last year we took £1800 (two adults one chilld, one baby, s.c) i landed at Manchester airport after two weeks in forteventure with £1.68p and i enjoyed every minute, my outlook is i do not intend to bring a penny back of my spends when away, as long as i come home with enough to buy a pint of milk for a cup of tea when i get home i'm happy

this september 16 i'm taking £1900 to tenerife

I can honestly say that we didn't set out to spend so little, we were prepared to part with all our money plus more on the credit card if need be. But as we'd hired a car, paid for before we went away, we managed to shop at the larger supermarkets outside the resort which made a massive difference. We'd have a glass of wine (or 2) in the apartment whilst getting ready to go out, and then quite often as the children were tired because they wouldn't sleep during the day, we'd come back after our meal, put them to bed and sit and have a quiet drink on the balcony. We loved the freedom that having the car gave us and I did packed lunches to take with us to the various different beaches we visited. As my children are only young they didn't make any demands to go to places like waterparks, etc and were blissfully happy with the beach or pool. I realise as they get older though this is bound to change

We were pleased with our spends this summer. I'd budgeted on about £1500 for 2 adults sc and also took a card to pay for trips. I don't do cooking on holidays and apart from 3 mornings when we had toast/eggs/jam on the terrace we ate every meal out. In the evenings I normally had a 1 course but hubby occasionally had a 3 course (with me sharing his desert). We had a few drinks in the evening (though not once did we have what we call a "session").

When we got to our apartments we had to part with 100 euros for the sir conditioning and £12.50 for the safe and still only managed to spend just over £1200 for the fortnight. Now I'm not saying that it was a cheap holiday but not as bad as I thought.

WE go to india every year and you would be pushed to spend £300 in the 2 weeks thats all your food tips trips all your drinks and lots and lots of shopping ......bus 4p coke 5p beer 50p a meal 2 or 3 pounds soap toothpaste tooth brush all in and around 10p .barcardi breezer 40p some meals 50p even less a taxi trip 1 or 2 pounds .......colleen

Gosh Jo, that's fantastic. I'm seriously giving Goa consideration. Just read that to hubby and he said book it for next Easter. I'm going to pm you

We were surprised at how much we spent this year. We went prepared to pay over the top
prices for meals and drinks , but actually came home with out spending all our euro's or touching the english money we took as back up . Went to Rhodes for the first time and found everything reasonably priced , we were half board , but ate out every lunch time , also had evening meals if me didn't fancy what was on offer at hotel, booked boat trips to other islands , went to other resorts, and had a quite a few bevvies at night . We spent less in Rhodes than we did in Turkey and had a great time . 2 adults £750 2 weeks

I could go on for hours about the prices in goa shirley ..all the good face creams Garnier (sp) are all about 80p they are about 7 or 8 pounds in boots .....

If we were going to Spain we'd usually take around £600 with us, but come back sometimes with £100-£150!

Not big spenders abroad, a lot of sunbathing and walking, plus with me being a veggie, i don't eat out in restaurants abroad!!!

I budget £50 per head per day. So for two of us going to Turkey for a week we'll take £700. With that we'll pay for lunches and dinners (breakfast is included at the hotel), trips, drinks, tips, the cost of the taxi transfer and probably a few clothes for hubby and turkish delight for me!

However, as the Turkish exchange rate isn't great at the moment, I will also take a credit card as back up - just in case.

We did a 3 centre far east holiday this year, it was fantastic value, we did 12 nights altogether, Bangkok, Saigon and Phnom Penh.
We ate out very well , did loads of excursions, shopped till we dropped, and I mean a LOT , we bought bedding, xmas pressies , silver jewellry , paintings, bed throws, lots of ironwork etc etc and only spent £600 between 2 , the Far east is very good value as is Goa my other favourite holiday spot.

