People seem to think that when you are working towards being debt free, you have to live like a hermit and do nothing at all. This isn’t true. Sure, you can’t go out spending silly money on things you really don’t need but that doesn’t mean you can’t go out for dinner with friends very occasionally or shock horror, even go on holiday!
We aren’t completely debt free but we know the importance of taking some time to chill out and recharge the batteries when you really need to. The hermit life isn’t for me so I know that if I want to go somewhere or do something, I need to budget for it. The same principle stands for holidays – we try to make sure we budget appropriately in order to enjoy ourselves and get the chance to properly relax.
So how do we budget for holidays? First things first, we decide our maximum spend on everything – this includes travel, accomodation, spending money and some emergency money, just in case. Once we have decided on a maximum budget, we try to book the accommodation (usually waiting for a good deal) and then focusing on the travel, comparing prices on a site like GoEuro and booking tickets then and there. Once the important parts have been budgeted and paid for with good hard work and some waiting around to get the perfect deal, we then try to put aside our spending and emergency money, either putting a little aside from our wages or through other means such as our side hustles. I take a little inspiration for my holiday budgeting from this article from Mint.
Once we know we have budgeted appropriately, we can start to relax and look forward to the holiday ahead. How do you budget for your holidays? Do you save like mad and seek out the best deals or do you book without a moments thought towards the state of your finances?
