Curious: what % of your household income do you spend on vacations?

[smiles33]

Poll coming. I realize some people scrimp and save in other areas to indulge on vacation, but it still astounds me to think about paying $400/night for a hotel for multiple nights. I am still in shock re: the cost of staying at the Grand Californian, which is running almost $400/night when we want to travel. While we can afford it, I opted for the $99/night suite at the Howard Johnson across the street instead. The thing is, our family is relatively comfortable, but we spend FAR less than 5% of our household income on vacation each year. For what it's worth, most of our income goes to our mortgage, childcare, and savings. Any leftover discretionary income is spent on good food (not Whole Foods, which is a trip we make only once/2 months).

You?

 

[frijolefrito]

This is going to sound horrible.. but I have no idea how much I make. I'm in the military and it wouldn't be too hard to do the math but my situation changes so my little out of the norm bonuses vary. That and my wife handles my finances so if anything is out of the norm she fixes it. *giggle*

I usually spend my whole tax return on my vacations plus about a months pay.

 

[nbliss]

We don't spend much on vacations, either. Like you, probably 5%. I too am amazed that people will spend 300-400 per night on a room. I guess it's because I've gone to Las Vegas for so many years and rarely paid for a room, and if I did, it was not even $100 a night. We too are staying at the Hojo again in October, while our friends will stay at GCH. I know it's a resort, and there are perks. However, my kids are 5 and 8, and honestly, they won't care. It will be their first trip to DL, and they will just be happy with that. I'd rather spend the money on souveners (sp?), food, and other park stuff. I'm guessing if I took a vote, my kids would vote more stuff in the park, who cares where we stay. Funny, for what my friend will spend for staying one night at the GCH, we will spend for our entire stay at the Hojo: )

 

[Peanut Giggleface]

You know I had never calculated how much we spend on vacations. I know how much we typically spend on vacation, but never based it as a percent of our income. Turns out it is 4.9%. No we don't stay at GCH either. We do have the money for it, but I refuse to waste our money in such a way. We're the kind of family that gets up when we like to and once we're out the door, we don't return until late evening. Just enough time to change, unwind and go to sleep. So it makes no financial sense for us to spend that much for a bed. Now I'm not knocking those who like to stay at the resorts, different strokes for different folks I say. But it's just not for us. I'd rather have the money to stay a few extra days or apply to the next trip.

 

[Daisybelle]

That's a hard one to answer. We don't vacation every year, at least beyond a trip to the Oregon coast for a few days. This trip to Disneyland is courtesy of a tax refund. But I worked at paying off other debt so that the refund would be free to go towards a big vacation as opposed to more bills. One day I hope to 'splurge' and stay on property but this year I am tickled pink to be staying at the CCI.

 

[MateasMom]

If we're adding up all vacations and counting weekends away.....way more than I'm willing to admit on a public message board .

I wouldn't spend $400 for GC, but that's just not a priority for me. I know some families go on one big vacation a year and if a great hotel is their splurge (or they're just rolling in the dough ) than more power to them. We usually do 2-3 bigish vacations a year and quite a few weekends away. I usually opt for a middle of the road hotel (Courtyard, etc) which can sadly be up in the $300 range in some cities (NY, DC) but usually is pretty reasonable (and Priceline helps ).

 

[ddwlms]

We spend about 20 percent of our income on vacations (counting big trips and small weekend get aways). My DH says we live below our means so that we can play above our means. (house payment w/ taxes and insurance is less then 15% of our income)

Most vacations we stay at moderate hotels (Courtyard Marriott type) but we've stayed at GCH once and are saving for a big trip in November to stay there again. --It was nice. But when we stayed there Sept 2011 we paid about $240 a night (it was 5 for 3, value season).

Leaving in 20 days for our next visit to DLR and are staying at the Desert Inn and Suites, right across the street from DL entrance. The unofficial guide to DL rated that hotel as #7 in Best Value for your Money (out of most hotels in the Anaheim area). And #s 1 - 6 were no where near as close.

 

[jenpace]

I didn't vote in your poll because our vacation money doesn't necessarily all come from our official family income. To pay for upcoming vacations, I will make money to pay for it by selling on eBay so it doesn't actually all come out of our income.

For us, staying onsite isn't at all a waste of money. Would I spend $400+ to stay at the GCH? No, I wouldn't but we enjoy staing there from time to time if/when we have a good PIN code or the AP rates are really good.

 

[skiingfast]

A really small portion maybe a couple percent and for the last few year disney trips probably get a quarter of that.

