vacation budget

[LivingAlmostLarge]

When you guys create a vacation budget do you include the cost of food, groceries, gas, etc? Or do you guys count what you would have spent at home? I count whatever i spend. But I noticed on a different board that some people have very low vacation budgets because they use the delta between what they would have spent anyway. That's an interesting perspective. Does anyone else do that?

I mean did anyone ever read about a family of like 13 traveling to DC from Sacramento for like 2 weeks for like $5k? It was mostly free flights and paying for airbnb. It was crazy good how they did it. They had an airbnb. They use the southwest and companion fares. But they used southwest because they could each bring two suitcases and the family brought all their food with them to DC. The mom precooked, vaccum sealed meals like steaks, lasagna, like they were eating at home. They didn't shop for food because they brought it since she could buy it cheaper than trying to pay full freight for the grocery store. Because groceries for that many people would have been EXPENSIVE without sales and deals (legitimate question). She pointed out that way she could control the bread, meats, etc. They packed everything in suitcases including peanut butter, fruits, veggies, etc. I was very cool. Apparently their only flying trip. Typically they road trip and when they do they pack all their food to control costs because it's really expensive to grocery shop without deals and knowing stores. Excellent point because while it is cheaper than eating out, it's substantially more expensive to grocery shop where you were. She also did order some stuff but only if she could figure out a good deal from like walmart. I was impressed.

But I also felt that their way or traveling is pretty real if you are packing food in a suitcase and checking it in.

[Jluke]

I focus on costs for where we are staying and try to keep that in budget.

if I had to fly then that gets factored in too.

otherwise I know my expenses (food, gas, tolls, etc) are going to be higher but I don’t stress about that since I’m on vacation.

[Like2Plan]

"The mom precooked, vaccum sealed meals like steaks, lasagna, like they were eating at home."

This is the only thing that would give me pause.

https://ask.usda.gov/s/article/Can-I-keep-meat-in-vacuum-packages-at-room-temperature

Maybe she froze it first before they checked the baggage? But, that's going to be a long flight (or flights) from Sacramento to the DC area. (Maybe they did a non stop out of OAK to BWI, but that about 5 hours enrte plus figure you have to check it some amount of time before the flight/wait for baggage claim. Also time to the airport and then to the airbnb. Hmmm.)

I wonder what they did for ground transportation?

[MonkeyMama]

When you guys create a vacation budget do you include the cost of food, groceries, gas, etc? Or do you guys count what you would have spent at home? I count whatever i spend. But I noticed on a different board that some people have very low vacation budgets because they use the delta between what they would have spent anyway. That's an interesting perspective. Does anyone else do that?

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Yes. With two teen boys our grocery spending is substantial. But on the flip side of the coin, we generally don't eat out. So eating out costs are always shocking (on vacation). With a family and a more frugal budget, it makes sense.

Plus, we pay ourselves first. Why pull more money out of savings for a vacation if the money is already sitting in the checking account? Probably also just a function of the way we budget.

I've only thought this in relation to kids. We just don't eat enough at home (adults) to make a dent. What do I eat, $30 per week? I am on vacation right now and the thought hadn't crossed my mind that we'd save enough on groceries to help pay for the trip. My kids are home eating a bajillion dollars of food.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Mine too! I just rally what I spend because it's four adult meals now. Now I go out on a date with DH and were like huh why is the bill so cheap? Answer we aren't paying for another couple who eat more than we do.

[Drake3287]

I simply save/budget for airfare, hotel and car rentals. To me, everything else is almost counted as a normal day to day expensive, just a higher amount.

[disneysteve]

When you guys create a vacation budget do you include the cost of food, groceries, gas, etc? Or do you guys count what you would have spent at home? I count whatever i spend. But I noticed on a different board that some people have very low vacation budgets because they use the delta between what they would have spent anyway. That's an interesting perspective. Does anyone else do that?

That's a great question.

We don't track our day to day expenses on that level. I can't tell you how much we spent on groceries this year. I can tell you our average monthly credit card bill but that includes hundreds of purchases for a wide variety of things including groceries.

If you ask me how much a trip we took cost, I'd likely give you the total spent including everything involved - travel, accommodations, food, activities, tips, etc.

That said, I will sometimes think to myself, "Gee, that really wasn't so bad because had we stayed home we would have spent XYZ anyway" but I still consider the trip cost what it cost. I don't discount that by what would have been spent regardless.

