$7k on vacation??????????????????? Oh my!
Well, I may not be the one to ask since our parents are on a vacation kick and my kids have done more vacationing in the first 4 years of their lives than my first 20. LOL.
But likewise, my parents never had the money to vacation. We drove to the mid-west every 2 or 3 years when we could afford it to visit family.
We went to Yosemite and Disneyland once when I was rather young. Then I had the opportunity to go to Hawaii when I was 17 or 18. (With school band).
Looking back I think it would have been nice if my parents had made vacation a priority. But it is not the fancy lands I miss. Just taking time out to do something different. Camping an hour away would have been FINE. However, I always felt I appreciated these experiences more because they were so rare and few in between.
However as a broke college student I had opportunities to go to NEw Orleans, Vegas, travel the east coast, etc. (where I learned I could travel on a shoestring budget) & then my parents paid for a trip to Europe. Recently my dad took me to Japan. I think I really appreciated all of these more as an adult. & how I could be bitter at my parents for waiting until they could afford it and making up for lost time? Yay for them. I have too many friends who are caring for their financially inept parents. The ones who did have $7k vacations every year though they couldn't really afford it.
Why not do a $500 vacation every year?
Of course I didn't get vacations or college money. Somehow I survived and turned out okay.
My point being my kids are entitled to neither, and I am not terribly worried about it. They will be okay with either/or, or neither.
If not for our generous parents we would (& do) enjoy day trips to Monterey, San Francisco, weekends in our cabin near Tahoe, and annual or semi-annual trips to Southern California. We want to do more camping as well, as the kids get a little older. This is the kind of stuff we can swing on $500-$1k/year. But there is plenty of money leftover to help them for college. I worry with all the vacationing they have done that they will expect more as a whole, through life.
Sometimes it is just good to set the bar low.
Also, one more thing to add. One thing my parents did was always made home a haven. We try to do the same. When you live a vacation lifestyle, you don't feel the need to get away. That is something we do. We invested more in our home because we rather spend more time in our home. In the summers I go lounge at the pool and walk around the lake and pretend like I am on vacation. Dh would be happy to never leave the house with all his toys. I understand the importance of getting out and seeing the world. But we don't really feel the need to get away so much. We try to make our life a vacation. I think that part is kind of lost when I show my childhood. We always had plenty of fun. It never cost much money. I personally think vacation as a whole is over-rated. We live our lives to enjoy a few short weeks out of every year??? That's just not our style.
Oh yeah, one more thing. Dh did travel much as a kid and he doesn't really enjoy traveling much. ??? I think he is just kind of bored with it. Which I think would be a shame if our kids ended up the same. I think he is jealous I didn't travel so much. LOL. Isn't the grass always greener?