What vacation $$ amount makes you squirm?

[dayvewc]

I'm a bit different as it is just me most of the time. Though friends and family are welcome on most trips. But I plan and budget for about $200 per day the first 3 days, $150 per day for days 4 to 7, and $100 a day after that. Once I cross the $2 mark I get pretty freaked.

 

[mom2t]

It depends where we are going and the cringe point changes. For us at Disney, 3 now at adult prices 3 is the max. Most other trips it is 2 on years we do not travel to a Disney. I am very budget conscious being on a teacher's salary. We do 1 big, 2 long weekends beach spring mts. Thanksgiving, and 10 days at my aunt and uncle's house at the beach. This last is a big budget trip. My husband comes for 4 days and does maintenance jobs for them so they charge us very little.

 

[kuhltiffany]

A bit of a different answer here too. When we got married, we learned to live on DH's income. Any money I made went to debt repayment (at first) but then when all was paid off it eventually became "extra" money that could be put towards vacations, house renovations, etc. Now my kids are in school full time and I'm working a steady job full-time for the first time ever. What are we doing with the money? We have chosen to use it for vacations...

 

[PrincessNelly]

We have no children so $2,000 is my max. I'm anticipating $3,000-$3,500 my max after our child is born.

 

[Clamesa]

$4000 We are a family of 3 and I make sure of getting FDP. Tips and souvenirs are paid with Disney rewards money.. I could easily book the CR without breaking the bank but I'm frugal ( cough: cheap) and cannot justify the expense.

 

[Monykalyn]

We haven't gone on vacays much due to job changes, moving for jobs, kids being born and the biggie-job loss a few years ago. The loss turned out to be a blessing in disguise now as we have become independent contractors and commission much higher (imagine getting paid more the harder your work). So because I have been on penny pinching mode for soooo long (dating back from broke college student days - both DH and I worked our way through college) it make me cringe to have more than $1-2K for a vacay. We own a timeshare at Lake Ozark that we trade for lodging (maintenance fees, II membership and trade fee <$600/year). Also my MIL owns a big house right on main channel at Lake Ozark so we frequently go there (free lodging, I do usually buy some groceries and we cook there, and will go out to some resorts once or twice a summer).
This summer was first family trip (outside of family visit) in 10 years (yay to lean years being over) and DH budgeted waaay more than I did-but he did not want to have to watch every penny or constantly tell kids no when they wanted something (and kids had their own spending money too). We had one nice meal a day, QS other times, a beach day etc and stayed offsite at great resort. DH still announces the last day that we didn't spend anywhere near what he had budgeted and took us shopping with orders to get (more) souvenirs. We still didn't spend over $5K-including tickets, gas, rental car, food, souvenirs etc.

Soo I am now planning next years vacay, and we have an adults only Vegas trip coming up.

Oh and one word of advice if planning Badlands trip-go in fall or winter-or you may burn up in summer. Grew up in NoDak and badlands/Mt Rushmore were usually fall weekend trips for us. Yellowstone/wyoming/montana trips were summer vacations. My MIL wants to take kids to see Rushmore but it is really miserable during summer and hard to pull kids out during school (cooler temp) year.

We too do the cash back or airline miles rewards. All business expenses go on those cards, paid in full every month. This recent trip 3 years in the making and we had air tickets paid for with the rewards, and Vegas trip airfare paid for with rewards from June Disney trip. We usually eat at home (have a large garden, chickens and buy meat in larger quantities so it is lower $per pound).

Would love to do a cruise but I would need to have monthly payments so the end lump sum cost doesn't give me heart failure

 

[lisaross]

I do not wince if i have the money saved for it and its planned as budget friendly as possible

 

[WildGinger]

Once I hit around 8K, I get a little squirmish. We did 2 weeks at WDW in February for $7K and that was my limit

 

[suzimar57]

most ever for us was when we stayed at CR - hit the $5K mark those times

yeah, there were some guilty, sleepless nights back then....

but once we were in our MK view room, all thoughts of "how much??!!" disappeared!

(compared to "back in the day" during the Magic Kingdom Club Card era, values at $49/night, 15 nights, nowhere close to $5K - sigh....)

 

[abmitch01]

for me and my two kids, we usually travel cheap. We rent nice houses with my extended family in the Adirondacks, split 3 ways, it isn't bad. We relax, walk on trails, treat ourselves to horseback riding, play games.

other cheap vacas are cruises to Bermuda out of Boston. I once got $500 for me and 1 child, 2 child free. We spent close to nothing as we didn't do the ships excursions.

Disney is our splurge. It used to be cheaper when we shared a house and a car. this year it's just the 2 of us staying for the first time on site at POR. But the airfare was much lower than during a school break and we didn't need a car. I put the trip on a 0 interest for 18 mos credit card and have been paying it down. I refuse to look at what the whole trip cost, I want to be in denial. The QS dining plan wasn't practical because DD 15 still eats kids meals. So I've allotted that $80 a day for food, I don't think we'll spend that much. I had to buy myself shorts and sleeveless shirts, I don't need those here in NY. On and on go the costs for Disney!

