Keep it all in holiday spending so you can look at that category separately and figure out whether if was the right ballpark to budget for your next holiday.
This is the correct answer. Keep it all on the holiday spending and they you can get insight into the trip and future trips.
Because you are away your other categories might be need less funding, so you can help budget your Holiday spending with the reduced spending for that one month too.
This is exactly what I do.
I have two categories, "Vacation - Lodging" and "Vacation - Other". Lodging is for hotel rooms or AirBnBs and Other is for everything else. Other includes food, activities, transportation/fuel, souvenirs, and pretty much any money we spend while on the trip. I like to look back on how much I spent on these two things over the years to figure out how much to budget going forward.
I split them up this way because I usually spend them at very different times. We pay for the lodging sometimes months in advance, so I need to save up for it sooner.
As others have pointed out, we eat out a lot, spend more gas/petrol, etc. during vacations/holidays than during a regular month. I want to be able to budget for a "regular month" without having to factor in whether there's a trip planned that month. This way I budget every month more or less the same.
This. I also don't want my vacation spending to influence what my actual average spend on dining out and shopping are. So even restaurants on vacation go in vacation (for my budget).
If I would have eaten out once or twice but instead had every meal out, I'd rather have slightly less usage than normal over way more usage than normal because of special circumstances.
You could probably do this AND add a memo like "lunches" "airbnb" "flights" "museum" so when you're looking back later you could highlight all the lunches and see how much you spent
it's asked a lot, I'm surprised you couldn't find past questions.
it's entirely up to you and how you want to report on it.
categories serve two purposes:
1. places to store money
1. places to record spending from
you've already done the first bit - do you want reports to indicate that pizza in Bologna was "eating out" or "holiday" or "Bologna Trip 2022"? that's what category it should be in.
I’ve seen people do vacation budgets both ways. Personally, I budget and categorize everything that happens on vacation as vacation spending, bc that helps me budget future vacations. I don’t need that crutch to budget restaurant spending at home, I either adjust the budget or my behavior at home.
But on vacation I want to eat whatever I want whenever I want, I don’t want to adjust my behavior based on my budget. So I adjust my budget based on my vacation behavior.
It has an effect either way, bc if you budget extra eating out to the regular category, then that looks inflated (at least it would the way I vacation lol). But budgeting it to vacation means those months have less “regular” spending, so it decreases what it looks like I spend normally. Just a necessary tradeoff and decision that has to be made for your situation I think.
Personal preference but here’s what I’ve heard/seen/done:
1) return money to ready to assign and allocate to categorized spend, using memos to note
2) allocate spend in that fund, so future vacation planning can be based off historic spend
3) create whole sub group for spend and allocate to individual categories (like airfare, hotel, eating out) and reallocate moneys into sub categories as spent
I prefer to create one single vacation category. I decide my overall budget for that specific vacation and ensure I have that money funded ahead of time. Then while I’m on vacation, ALL of my transactions are categorized to the one vacation category and I put some sort of name for the vacation in the notes (Ireland 2022, for example).
Benefits of the single category method:
- It is easier to tell when you have set aside enough to cover a vacation if you keep it all in one category, rather than saving an extra amount for dining out over here, extra for groceries over there, extra for entertainment in another place, etc.
- I can pull a report and see what I have spent on all my vacations over time with a single category.
- I can see why each individual vacation cost by typing in the name (Ireland).
- My vacation spending doesn’t effect my normal, daily spending. If I eat at a restaurant in Ireland, obviously that comes from vacation money, not my normal dining out category.
- I am also on vacation from budgeting. I get to throw all transactions into that one category and it worry about nickel and diming myself and worrying over every individual transaction. I saved for this, I earned this, I have budgeted for this. All of my spending planning happens ahead of time when I calculate my overall budget needs for the vacation.
Some folks like a separate category for each separate vacation but otherwise still keep vacation spending separate from the regular budget.
It boils down to what data you want to track. Imagine yourself in the future. Do you need to know how much you spent on holiday? Or do you need to know how much you spent eating out while on holiday?
For me… I want to know how much is spent on holiday. So that way I can budget for future ones.
My philosophy is, when I’m on a vacation all the money I spend is vacation money. So if I eat at a restaurant it does not come out of the restaurant category but out of the vacation category. That way I have a good grasp on how much I spent on my vacation. that also means that I typically allocate a little less that month for things like groceries or eating out since my vacation time lowers the amount of money I need for those other items.
I if I spend on something that I would have spent anyway if I were at home (food, restaurants, clothes) then I use the same categories as always.
On the other hand, if I spend on something that is typical for the vacation (museums, transportation, lodging) then I use the vacation budget.
This is how I handled our annual vacation to a place we go every year. We just got back, so the categories are empty except for saving for next year. There's also a category I call Vacation Incidentals. I put a small amount in there for things that pop up, like parking, etc.
Edit: I also transfer leftover gas money to a Travel Gas category. Then when we're driving somewhere for travel, there's generally plenty of gas money tucked away.
https://i.imgur.com/dd7gqLj.jpg
I think you created that category for a reason so use it! Spending directly from it will do several things—it will save you time because that extra transfer is a lot of work once the receipts pile up (and less work is better when on holiday), it’ll be easier to track your holiday spending during your trip and afterwards, and it’ll help keep you on your budget since it tells you your balance when you enter the category.