One other thing I have often taken notice of is how much lower our utility bills are when we are away traveling for 1 or 2 weeks out of the month so I guess that offsets the vacation cost, too.

[Fishindude77]

When you guys create a vacation budget do you include the cost of food, groceries, gas, etc?

Yes
Packing my food in a suitcase when flying somewhere doesn't sound like much of a vacation.

[scfr]

I believe there is value in doing a deep dive on what things actually cost. In the example LAL mentions, vacation budget, there are a multidue of factors that go in to what a vacation costs. Some factors have already been mentioned such as food & utility costs when on vacation vs. when at home. Other possibly-less-than-obvious costs include if driving by car, do you include vehicle wear & tear in addition to gas/tolls/parking? If you have a credit card or savings account that earns miles, what is the opportunity cost compared to using a basic cash-back credit card or interest-earning savings account? If you have paid vacation time from your employer, you might actually be getting paid while on holiday (not everyone is, including the retired); do you deduct those earnings from your vacation cost? Etc, etc.

Personally I believe such a deep dive is useful for folks who are either just starting out their financial journey, are trying to be more conscious about their spending, have very limited means and have to be super careful, or perhaps are trying to educate children or a spouse who are less aware of financial matters.

When DH & I were starting out together, I did as much deep diving on all aspects of our spending & budget as I could think to do. It was really eye-opening and so helpful. So I really recommend it for lots of folks.

Having said that, we've reached a point in life where careful & thoughtful spending habits are bone-deep, and we have graduated from scrambling to survive financially to comfortable to having more than we need, so personally it's no longer worthwhile for me to spend the time doing such a detailed analysis.

[riverwed070707]

Can you imagine if you spent all that time and money and they lost your luggage?!

Eating local is part of why I travel so nothing about this family's plan appeals to me. I also don't really budget our vacations down to the dollar or even category anymore but I'm frugal by nature so I do some things to offset food costs while traveling. Examples:

We pack a snack bag for travel days with granola bars, beef jerky, a couple sandwiches, etc to avoid high gas station and/or airport food costs.
If staying in a hotel, I look for Marriotts with an executive lounge - free hot breakfast, free coffee and soft drinks, all day snacks and sometimes appetizers in the evening. You can book a room on the exec level to pay for this access, but I get it for free due to my status.
If staying in an airbnb, we'll do a little shopping for breakfast items and snacks. Depending on size of group and length of stay, we may cook at home a night or two.
When traveling for fun, we try to stay and eat where the locals live and eat. Example, I'm not eating in Times Square in NYC because 1) its not as good and 2) its super overpriced. A corner deli or ramen shop in the east village is more my pace.

[kork13]

I simply save/budget for airfare, hotel and car rentals. To me, everything else is almost counted as a normal day to day expensive, just a higher amount.

This is basically our approach as well. We plan for the big ticket costs (travel, car, lodging, etc), and everything else is basically incidentals. Depending on the trip, event tickets (shows, theme parks, etc) might be budgeted out as well. Otherwise, we mostly just pick up the costs as the normal flow of life. We'll spend more on restaurants, and other little things. But that's fairly low impact.

And when I say we "budget" for certain travel items, it's actually kinda the opposite. We keep a "travel" bucket in our savings account (Ally Bank is helpful with this), then we spend whatever we're gonna spend, and as the bills for those big items come in, I pull the money for them out of the travel bucket. Yeah I know, it's not actually budgeting at all. But when that bucket gets low, we do at least either reduce our traveling, or find ways to shuffle more money over to it.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

I like to eat with locals, alway do. Just was amazed reading about that family that literally brought all their food for their trip to DC. I read the headline and laughed and said how the heck did they do it. I figured all free flights with tons of points. Nope. It was some paid, some free, but they instead didn't eat out really.

I have a travel budget it's called what I have in my head I'm going to spend for the year.

[jenn_jenn]

That's a great question.

We don't track our day to day expenses on that level. I can't tell you how much we spent on groceries this year. I can tell you our average monthly credit card bill but that includes hundreds of purchases for a wide variety of things including groceries.

If you ask me how much a trip we took cost, I'd likely give you the total spent including everything involved - travel, accommodations, food, activities, tips, etc.

That said, I will sometimes think to myself, "Gee, that really wasn't so bad because had we stayed home we would have spent XYZ anyway" but I still consider the trip cost what it cost. I don't discount that by what would have been spent regardless.

This is us too.