 

[Teki]

We scrip and save to go and then indulge only a little (one character meal or one fancy dinner etc) I have never understood pay ungodly amounts for hotel rooms Ive never spent a day in one i simply need a clean place to sleep and shower. we spend less then 5% also

 

[HappyHaunt]

That's an interesting question! Usually I'd say about 3%. We've had a few trips where we've stayed onsite, can't say I've ever spent $400 a night though. I usually wait until we can get good deals. But normally we stay across the street at the Tropicana, and really enjoy our stay. I'd rather have more money for nice meals and to buy stuff then just the room.

Now last year we were probably closer to 5%, we went to WDW and had plane tickets and staying onsite ect.. That was a bit more pricey, but that doesn't happen often at all (in fact that was our first time!).

 

[nunzia]

I'm in the 5-10% range. We have DVC and so do stay on property although we stayed happily across the street for years until we were spoiled by the Grand. As we got older the convenience of it and just loving the whole set up made it worth it to us.We are in the phase of our lives where we want to do as much as we can while we can, so travel is a very high priority for us alone and with kids and grandkids. We owe only on our house with a mortgage under $500 (paying much more than that for early pay off) and we save alot for retirement, so try to have a decent balance. We feel like owning DVC at staying on site works for us..we don't buy stuff any longer and we eat cheaply and get where we're going by train. DLR is our cheapest vacation and pretty well prepaid..I'm saving for a Mexico trip my DH wants to take and a cruise next year, so that's my vacation budget focus right now.

 

[dougsmom98]

I chose 5-10% of our income, but that is not for one trip. We take 2-3 trips each year. This year we took one trip to WDW and we will take 1 trip to the ocean this summer. Next year, we will be going to WDW, DL (for the first time!!!), and the ocean in the summer. All of those trips will be on a budget with our greatest expense being airfare for the two Disney trips. Because we have 6 people in our family, we have to have super budget accommodations and low food budgets as well. Luckily in WDW we rent a house and share the expense with my parents and my in laws so it only costs $350/family. I could NEVER spend $400 per night on accommodations. I would rather take more vacations per year, even just weekends away, than one mega, luxury trip. We have crazy busy schedules most of the year, so vacations are about spending time together enjoying being with each other, not about luxury.

 

[Dobie]

Oh, gosh, if you count Dobie Brat's trip to Japan this year, the Dobies are spending about 7% or so on trips...but Dobie worked overtime for her trip to Europe last summer, and we get a lot of free hotels/airline miles from credit card use--last summer Dobie and Mr. Dobie flew to Boston and spent a week at the Westin for a grand, total...so otherwise the percentage would have been much, much higher...

 

[Mama Who]

This is going to sound horrible.. but I have no idea how much I make. I'm in the military and it wouldn't be too hard to do the math but my situation changes so my little out of the norm bonuses vary. That and my wife handles my finances so if anything is out of the norm she fixes it. *giggle*

I usually spend my whole tax return on my vacations plus about a months pay.

I asked my husband the other day what his weekly paycheck was (I know. I do the money) and he responded... "Uh... enough?"

 

[pindecisive]

This year I think I actually spent more on actual vacations (not renting a hotel just for my birthday ) than I ever have before, however this will also mark the end of the first year I've gone to school full time and worked full time at the same time. So I figure it works itself out.

 

[helenb]

We spend a lot on vacations, but that is our *thing*. We don't do fancy renovations to the house or buy expensive jewelry and our cars are approaching (or older than) 10 years old and will not be replaced anytime in the near future. Other people spend money on other things, but we spend ours on vacations.

That being said, I wrote a book on cruising, and I'm always looking for updates for the next edition. So we cruise a couple of times a year and it's all part of my business. That's a big part of our vacation budget.

 

[nana50]

I said 0 to 5%, but that is because my husband never vacations. He is from France and I'm from Canada. Our vacations are usually visits home and he hasn't been "home" in 4 or 5 years. I usually take a trip up to my sisters cottage every summer, but that is only the cost of plane fare. I don't spend any money when I'm there. I go to DL about 2 or 3 times a year. I have an annual pass so sometimes it's just for the day. Usually it is a one night stay at the Sheraton, Hilton, or DLH. I only go when there are cheap rooms. Believe me I would love to spend more on holidays but when the hubby is the one who earns the money......well it just seems unfair to spend it all on vacations when he doesn't want to. I do have a small monthly pension which is what I usually use for my little jaunts to the Magic Kingdom.

 

[auntiegem]

Less than 5% -- like 2-3% -- but we're and double income family/no kids. We include one big trip per year--whether that's a vacation like Disneyland for a week, or two or three weeks at a fancy beach house--plus a couple of long weekend trips to the mountains, the beach, or wherever. We aren't big on spending a lot of $$$ for on-site hotels, and we also don't spend tons of money on souveniers. But we do enjoy ourselves by staying for more than a few days, and we definitely don't eat more than a breakfast bar or pop tart in our rooms (meaning we eat out where we want to a DLR).