Do you have a rule or guide as to how much to spend on a vacation? Is it a certain percentage of your yearly take home? Is it a set number? How much is too much and how much is being a cheap ass?

Also, if you have kids, do you get them a separate room if you are staying at a resort, or does the whole family share one room with multiple beds? In the old days, you could get adjoining rooms, but with most people booking online, the option of adjoining rooms isn't always present on the website.

With the costs of everything going up right now, just trying to plan and finding it a bit difficult.

There isn't a rule that applies to everyone. It is really about what you want to do and in what time frame.

A lot of the time my family takes multiple smaller trips throughout the year. That usually works for us. If there is a special destination we want to go and it is expensive, we save what we can until we reach our goal. If we are really excited about something and/or there is an event that has a set date we would save more aggressively.

For us this year is different because we have not gotten to travel very much the last year and a half. We are going on a three-week road trip.

I would focus on the purpose of the vacation first. There is usually something that can fit a variety of budgets.

If you are just looking to get away and take a break you can do that relatively cheap. For nature get a tent and go camping. If you are close to College Station, you can even rent one from outdoor rec, you do not need to be affiliated with the university. If you like history, maybe a road trip to Savannah / Charleston. If you want to visit a foreign country, try Canada or even Puerto Rico (US Territory no passport needed). If you have kids and want to take them to Disney World, it is going to cost you no matter what. You need to save. But he prices are online for entry, food, lodging, so you can budget pretty accurately.

It can sometimes seem like Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous on the travel board. Just do what you can and do not worry about anything else.


Edit: We usually rent an AirBnB / VRBO or rent a house apartment if the stay is more than 4 days (the entire place not a room in someone's house). Costs are comparable to a hotel and having a washing machine is awesome. Plus the kids get their own room but usually stay up and sleep on the floor of the living room.

My biggest tip is to do what you can afford. Don't try to keep up with the joneses and overspend then come home to huge credit card bills. It's ok to do bigger trips down the road. We took our kids to Port A from diapers up into high school every summer with their cousins. One time we splurged and went to Gulf Shores. It was sand and waves and family time.
We have also gone on more expensive trips as we and they got older but we could always afford it. Yes that meant a 6 foot one 200 pound high school boy spent a couple nights on a roll out bed at a Maui resort then switched with his sister. We could afford that.
And when we get together with all the cousins who are late in college or working now what do they want ???? Yep one more trip with everyone to Port A.

I think it depends on "your vacation" and what you want to do. Bottom line, you should not be stressed about how you are going to pay for something when you return.

When ours were younger, it was were southwest could take us since we had points. They went to Disneyland/Disenyworld pretty much alternating years. We normally stayed off property due to the costs (I was a priceline guru)..

As they got older and fund permitted, we were able to go on larger vacations. One of things you do have to watch is "bed sizes" are not all equal and eventually we ended up having two rooms. Made life easier on us, but again a personal choice/cost.

My rule of thumb...you can make any vacay as cheap as possible and as expensive as you want. It matters what you want to do...if you are into the outdoors it can be fairly cheap. If you want fine dining every night then you have to budget for that and obviously everything in between.

One rule we used was we put together a tentative budget and added 20% to it. Then we saved at least half of that and put it on our vacation credit card thus we had a credit during the trip. After the trip was over we paid off the other half and any overages to get card to zero again. Once that was done we started thinking about next vacation. IT enticed us to pay off the card quickly if we wanted to do something sooner

But the best advice to give is research what you think your family will want to do so you have a ballpark figure already in mind and then dont skimp on the vacation if there is something that you really want to do and know you wont likely go back anytime soon...you can always pay it off later as long as you dont go way over budget

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Also, if you have kids, do you get them a separate room if you are staying at a resort, or does the whole family share one room with multiple beds?

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My kids are well versed in using separate entrances so that the hotel staff doesn't notice how many we are cramming into a room.

We have five kids, so I usually look for a VRBO with three bedrooms. On longer road trips if we stay overnight at a hotel, I try to book a suite as we can get one with two beds and a couch bed. When we share a room, it seems like no one gets a good nights sleep, but sometimes that is the only option (I am too cheap to book two rooms).

We set aside bonus money for a year of vacations. Typically ski and beach trip. We know how much skiing costs so we take remainder for beach. If we don't spend it all, roll into next year.