Just read this article and wondered about our own spending.

Reckon our annual holidays cost us 7% of our net household income. Family of four. How does yours stack up?

Brits spend a quarter of disposable income on holidays

Couple of hundred quid here if I’m lucky

This year – a good few thousand. Been a good year for holidays and a bad year for CO2 output!

Does it include weekends away? Kit for holidays? Its what I live for – getting out and wandering around the scenery. Its the one thing I really indulge myself on.

edit – maybe 20 – 25% of disposable income just on holidays

Slight thread hijack, how much do people spend on household food a week I.e. just stuff bought to prepare meals rather than ready meals and takeaways etc?

How many people these days have actual disposable income, that would be my question.

7% of household income is irrelevant if you are comparing to the article which is on about % of disposable income.

*Puts hand up* I am in a very lucky position tho and accept that. I’t will be less now I have gone part time

But – I don’t own a car. I live in a fairly small flat, I have bought one new bike in my life ( the rest the youngest is 15 years old) I am typing this on a 10+ yr old desktop on a home made computer desk etc etc. Never bought any new furniture or kitchen stuff or tellys. I could easily use up a lot of my disposable income on stuff I do not need or want but that the rest of you seem to find necessary. thats not a judgement on others – its my choice. I know damn well many of you would find my lifestyle weird

Holidays are what I live for so thats where I put my money

According to the ONS the average household spends £3822 a year on holidays, tickets, subscriptions, pets and other recreational purchases.

Big difference to £6000 a year just for holidays which I find unbelievable.

How many people these days have actual disposable income, that would be my question.

7% of household income is irrelevant if you are comparing to the article which is on about % of disposable income.

Household disposable income is not what you have left over after paying all your bills as one might think. It’s actually how much your household brings in after taxes.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/bulletins/householddisposableincomeandinequality/financialyearending2019provisional#glossary

Disposable income is the amount of money that households have available for spending and saving after direct taxes (such as Income Tax and Council Tax) have been accounted for. It includes earnings from employment, private pensions and investments, as well as cash benefits provided by the state.

We spend a fair chunk of our income on holidays. About 6 years ago, after a couple of significant deaths – the types that get you thinking – we made a decision to put experiences before ‘stuff’. And we were never that bothered about ‘stuff’ so much to begin with

So we both drive 15 year old bangernomics cars, and that carries through to everything else regarding ‘stuff’, but we go away a lot.

Priorities. Riding a bike across somewhere mental feels a lot better than having the latest iPhone

Experiences are way way betterer than ‘stuff’.

When we’re back off one holiday we book the next and set up a direct debit to pay for it. We also have an awful lot of weekends away walking in the lakes. That’s good for your soul

Good on you TJ!
We’ll be spending a fortune on jollydays next year, including……..a long haul flight to Goa next Xmas, & I don’t actually give a shite after what life’s been like for the last 2 years.

It’s actualy how much your household brings in after taxes.

Isn’t that ‘net income’?

3 weeks of this cost just over £100,000.
Luckily I wasn’t paying.

Isn’t that ‘net income’?

Pretty much.

Big difference to £6000 a year just for holidays which I find unbelievable.

I put a thread on here earlier this year about a similar subject & my stepdaughters husband?
Well it appears he’s booked yet another similar ( single trip) to the same place next year.
Disneyland again, 3 people, around the 20k mark. It’s only really him who wants to go.
Nuts or what.

“3 weeks of this costing just over £100,000”
Is there an extra zero in there or is the private yacht & helicopter out of view?

This doesn’t come cheap

Then flights, transfers, food , drink , yacht charters , taxes and tips.

For us the holiday of a life time but our benefactors something they do twice a year!

Every couple of months or so we drive to Snowdonia.
We stay in a wonderful mountaineering club hut, dry spacious and welcoming, that costs us about £100 a year each.
120 miles each way, but use bikes when we’re there. Buy food locally, which we’d buy anyway.
So, about £500 including fuel?

When not at the hut we’ll have a drive out somewhere nice with the bikes, Durham, out to the east or west coast, Dales, Scotland, Peak etc.
Usually every couple of months, less than £100 all in depending on whether we fancy a meal out or just pick up something on the way home.
Once every couple of months, so say another £600, probably a lot less.

Once a year we rent a big house for us, two kids and partners, two grandkids and two dogs.
Usually about a grand, which is split 3 ways.
Say about £400 including fuel.

