How many weeks pay do you spend on vacation?

[Dr. M]

We used to spend less than 2 week's take home pay...I guess i'm the stingy one. With a large family, it's less expensive to get 2 value rooms for a week, and we usually go during free dining in September.

 

[lacrosse_lady72]

For my DFiance and I, we spend more on things that are of higher priority to us. Vacations are included in this.

We don't (relatively) spend a ton at WDW, a typical vacation there for 2 weeks will cost $4,000-5,000 for the two of us. But when we go to San Francisco, Lake Tahoe, Whistler, Seattle or Denver we spend a lot for the shorter trip.

This year, of those cities we haven't gone to Whistler yet but that's only to avoid the Olympic crowd, although we were originally going to go. The rest we've been to at least once. A lot of the trouble is that I am a student and so is a resident so we have schedule a lot of our vacations on weekends which usually leads to having to spend a lot more on hotels and flights. And I work on weekends so I have to take time off for it.

A lot of our friends don't understand how or why we do this a lot but to us, the money spent on vacations (and most importantly the memories) is a lot more important than money spent on silly things like eating out all the time or going to the bar and dropping $50 on booze. Between the both of us, we spend only about $30-40 on groceries every week. I don't even have my own car anymore so I either use his or public transport. And we almost never shop for silly things. And the things we do buy are quality things we buy and make them last. We're not cheap or anything, believe me, but we also make sure we buy things we'll really use.

We also currently don't save our money but we're young and we're both headed toward careers that will pay WAY better than we could ever save at this point in our life. So why not live it up? We're without kids, and although we look forward to taking future offspring places, there's a lot more flexibility right now.

And our other big investment is in outdoor gear. Hiking, skiing, rock climbing, watercraft... we're some of the US Outdoor Store's biggest customers.

 

[PatsGirl]

Interesting I spend about 5 weeks' pay on vacation each year or almost exactly 10%. On average, we (DD and I) take two 7-day vacations and a long weekend. Yeah, for those braniacs out there, my weekly salary is pretty low

 

[blanq]

We spend about 5% of our gross income on vacations each year. Some of our vacations are relatively inexpensive and others are more expensive. Each March we visit my parents in Palm Springs and that is a cheap vacation for us. We just have airfare, some food and activity costs. We have no lodging or vehicle rental costs to contend with, so can do the whole trip for about $2K (for three of us). Our trips to WDW seem to run between $3500-$5000 per trip. We tend to travel about 3-4 weeks each year, taking 2-4 actual trips.

 

[marcyinPA]

It depends on the vacation. Our Disney trips are usually about two paychecks (four weeks) worth of pay, maybe a bit more.

This year, we are going to Wbg VA, and my dh is not going with us (no vacation time). I had already booked the hotel in December...$40 a night for four nights. Tickets will run me about $300 total. I'm figuring the trip will be under $1K (I've budgeted $800) It's going to be a cheap trip!

ETA: my dh's pay has been cut by about 20% since he came off lay-off. He makes practically nothing (as in we qualify for, but do not accept, food stamps). He does work a second job which picks up some of the slack, and I teach preschool ('nuff said about that salary! LOL) Anyway, we only go on one vacation a year. Some years it might be a big one, like Disney...and others are small, maybe staying with family. We pretty much decide what we can afford at the time and go with it.

 

[ead79]

I would say that our big Disney trip is typically around 2 weeks of our take-home pay. For other trips, it's typically much lower. I'd say that we probably wind up spending an average of 3 weeks or so of our take-home pay per year.

 

[DawnM]

It depends.

Around one weeks' salary I guess for a Disney week. If we have already purchased APs it is less.

Dawn

 

[luvmy3]

This year we are going to Mammouth Caves in Kentucky for a week. We'll probably spend less than $2,000 so it's a pretty cheap vacation.

I'm so jealous thats where I wanted to go this year. I am hoping to rent an RV and drive down next year.


We are taking a one week vacation in Lake George and probably a long weekend at the Jersey shore. Both will probably cost one of dh's paychecks (gross).

 

[perdidobay]

On average, we spend less than one weeks after tax pay for an 9 day vacation. Some of our trips are much less expensive than others - a drive down to our condo on the beach, eating dinner out 5 nights, vs a flight across country, staying in hotels and eating out most meals and doing multiple sightseeing excursions can be a difference of up to 4K.
But we do vacation alot, we avg 6 weeks a year. We usually spend 5% of our annual gross pay on vacations.

 

[Pigeon]

We don't take many vacations--most years we don't go anywhere.

A Disney vacation is about two and a half week's gross. That's because we are restricted to going school vacation weeks, when airfare is very high, and typically there are no discounts to be had. I'd pull the kids and go a different week, but dh is a teacher, so that's not an option.

We might rent a house on a lake for a week this summer and that would cost less than one week's gross.

 

[Robinrs]

I agree but sometimes things are expensive (some personal pref some not). in vegas we would rather stay somewhere like nyny or mgm rather than imperial or circus circus, would rather eat at Ah Sin instead of mcdonalds, etc...

but when in Orlando or cali, us (myself plus dw) plus 2 kids is pricy even staying on a budget. keep in mind being in colorado we have to fly to orlando...not cheap, and to cali either drive (gas and hotels) or fly, again not cheap.

True, it definitely depends.

I don't see vacations as a priority in my life so I take them when they're affordable.

I go to NY and stay with family. Orlando I have the MAJOR hook ups so I always get a deal there. My employee has a family member at Wyndham so that's another hookup. Also I can drive there and when I travel by plane I use points as much as I can.

In other words, the vacation planning comes when the discount becomes available.

 

[jsmith]

some years we dont spend anything-usually we spend about the equivilant of three weeks net on a big trip and then just gas money to go home to visit family-this year we are post deployment and we are going all out-spending about 6 weeks gross-but-thats 21 days in europe-some of it in very high end hotels-some on a cruise ship-with air fare and all that goes with it.