if you can afford a vacation of some sort each year? Do you budget a certain amount of money? Or just play it by ear?

 

Also, does your DH ever go on vacation trips without you?

 

 

We usually go on vacation to the beach each year. Dh gets nice bonuses at his work and those pay for our trips.

 

We go in the fall when the prices are very low, but when it is still warm enough to enjoy the water. We rent a condo, and I usually cook a few things before we go and transport them in a big ice chest. When we get there, we go to the grocery store for a few more things. Eating in the condo saves lots of money; it we didn't do that, the cost of our trip would double if our whole family ate out at restaurants the entire week. We do go out to eat at nice places once or twice during the week.

 

No, dh doesn't go on vacations without me.

[Tracey in TX]

Normally we take two vacations annually: spring break and summer, or occassionally Christmas. DH takes a day or two in Europe when he's already there for work to travel. I go away once /yr alone to regroup (usually chaperone high school exchange students or travel to see former student).

Our budget is $7500/yr. We went way over last year--Key Largo in spring; Italy at Christmas, so we're only taking a small trip during summer break. DH is going to Prague/Paris for 2 wk MBA trip next month. I will live vicariously through him :)

We have always traveled. That's our special family time. DH & I even met in England and want the kiddos to have the same interest in international travel.

[umarider]

We used to decide we wanted to go somewhere, go, and THEN try to pay off the cc's. Stupid, I know.

 

Last year I started putting aside money in advance to pay for travel. We don't plan the trips more than a few months in advance, but the money is always getting set aside so it's there when we want to go somewhere. The trips are more enjoyable now I know there won't be huge cc bills waiting for me at home!

 

DH can't get away from work for extended or frequent trips, and a big part of the reason we're HSing is because we are stationed in Hawaii and the kids and I can fly Space Available on military planes (easier to do when PS are in session), so DH is cool w/ us taking trips w/out him. We try to save the REALLY neat stuff to do with him, though.

 

We travel, as opposed to vacationing. I look at traveling as a way to further educate my kids and spend fun time w/ them simultaneously. If we need a get-away, we rent a beach cottage at a military facility near here and just veg for a few days.

[Melinda in VT]

I have never converted DH to a budget, so I guess you could say we play it by ear, but we always pay off our credit cards each month. We do transfer a small amount of money (about $200) automatically each month from our checking to a special savings account. We also deposit extra money there throughout the year, including Christmas money and bonuses. That's our trip money.

 

Travel is important to us, and we take many kinds of trips--family trips, couple trips, and solo trips.

[WTMindy]

are very thrifty spenders on almost everything so that we can travel. It is a high priority to our family. I work part time and we use some of my income as travel money. We drive cheap cars, we don't eat out too much, we don't have expensive cell phones or cable, but we LOVE to travel!! So, we don't set aside money each month or anything, but we are always planning for our next vacation.