Every couple of years we’ll go abroad, either bike touring (expensive – ferries/flights and accommodation etc) or just book a week or two somewhere interesting and leave the bikes at home.
Last year was Krakow – no expense spared on trips, food, etc. Usually much less than a grand each?
So say £800 a year.

Adds up to just over a couple of grand per year.

As a student nursing associate I earn about £18000 per year, Mrs S has a small private pension.
We have enough savings for emergencies.

We own our own house, have no debt and apart from the odd guitar don’t really have any exorbitant hobbies. 😀

We have lots of bikes, but like TJ, they’re all old and cost peanuts in maintainance, although they get hammered.

A lot less than that on holidays as a family.

But kids trips for Scouts, Guides, music and sports groups, about a quarter of our disposable income and 80% of my disposable time!

How many people these days have actual disposable income, that would be my question.

Most people actually, but I doubt £6000 is what the majority spend, that figure is distorted by the few who spend vastly more. As in the £100,000 mentioned above.

We spent £15k on a campervan. Add on site fees, food and drink, possibly ferry costs and then van running costs for a few years and divide that by the life of the van (though I’d need a van/car anyway). Of course, that gets us more than 2 weeks a year.

This year was about 50% of my disposable income but got 2 bucket list destinations ticked off (whistler and Kerala) and 2 ski trips. normally it’s about 25%.

Ummmmm quite a large % – I worked this out a while ago and it was something like 15% of my income after tax and something like 40% of my true disposable income e.g. after all housing, car and transport costs were accounted for.

Generally a big ski trip to Canada, a second European ski trip, a week somewhere hot, a week doing something adventurous but not skiing, a couple of long weekends with friends (always more expensive than I think they should be), maybe Ibiza £££ as well, plus numerous other UK weekends away camping which aren’t exactly free at £20+ a night for campsites in high season + petrol and eating out etc

We spent 7 k on a campervan and that covers the majority of holidays.

We do 1 week in the balearics with the in-laws in early spring before silly season which means we have a choice of 4 babysitters during the week so me and the wife can get some time without little one. and we will have to start traveling(17 quid pp per flight if we book right ) to my parents in France now they have moved …..that counts as a holiday right?

I(used to) fly so much with work I despise flying and airports ….and happily just drive my van into the Cairngorms or out west for a week or two. For the rest of my holidays

Going back to when we both earned good money we’d have two 2 week holidays a year always abroad.
average 8k a year for 2 of us
we did that for around 15 years .
Now I earn peanuts but actually have a life it’s around 1k a year in the UK.

I’ve been away 6 holidays this year

A week snowboarding in Avoriaz
10 days snowboarding in Cervinia
A week biking in Finale
A week in Lake Garda
A week biking in Morzine
Another week in Finale

I’m terrified to add up the cost but it’s all worth it

Disposable income is the amount of money that households have available for spending and saving after direct taxes (such as Income Tax and Council Tax) have been accounted for. It includes earnings from employment, private pensions and investments, as well as cash benefits provided by the state.

Jeez, based on that it’s about 3%.

I can’t imagine the ‘average British family’ spends £6k a year on their holidays, or for that matter the ‘average British family’ has 2 holidays a year, I’d want to know more about how they got to those figures. Maybe they do.

Personally, we spend about a months worth of what I’d call disposable income, as in what we’ve got left after the mortgage, bills, food etc, that’s the holiday and spends.

We moved to a beautiful town in Wales a stone’s throw from the beach, probably equates to 100%.

I can’t imagine the ‘average British family’ spends £6k a year on their holidays, or for that matter the ‘average British family’ has 2 holidays a year

You will be very surprised I think.

Pretty much all of it.
I have a small flat, an old-ish van, several second-hand bikes and that’s about it for things, no fancy tellys or the latest mobile telephones or anything like that, would much rather spend on going places. I have a few trips away, usually one long-haul and one European or two European most years and lots of weekends away in the UK. In terms of holidays I’m actually living beyond my means!
I’m vegetarian and run/cycle almost every local journey so hopefully my carbon footprint isn’t too horrendous.

wrightyson – How many people these days have actual disposable income, that would be my question.

Well, every person that pays to go on holiday has disposable income (regardless of whether you equate disposable income to = net income or income after essential bills).

P-Jay – I can’t imagine the ‘average British family’ spends £6k a year on their holidays, or for that matter the ‘average British family’ has 2 holidays a year, I’d want to know more about how they got to those figures. Maybe they do.

