How much do holidays cost?

LilElvis

Yellow_mango wrote: »

I think I’m basically just struggling to get my head around spending £4-5k on a 2 week holiday full stop. I need to get over that and accept that’s what it costs, save for it, then I can relax and enjoy it a little more!

That's part of what a holiday is supposed to be about! The extra money you're spending is for the things that have no real monetary value - relaxation, fun, memories, enjoyment, trying new things, spending time with your loved ones. Worth every penny in my book!

Pollycat

LilElvis wrote: »

I don't even know how much we spend on food and drink when we're at home! I shop twice a week for evening meals and my drink - 2 x Aldi or Lidl and 2 x M&S. Husband shops twice a week for his drink, bread/ milk, his lunch stuff, cleaning supplies and anything extra I need - Asda, Tesco and M&S. That's seven different shopping bills! As our holiday is in the school holidays our food bills would be higher than normal anyway - sprog needs feeding at lunchtime rather than school dinners and additional snacks, plus I take her out for lunch a couple of times a week (big fan of my Meerkat Meals app!). First day in Spain we will head to Lidl to get bread, milk, coffee, breakfast supplies, nibbles, the sprog's weekly fruit mountain and their copy mini-Magnums. Also some bargain San Miguel, wine and Sangria. After that the food will cost whatever ..... I love my food and particularly enjoy trying new things and eating things my husband isn't keen on so I only get to have on holiday/ eating out. I'm particularly looking forward to some Venetian style liver - I think it's about €20, but it would cost that much just to buy the liver in the UK as it's a huge plateful. My mouth is watering now!

So is mine!

My point was I cook from scratch pretty much all the time at home so I might cook us a moussaka with a Greek salad (as I did last weekend with a 49p aubergine from Aldi) but to buy that in a taverna would cost a lot more than I could make it for.

And for lunch at home we might have a sandwich - today was a bacon and brie panini. The paninis were 75% off, the brie was less than £1.00 from Aldi and we've already used part of it on a cheese salad. Overall, the meal probably cost less than £1.00 between us.
For lunch in Greece, we'd be looking at upwards of 30 euros after adding in a 5 euro half litre of wine.
More if I take a fancy to the mussels.

That's what I meant by

Pollycat wrote: »

We wouldn't eat and drink the same if we were at home so I personally don't consider the costs the same.
Just my opinion.

Eating out is a big part of our holiday, wherever we go.
When we self cater, it's for the fridge only.
I don't even switch the kettle on.
Breakfast is fresh fruit - cherries, apricots, nectarines, melon.

Yellow_mango

Eating out is a big part of our holiday, wherever we go.
When we self cater, it's for the fridge only.
I don't even switch the kettle on.
Breakfast is fresh fruit - cherries, apricots, nectarines, melon.

I think this is my main problem. We like to eat out a lot. However with 5 of us, a realistic budget to eat out, even just dinner every day, would be at least €200 a day. So for 2 weeks that’s nearly €3k just on food. I can’t bring myself to spend anywhere near that, so we spend the whole time trying to economise and cut back on the amount we eat out, which basically means the kids begging to eat out and me saying no we’ll make sandwiches, and everyone whining, and still spending at least €1k.

At least with all inclusive everyone could eat as much as they wanted without so much whining. Though I guess you have the risk we don’t like what’s on offer, or get bored with the menu.

LilElvis

Pollycat wrote: »

So is mine!

My point was I cook from scratch pretty much all the time at home so I might cook us a moussaka with a Greek salad (as I did last weekend with a 49p aubergine from Aldi) but to buy that in a taverna would cost a lot more than I could make it for.

And for lunch at home we might have a sandwich - today was a bacon and brie panini. The paninis were 75% off, the brie was less than £1.00 from Aldi and we've already used part of it on a cheese salad. Overall, the meal probably cost less than £1.00 between us.
For lunch in Greece, we'd be looking at upwards of 30 euros after adding in a 5 euro half litre of wine.
More if I take a fancy to the mussels.

That's what I meant by

Eating out is a big part of our holiday, wherever we go.
When we self cater, it's for the fridge only.
I don't even switch the kettle on.
Breakfast is fresh fruit - cherries, apricots, nectarines, melon.

I've just been slathering honey on some bread that's still warm from the bread machine. I'll be bouncing off the walls later from all the sugar!

Poor husband has been coerced into footing the bill for my food demands. I traded going up in a tethered hot air balloon over Rome (hate heights - fear of falling) for beef carpaccio (starter) at Harry's bar. Bill was over €50 for my starter and campari and soda and his beer I can also be very cheap as in South Africa I always head to a place that does scrummy peri - peri chicken livers with pitta bread for £1.20 paired with wine for about the same.

If you like your aubergine then try the Sicilian dish caponata in agrodolce - sweet and sour cooked aubergine. It's got onion, tomato, pine nuts, celery, sultanas. Totally moreish and can be served warm as a vegetable or room temperature as a salad - I sometimes chuck it on some pasta. If you want the recipe let me know as the best recipe is in The Silver Spoon (1000+ pages of Italian recipes!) and isn't available online. God I want some now - going to forage in the fridge instead!

LilElvis

Yellow_mango wrote: »

I think this is my main problem. We like to eat out a lot. However with 5 of us, a realistic budget to eat out, even just dinner every day, would be at least €200 a day. So for 2 weeks that’s nearly €3k just on food. I can’t bring myself to spend anywhere near that, so we spend the whole time trying to economise and cut back on the amount we eat out, which basically means the kids begging to eat out and me saying no we’ll make sandwiches, and everyone whining, and still spending at least €1k.