We usually budget around £100 a day for 4 of us ( 2 adults, 2 children aged 10 and 2 ). This is for self catering to Spain. Over 14 nights we will eat out every night, have 8-12 drinks each ( we go out around 8pm and come back around 2am ) might seem a lot but we don't get drunk. We will also grab a snack, pizza/burger at the end of the night. We will have breakfast/lunch out about 4 times and the rest of the time just have a sandwich in the apartment. Kids will have ice creams etc. We just take a freezer bag round the pool/beach with drinks in there which saves quite a bit on buying from pool bar/bar at beach. We always have a great time.

We have been doing DIY for years. We go away twice a year. This year for 15 nights in June/July we paid £1100 to go to Costa Blanca ( £450 flights, £570 apartment, £80 transfers ). With spending it cost around £2500 for 15 nights which I think is pretty good. We are off again in September/October for 12 nights, again Costa Blanca. We paid a total of £1000 ( £520 flights, £400 apartment, £80 transfers ) with spending ( £1200 ) that will be £2200 for 12 nights including spending. All in all we will have had 27 nights abroad ( 2 holidays ) for around £4700.

I don't worry about spending money but I will take time to ensure I get a really good deal on flights/accomodation. I book flights as early as possible and scour loads of sites to ensure I get best deal possible on accomodation. The way I look at it is that by taking the time to ensure a good deal in getting there means money saved to be used as spending money.

£4700!!!

I had two holidays (21 nights) in Spain for just under £700 last year, with probably around £800 spending on top of that

cidermonster how many of you went? There is 4 of us so I think 2 holidays ( 27 nights ) for £2100 ( without spending ) is really good. We had a lovely apartment and private transfers for that.

Ah, that's the beauty of it only being the two of us!

nicJW wrote:

Just thought I'd resurrect this thread and report back after my earlier posts and my worries about not having enough holiday spends. Well we are just back from our 2 weeks in Menorca (2 ad and 2 ch) and feel a bit embarrassed about how little we spent. We budgeted on around £1200 but somehow only managed to spend £750 between four of us self catering. Not sure how this happened as we ate out every evening, however this was only one course and one round of drinks (all we wanted to be honest) and this cost on average 40 euros. On the one occasion we decided to have deserts this bumped the price up to 60 euros. Breakfast was cereal and toast and I made lunch which usually consisted of sandwiches, fruit, and maybe cakes or crisps. We didn't feel that we scrimped on anything but didn't feel the need to overeat or drink. I'm pretty happy as what's left is a good start for saving for next year's hols :tup

I'm really glad it work out well for you, especially as Menorca is said to be so expensive. I think when you have youngish kids they are very often just happy with the pool and a beach and until mine became teens, it was quite common for us to order a large magarita pizza, garlic bread a portion of chips and for them to share it.

They have never OD'ed on ice creams and probably only had one or two a day, often having one of these as dessert of an evening.

It wasn't that we were mean, we started off by ordering them meals each and it became embarassing the amount of food that was left.

We often had a car on SC holidays, they almost pay for themselves and the freedom they give is something we really like, just shoving everying into the boot and heading of for an unknown to us beach. Lovely.

Thanks Doepsmc, your description of how your hols used to be is exactly like the one we have just had and loved. Especially the bit about the pizza!

Hi Nic

I think when they are little if they like simple things just go with it. We had a fortnight in Minorca, 2 fortnights in algarve, a fortnight on Malta, a couple of weeks in Lanzarote just going with the flow while they were under 11.

No point in going to endless water parks and attractions if they are content with the pool and the beach.

It's only the last 3 or 4 years since they have been teens that we have felt obliged to go to large AI type complexes with loads of stuff going on and even so we snuck in a SC holiday last year, with a car for the fortnight etc to break it up a bit, as I'd done two AI's on the trot and fancied a change.

It was more expensive with teenagers though, no more shared pizzas lol, the waiter would ask what they wanted and the next thing I knew a 20 Euro Entrecote Steak had been slapped on my bill.
Doe

Irishcolleen- hubby and I have been seriously thinking about Goa, after reading your posts, I think it'll be a must

me too... think goa sounds ideal at those prices!