Holidays are important to me. There’s nothing I like more than that feeling of landing in a new country and anticipating a week of good food, beautiful views, and total relaxation. Spare no expense, I say – holidays are about indulging oneself and buying beautiful things.
I thought that moving to London would be good for my holiday spending – I could take more long weekend trips to Europe, and save on flight and hotel costs. Spain, Italy, Greek islands – here I come! Unfortunately, of course, it hasn’t been quite as easy on my bank balance as I had planned.
I’ve never had a real budget for holidays. In Dubai, I’d just charge flights and hotels to my credit card, and then wonder why I ended the year upwards of $10,000 in debt. Last year, I put £5,000 into a separate account at the beginning of every year and use that money to pay for “big ticket items.” That worked a little better. But I still didn’t have much awareness as to how much my holidays were actually costing me.
This year, I made a spreadsheet. How much do you think the average “4 day weekend” trip costs me? £1,400 (!!) It seems the majority of those costs are flight/hotel/car rental costs. I won’t write much more about this other than to say, if you take a lot of holidays and are trying to also gain better control over your finances, you might want to take a minute to break down how much you’re spending, per holiday, so you can budget better and make wiser decisions. I’ve put together a spreadsheet that maps out my budgeted amounts for the year, so that I can decide whether or not I can afford to go on additional trips, rather than getting hit with some nasty credit card debt at the end of the year. Seems simple, but it’s been life changing.
The other benefit of making a spreadsheet is that I’m able to see how much “spending” money I have left over in my budget for each holiday, after the actual booking costs (flight, hotel, car, transfers, excursions). I’ve started to transfer this excess spending money into a separate debit account that I only use on holiday, with the hope that it will force me to control my spending more. (Actually, I’ve just read about this new thing called Revolut which gives you a card that can “hold” multiple currencies, so you don’t pay exchange/transfer fees. I’m going to check it out this weekend.)
I’m hoping that, by being more conscious of my holiday spending, I’ll be able to make smarter decisions without having to cut back too much on these precious moments. I’d love to hear anything else that works for you!
Austerity Kate 