At least with all inclusive everyone could eat as much as they wanted without so much whining. Though I guess you have the risk we don’t like what’s on offer, or get bored with the menu.

€40 per person per day sounds a lot for France - unless you're eating in very large towns or prime tourist areas like Nice/ Cannes. Have you tried auberges in smaller towns/ villages - they usually have daily fixed price menus, often including drinks?

z1a

Never really thought about total cost before.
This year, 4 of us - 3 ad. 1 ch.
Holiday cost £1998 - 14 nights Kos S/C.
Car parking, petrol, O/night hotel near airport about £230.
Guess about £130/day food, drink, activities - £1820.

So a total of about £4048 = c£67 pppn. Very similar to OP.

Pollycat

Yellow_mango wrote: »

I think this is my main problem. We like to eat out a lot. However with 5 of us, a realistic budget to eat out, even just dinner every day, would be at least €200 a day. So for 2 weeks that’s nearly €3k just on food. I can’t bring myself to spend anywhere near that, so we spend the whole time trying to economise and cut back on the amount we eat out, which basically means the kids begging to eat out and me saying no we’ll make sandwiches, and everyone whining, and still spending at least €1k.

At least with all inclusive everyone could eat as much as they wanted without so much whining. Though I guess you have the risk we don’t like what’s on offer, or get bored with the menu.

You'd need to choose your hotel carefully as cheap AI can be a disappointment food-wise (or so I've read) and if it's really bad, it could be a budget breaker.
And unless the hotel has lots of different dining rooms, it might not give you that 'eating out' feeling.

LilElvis wrote: »

If you like your aubergine then try the Sicilian dish caponata in agrodolce - sweet and sour cooked aubergine. It's got onion, tomato, pine nuts, celery, sultanas. Totally moreish and can be served warm as a vegetable or room temperature as a salad - I sometimes chuck it on some pasta. If you want the recipe let me know as the best recipe is in The Silver Spoon (1000+ pages of Italian recipes!) and isn't available online. God I want some now - going to forage in the fridge instead!

I love aubergine.
And would really appreciate the recipe please.
Although I'm not too keen on fruit in savoury dishes. I didn't like bobotie.

I cook papoutsakia, aubergine parmigiana, brinjal bhaji, briam, Baba ganoush...
And a lady gave me a recipe for aubergine salad (melanzana...?) but it's in Greek.

We had some fab grilled vegetables in Parga last year - aubergine, courgettes and tomatoes.

And I love liver.
Very lightly cooked so it's moist and tender.

Yellow_mango

€40 per person per day sounds a lot for France - unless you're eating in very large towns or prime tourist areas like Nice/ Cannes. Have you tried auberges in smaller towns/ villages - they usually have daily fixed price menus, often including drinks?

The places we went ended up costing €120 - €150 for dinner for 5 of us. That was 2 Indians and 2 steak places, in smallish towns. In all cases that was being careful to an extent what we ordered (whilst trying not to be too scroogy!), only having 1 drink each, 2 rather than 3 courses etc. Menus at other places we looked at were at least as expensive. Maybe we could have found cheaper places if we shopped around a little more. Perhaps that’s the best way to cut the cost.

Lunch often came to around €30 just buying sandwiches and drinks in a supermarket. So could easily top €50 in a cafe etc if we did that every day.

Plus a bit for breakfast (very happy with bread / croissants / cereal from a supermarket for breakfast). And maybe an ice cream and/or coffee, and we’re easily at €200 a day :-/

zagfles

We do a lot of driving holidays in August in Europe, off on one soon again, and typically spend around £3000 for 4 of us for 2.5-3 weeks. Tend to stay in cheap accomodation, cheap doesn't mean grotty, there is some brilliant cheap accomodation for instance university accomodation which is let out during the summer break. In Valencia for instance we paid EUR38 per night for a massive double room with cooking facilities etc (not that we cooked much). Also static caravans rather than hotels which are much better and cheaper for a larger group.

We eat out most nights, but can't imagine paying anywhere near EUR200 for 5 people for a meal:eek: Typically we'd pay EUR40-70 for 4 of us (that's 4 adults now), you can easily find decent restaurants in most of Europe, certainly France and Spain, for that sort of budget. Cheaper for lunches, having main meal at lunchtime is usually much better value.

Ganga

LilElvis wrote: »

I've just been slathering honey on some bread that's still warm from the bread machine. I'll be bouncing off the walls later from all the sugar!

Poor husband has been coerced into footing the bill for my food demands. I traded going up in a tethered hot air balloon over Rome (hate heights - fear of falling) for beef carpaccio (starter) at Harry's bar. Bill was over €50 for my starter and campari and soda and his beer I can also be very cheap as in South Africa I always head to a place that does scrummy peri - peri chicken livers with pitta bread for £1.20 paired with wine for about the same.

If you like your aubergine then try the Sicilian dish caponata in agrodolce - sweet and sour cooked aubergine. It's got onion, tomato, pine nuts, celery, sultanas. Totally moreish and can be served warm as a vegetable or room temperature as a salad - I sometimes chuck it on some pasta. If you want the recipe let me know as the best recipe is in The Silver Spoon (1000+ pages of Italian recipes!) and isn't available online. God I want some now - going to forage in the fridge instead!

How many beers did he have,if 5 or 6 then not too bad a price but i have a feeling that you are going to come back and say just 1:eek: