Vacation budgeting

[SheitlQueen]

Not sure of the percentage of my budget, but I take the dividends and interest I earned from the year before and use that as my vacation money. When it's gone, so is traveling.

[HI Bill]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheWizard $70k per month is an impressive amount in retirement...

I think the poster meant "annual" rather than monthly for the $70K. Otherwise, they're be ultra super fat FIRE, and the pension would likely not have a significant impact on their budget, travel or otherwise.

[SecondCor521]

I FIREd at 46, am 50 and at about 5%. Travel isn't a super high priority for me (mostly a "someplace warm" trip in winter once a year, plus some car/plane/hotel around the continental US).

My Dad FIREd at 55, is 83 and he's probably closer to 25%. He likes to travel (mostly cruises).

[Nemo2]

Quote:

Originally Posted by HNL Bill I think the poster meant "annual" rather than monthly for the $70K.

To quote Captain Renault: "I'm shocked".

[Twize]

Thanks for all the feedback. I'm going to budget for 20% minimum, and try to chip in a little extra with windfall money.

[Katsmeow]

Wow! 20%. Wow. The last 8 years we have averaged well under $1000 a year for travel. Now, in 2011, we spent 2 weeks in London with two of our kids and that was an expensive trip. Back in the day -- when we were working full time and had kids at home we probably spent close to 10% of our annual income on trips. But now that it is just us we have had other priorities. I don't like to fly so it hasn't been a high priority. We do plan to soonish (maybe this year, maybe next take a trip that may be close to 10% of income but that will be not an annual thing. It isn't that I am super frugal. Believe me, I can spend money. Just that there are things I would rather spend money on (for the last 6 months we have been doing a massive remodel project).

[Sunset]

I don't like percentages, so 20% is Wow , but not if the budget is out of $20K, then it's only $4K, but 20% out of $100K is $20K which really deserves a Wow - nice trips (either fancy, or long, or far and long).

[Twize]

I used a percentage because the more you make you can obviously vacation more, so I didnt want to compare $$ figures. Being in Alaska, it cost about $1000 and up per person just to get out of the state. A good portion of the travel will be in-state or into Canada so some years will be pretty cheap. No, I'm not going to relocate to a cheaper COLA, not up for discussion. We love it here too much. We're generally pretty frugal, but when I vacation I dont like to count pennies, so I would rather have a little extra than not enough. My estimated retired annual income should be around $65K, so 20% of that is $13K. A big chunk of that can get eaten up quickly on an international trip. My wife and I have family and friends overseas so I need to plan for that.

[Dtail]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Twize I used a percentage because the more you make you can obviously vacation more, so I didnt want to compare $$ figures. Being in Alaska, it cost about $1000 and up per person just to get out of the state. A good portion of the travel will be in-state or into Canada so some years will be pretty cheap. No, I'm not going to relocate to a cheaper COLA, not up for discussion. We love it here too much. We're generally pretty frugal, but when I vacation I dont like to count pennies, so I would rather have a little extra than not enough. My estimated retired annual income should be around $65K, so 20% of that is $13K. A big chunk of that can get eaten up quickly on an international trip. My wife and I have family and friends overseas so I need to plan for that.

Makes sense. Enjoy yourself.

[athena53]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sunset I don't like percentages, so 20% is Wow , but not if the budget is out of $20K, then it's only $4K, but 20% out of $100K is $20K which really deserves a Wow - nice trips (either fancy, or long, or far and long).

In my case, I fly Business Class on long-hauls. If I didn't have the money I'd fly Coach, but I do. I also like small-ship cruises- not luxury in the sense of chandeliers and Champagne, but remote areas and very knowledgeable guides. I'm planning on taking one to Belize and Guatemala next year and found that Belize isn't that far from the US- I'll be fine in Coach. I was in India and Nepal for 3 weeks in early 2018 and I'd say that's my limit as far as length of trip.

And my second granddaughter is now old enough that she'll accompany her 6-year old sister and me to Chicago for a couple of nights in May. I just booked our flights from Des Moines, where they live!

[Bir48die]

12%-15%

Comes to about $12k per year. Blew that last year but about this amount on average.

[ABQ2015]

20-25%

Also putting lots of miles on my "new" car to explore the western US and national parks. May have to purchase my next car sooner than expected.

[TheWizard]

I can't give you a percentage of a dollar amount for my travel expenses over the last seven years of retirement. If I had to guess, I'd say around $30k out of around $140k gross.

What I do is, I try to keep up to $10k in checking and if I'm at that level then I'm green lighted for the next good travel idea.
Right now I'm shy of that amount so I need to pause new things just a bit to let funds accumulate.
It's not a hard concept to grasp...

[Navigator]

We budget about 30% of our spending for travel, but so far have only been using 15% - 25% per year. I hope to do more traveling in the future.

[timetraveling]

35%

[NotYourAverageJones]

We love to travel, so I think the % or $ amount someone spends is only relative to both their overall savings/disposable ret. income and how much the person answering likes and plans to travel. Also, there is a big difference if you're only planning to travel in the USA versus traveling internationally. So really not sure why someone who admittedly doesn't like to travel or maybe does just 1 trip a year to roll the dice in LV, would even bother to answer the OP question.

We plan to retire in about 2 years and plan to start traveling internationally. We both love to travel, so we have saved accordingly for this expenditure and it's funded completely separate from our annual living expenses. We estimate our annual travel expenses for the first 5 years or so to be around $75k per year w/ a 10% buffer built in. That figure will probably taper off to about $50k a year after that, for the foreseeable future.

With prices for traveling (planes, cruises, hotels, rental cars, etc.) going up, not down, that amount of $ wont be difficult to spend, especially if it includes bringing along any additional family. But again, it all depends on your individual circumstance. Not everyone's budget, type of travel experience or amount of time spent on travel will be the same.

[Backpacker]

Currently 10%, but taking delivery of an RV in next week or so. That may cause some adjustments in our budget.

[sengsational]

16%, 19%, 24% of total spending in the last 3 years.

Like others here, I don't budget, but I do track. And I do go for the "deals", but we splurged last year on business class tickets to get across the pond or the percent would not have reached 24% last year.

[grasshopper]

We had 2 budget breaking trips in the last 5 years, Galapagos and Africa, so average for the past 5 years 28%.

[rrs26ja]

Ours is about 18% of our total yearly budget.