 

[abmitch01]

it all makes me squirm because I feel like I should be saving the money for college. But I feel the same way when I get a $2 diet coke from a drive through. Guilt, guilt, guilt.

 

[AquaDame]

Anything over 3K makes me squirm.... I like to keep it much cheaper if possible although there are certain trips that I know will be more and that is OK since they're more once-in-a-lifetime (Norway, Kenya, Galapagos, etc).

 

[TnTWalter]

but we had saved for 2 years....we took our 3 teens...
17 days 3 islands...$14,500.

That hurt. But it was so worth it and we had the money saved.

Our typical vacations are well under $5k usually $3k max.

 

[KELLY]

It use to be 5000.00 with air for 2 weeks. We would stay at a value with free dining. We still go during FD but last year we did a Disney cruise. This year we are staying at PB at universal for 5 days and POR for 12 days. SO the past 2 years probably close to 10,0000 with everything. I think after everything is paid for any spending money it will be around 8500.00.

I'm just quoting myself that I got it close to 5000.00 staying at Disney the entire 17 days. Our FD QSDP package for 14 nights with memory maker 3455.00. Two nights room only 200.00. Round trip non stop air for 4 1250.00. Total 4905.00.

I did purchase villains unleashed tickets and the frozen Package so tack on another 500.00 for that. Plus meals for 2 days probably around 250.00. Also 2 character meals for another 225.00. Still not bad for 17 days.

 

[momtosam]

5K as we'll.

 

[karen1987]

Around £4000 - £4500 (~ $7000) makes us squirm, but we don't really holiday in Europe and go further abroad, so the price reflects that.

 

[NancyIL]

I am willing to spend a lot on travel, but it has to represent good value to me. I am not interested in luxury travel, so concierge hotel rooms or cruise ship cabins don't tempt me. Instead, I usually choose simple accommodations - but take longer trips.

As far as a dollar amount, I try to keep trips under $10K.

 

[Shanan]

DH travels with his job (machinery & equipment appraiser) so he really prefers it to travel on vacations Our budget for the 2 of us to WDW is $3-4K for 7 days on average. I squirm over $3,500. We stay in Value since we are hardly ever in the room. We to at least one TS meal a day (very rarely do the dining plan jus cause we lose money on it - DH eats one meal a day & snacks on large popcorn) We do enjoy souvenirs - mine are the Dooney purses & jewelry & DH always gets a watch.
We are doing staycation this year In September DH has a conference in Savannah & I have always wanted to go there. I am flying with DH & staying at hotel so budget with meals & souvenirs should be less then $600
We are saving money to go either on a small boat cruise to Alaska or the Canadian railroad for 25th anniversary (2018). I honestly don't believe in being miserable 50 weeks out of the year for a 2 week vacation. We don't eat out a lot (DH eats out a lot due to job); not bar crowd people; cars are over 6 years old etc.
As long as you enjoy your vacation no matter where you go & you don't go into debt etc that is what matters. Everyone has definitely different squirm levels.

 

[firegurl]

Last year we went to Sandals in Jamaica for 6 days. That was our most expensive trip at just about $6000 after airfare and new clothes. It was for a wedding with our closest friends so I don't regret it but boy was that a lot of money. For our Disney trips I try to keep it under $4000 total for 3 of us but we also only go every couple of years. We are fortunate that my in-laws have a beach house about 2 hours to the east of us and my parents have a cabin in the mountains 3 hours to the west. We are not used to spending much on vacations so the cost of a trip to a big resort is a little shocking at first. I do know many people that spend more than the cost of our 8 day Disney trip on 5 or 6 days at the beach in our area. To me Disney is a much better value.

 

[mgsquared]

It depends, we do like to do bigger trips now before we had kids. We are really into a good value for the money though. Living in Europe, a lot of really great vacations are cheap! One week at a deluxe resort in Egypt by the sea with meals and excursions to the pyramids, etc. cost us less than 1000 euros- flights and everything included.
Our trip to California where we drove from San Fran to LA and then flew to vegas and then back to san fran all in 3 weeks was about 4-5000 euros (I am REALLY good at finding cheap flights and we do airbnb for accommodations always.
A trip to London on the other hand will be about 600. It goes up and down a lot! This year we are doing one vacation and it is going to be about 4000 (New York and Disney) and I am sure it will be worth every penny!
The amount that makes us squirm would be for sure anything above 5000 or altogether overpaying for anything!

Any unnecessary/not super enjoyable euro spent is money that could be going to another vacation! The 600 extra to upgrade to a moderate is a lot of souvenirs and the wild africa trek (really thinking about doing this!). 400 extra to eat at Vitoria and Alberts is a trip to London/Prague/Paris- seriously.
So we do a lot for our vacation money and really enjoy it. More frequent vacations and fun experiences are way more important and we happily take a bus, or the train into Rome (definitely recommend staying outside in Frascati!)... etc. etc. In order to be able to do more. Never sacrificing significant holiday time though.