Family Vacations are not something to be decided in an ad hoc manner when you suddenly get some free time or kids school break are around the corner. In fact, holiday expenses are to be planned well in advance as part of your annual home budget and more expensive holidays may have to be planned years in advance (e.g. A cruise holiday, Month long European trip etc)
Tips for Family Vacation Budget
The following are some useful tips for planning your family vacations from the budgeting point of view.
- Sit together with your spouse (and parents if applicable) and finalize how often do you want to take vacations in an year and what type of breaks are they. (e.g. a week long domestic vacation with family per year, two theme park visits, two picnics etc)
- If you are planning to have an international holiday every few years, keep apart an additional amount as part of your annual budget every year, in a special account if possible
- If you plan to have luxury trips such as an expensive cruise vacation, then you need to not only plan a few years in advance for the budget part but also reserve your slots
- Since the vacation and hotel expenses are shooting up every year, you may want to take into consideration the inflation parameters
- There are several vacation companies that offer a number of years (for example one family vacation per year for next 5 years) of vacations for a fixed advance amount paid. You may want to consider such offers if you can pay that onetime lump sum
- Consider the family additions (kids) and future age group aspects while planning for long term expensive vacations
That is pretty much about the budgeting part. More on vacation planning and how to get the best vacation deals etc will be covered in other articles on this website.
Family vacations are joyful experience that nobody should ever miss. You need not go for the most expensive or exotic place every time you set out for a trip. However, an annual holiday is absolute must for every family to take break from routine life and stressful work environment that we live in today.
Have fun!