Letting Loose On Vacation Spending?

Since Mr. PiN and I married, I have put away money every year for travel. It’s been the same amount every year–no increase for inflation–and I think we have only met or exceeded that number twice.

The percentage of our annual travel account that was spent each year for the past decade (reimbursed work trips were subtracted). I am not sure why 2023 is listed between 2018 and 2019. 2022 is the only year we exceeded our saved amount; this is due to my last minute trip and 2 week hotel stay for what turned out to be my dad’s final illness. The next closest year was 2016; that year, we accidentally went to Key West during Mardi Gras and also went to Europe twice, so I think we got our money’s worth.

This fall we spent much more than I think we ever have on one trip, mostly because we went somewhere expensive (London), at the last minute (always more expensive), and knocked a bunch of tourist sights (or sites?) off a mental bucket list. I relearned that we have, for the most part, cheaper interests, but it was in some ways a good experience to have.

We are now facing another set of last minute vacation plans. Okay, maybe not last minute, but we are certainly not going to be finding great deals on flights and lodging. Hopefully that will be most of our costs, as we I am looking forward to a week at a warm beach with access to tennis courts and walking trails.

Clearly, the rentals I was looking at would be a significant fraction of our annual travel budget. Especially as I also see several trips between now and July (a meeting, a wedding, a trip or 2 to see my mom, possibly college reunions). That’s not even thinking about a fall vacation.

The options for our winter vacation include saving money by finding less attractive rentals, looking harder for cheaper locations (though given all the hurricanes that made landfall this year, we might really regret that), or increasing our budget after 14 years.

Happily, Mr. PiN is OK with increasing our vacation budget. Now all we need to do is figure out by how much.

Japanese print of a cat on a windowsill, looking out at a landscape with a mountain in the background.
This cat may be OK with staying home, but I am not.

Readers: have you increased your travel spending in the past few years? What do you feel comfortable spending as a percentage of your income?

5 thoughts on “Letting Loose On Vacation Spending?”

  1. Travel has definitely been more expensive since COVID. We don’t budget for travel as a percentage of income. We instead budget a flat dollar amount based on previous years’ spending. It hasn’t really changed much over the years. In fact, now that our daughters are grown up, we spend less than we used to.

    1. Ah. We’ve been budgeting the same amount for years, but I struggle with how much more to allot, now that travel is more expensive and we want to do more of it. Budgeting 50% of my income to travel, for example, sounds ludicrous, but I struggle with how much seems reasonable (10% of my income? 15%? an extra $2000 a year more than what we have done before?)

      1. It’s an interesting question. In our retirement budget, which is based on our spending when we were still working, the amount allocated to travel is 15% of our total expenses. That’s more than we’ve spent in recent years, but about the same as we were spending when travelling as a family of four.

    1. Thank you for stopping by. I agree, that I should enjoy the money I work for. I just struggle with which I will enjoy more: travel now, or being closer to retiring “soon.”

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