Well given that some people in the top 5% don’t even believe they are in the top 50% I’m not sure that statistics are the UK population’s speciality. The data seems to be from “Nationwide’s spending report which analysed 500 million digital transactions* made by its members in the first three months of 2018”

1. Are Nationwide account holders truly representative of the population?
2. Are the first 3 months of the year representative of the whole year? I expect is has a disproportionate amount of summer holiday bookings and last minute ski / winter sun holidays. By their nature – holidays are seasonal.
3. How does their analysis know if the trip was work or pleasure?
4. Mixing %ages from two different sources (income and expenditure) is always dangerous. I’m sure if you did the same for pension contributions it would paint a rosier picture than we believe it to be.

This report is from May 2018 – why are we discussing it now?

*creepy spying bar stewards

Pretty much everyone I work with has two foreign holidays a year. I had 2 last year and go away to Wales or the Lakes every other weekend. This years has been mostly U.K. due to lots of building work on a property Im moving to. I don’t earn a fortune just prioritise well I guess and having no kids helps with disposable income.

I spend quite a large % of my income on holidays, far more I suspect than the average person. However it is a lifestyle choice rather than excessive luxury. Basically I live a fairly frugle life normally so that I can afford holidays, I live in an apartment rather than a house, and don’t have a car etc.

The holidays I have are also far from being luxury destinations and hotels, but I do like going on activity holidays, diving, mountain biking, snowboarding etc. So often the activity costs make the trips quite expensive even when staying in modest accommodation.

I think holidays and sundry costs are probably 1/3 of my take home pay.

Pretty much everyone I work with has two foreign holidays a year. I had 2 last year and go away to Wales or the Lakes every other weekend. This years has been mostly U.K. due to lots of building work on a property Im moving to. I don’t earn a fortune just prioritise well I guess and having no kids helps with disposable income.

And for balance, very few of the people I work with have two holidays per year, never mind two foreign holidays. I’m looking around the office and reckon the only person here who did that this year is the boss. Your point about kids is very relevant to me – 3 kids, no spare money and little spare time!

There is no balance in life really. I used to go away for 5 months every year. Seasonal job, super long hours. If you’re not getting two holidays a year abroad or even camping in U.K. your office staff need a radical rethink on life.

I doubt any dying person has ever said that they wished they had spent less money on holidays.

Next year we are going abroad twice, and will have three of four breaks around the UK. Nothing flash but we are making memories and experiences with our kids whilst they are still young enough to want to hang out with us.

Roughly 12.5% of net income, and maybe 25% of what’s left over after food, bills and mortgage. It’ll be a bit more next year.

But like others here, there’s almost nothing in our house that was bought brand new, we have an old small cheap car, and we live in a small terrace. So we can spend more on holidays!

Even UK holidays are not cheap these days.
5 of us.
We did two weeks last year – most of a week at sister in-law, a couple of days with old friends in Travelodge, a week at Bike Park Wales staying in cheapest AirBNB closely.
Accomodation £600
Fuel/car running £300
spends (ice cream, uplifts etc, no entry fees and only one meal out) £450

Add on a week away at Easter we did for a family get together (£600 accommodation, £180 fuel, £100 spends)

Mrs_oab also had a long weekend in the summer to support eldest_oab at a race. £200 all in.

That’s about 4.5% of our family income.

Staying in UK, not eating out, staying with family and cheap self catering accommodation.

So yes, if you’re off abroad I can easily see it being the figure the article quotes…

(This year we have blown the budget – off to Canada, so much denero, but last summer with all the kids.)

No idea how much we spend on holidays, don’t really care as its better than being sat at home with a big flash car outside. I don’t get why people spend thousands on Disney holidays but that’s up to them. I wouldn’t get myself into debt for holidays though.

I doubt any dying person has ever said that they wished they had spent less money on holidays.

Well maybe someone actually dying during their holiday due to picking up a local flesh eating bug and they couldn’t afford to pay for their treatment due to blowing all their money on the holiday!

Similar to others, we don’t spend fortunes on cars and household stuff and live well within our means.
Last year we took the kids to Costa Rica for two weeks and we are going to Lapland with them for a week over XMas. The kids are 11 and 12, the 11 year old still believes in you know who, so we thought it would be a great family memory.
I also get at least one cycling break, Girona, Nice or similar.