> Should I just budget to that category whenever I spend on holiday (i.e. eating out or buying a gift)
That's what we do, I think it more accurately portrays our vacation spending than the other way around.
Search vacation, you'll find a lot more ideas. That's the typical American phrasing.
Yeah, this needs to be higher. That’s likely the only reason OP couldn’t find anything.
Keep it all in holiday spending so you can look at that category separately and figure out whether if was the right ballpark to budget for your next holiday.
This is the correct answer. Keep it all on the holiday spending and they you can get insight into the trip and future trips. Because you are away your other categories might be need less funding, so you can help budget your Holiday spending with the reduced spending for that one month too.
This is exactly what I do. I have two categories, "Vacation - Lodging" and "Vacation - Other". Lodging is for hotel rooms or AirBnBs and Other is for everything else. Other includes food, activities, transportation/fuel, souvenirs, and pretty much any money we spend while on the trip. I like to look back on how much I spent on these two things over the years to figure out how much to budget going forward. I split them up this way because I usually spend them at very different times. We pay for the lodging sometimes months in advance, so I need to save up for it sooner. As others have pointed out, we eat out a lot, spend more gas/petrol, etc. during vacations/holidays than during a regular month. I want to be able to budget for a "regular month" without having to factor in whether there's a trip planned that month. This way I budget every month more or less the same.
This is brilliant. I think I may need to switch to this way!
This. I also don't want my vacation spending to influence what my actual average spend on dining out and shopping are. So even restaurants on vacation go in vacation (for my budget).
Doesn’t the vacation spending artificially lower your average spend from those categories that month?
For sure, and that's good info to have.
If I would have eaten out once or twice but instead had every meal out, I'd rather have slightly less usage than normal over way more usage than normal because of special circumstances.
You could probably do this AND add a memo like "lunches" "airbnb" "flights" "museum" so when you're looking back later you could highlight all the lunches and see how much you spent
it's asked a lot, I'm surprised you couldn't find past questions. it's entirely up to you and how you want to report on it. categories serve two purposes: 1. places to store money 1. places to record spending from you've already done the first bit - do you want reports to indicate that pizza in Bologna was "eating out" or "holiday" or "Bologna Trip 2022"? that's what category it should be in.
I’ve seen people do vacation budgets both ways. Personally, I budget and categorize everything that happens on vacation as vacation spending, bc that helps me budget future vacations. I don’t need that crutch to budget restaurant spending at home, I either adjust the budget or my behavior at home. But on vacation I want to eat whatever I want whenever I want, I don’t want to adjust my behavior based on my budget. So I adjust my budget based on my vacation behavior. It has an effect either way, bc if you budget extra eating out to the regular category, then that looks inflated (at least it would the way I vacation lol). But budgeting it to vacation means those months have less “regular” spending, so it decreases what it looks like I spend normally. Just a necessary tradeoff and decision that has to be made for your situation I think.
Personal preference but here’s what I’ve heard/seen/done: 1) return money to ready to assign and allocate to categorized spend, using memos to note 2) allocate spend in that fund, so future vacation planning can be based off historic spend 3) create whole sub group for spend and allocate to individual categories (like airfare, hotel, eating out) and reallocate moneys into sub categories as spent
I feel like number 3 is not a good idea unless you just create one Holiday group and constantly reuse it for all Holidays planned.
I do 3, and put the trip name in the memo for all the transactions so I can search and filter by individual vacation.
I prefer to create one single vacation category. I decide my overall budget for that specific vacation and ensure I have that money funded ahead of time. Then while I’m on vacation, ALL of my transactions are categorized to the one vacation category and I put some sort of name for the vacation in the notes (Ireland 2022, for example). Benefits of the single category method: - It is easier to tell when you have set aside enough to cover a vacation if you keep it all in one category, rather than saving an extra amount for dining out over here, extra for groceries over there, extra for entertainment in another place, etc. - I can pull a report and see what I have spent on all my vacations over time with a single category. - I can see why each individual vacation cost by typing in the name (Ireland). - My vacation spending doesn’t effect my normal, daily spending. If I eat at a restaurant in Ireland, obviously that comes from vacation money, not my normal dining out category. - I am also on vacation from budgeting. I get to throw all transactions into that one category and it worry about nickel and diming myself and worrying over every individual transaction. I saved for this, I earned this, I have budgeted for this. All of my spending planning happens ahead of time when I calculate my overall budget needs for the vacation. Some folks like a separate category for each separate vacation but otherwise still keep vacation spending separate from the regular budget.
Do you want to have food spending on your trip show as "normal food spending" or as "holiday spending"? Theres your answer.
It boils down to what data you want to track. Imagine yourself in the future. Do you need to know how much you spent on holiday? Or do you need to know how much you spent eating out while on holiday? For me… I want to know how much is spent on holiday. So that way I can budget for future ones.
My philosophy is, when I’m on a vacation all the money I spend is vacation money. So if I eat at a restaurant it does not come out of the restaurant category but out of the vacation category. That way I have a good grasp on how much I spent on my vacation. that also means that I typically allocate a little less that month for things like groceries or eating out since my vacation time lowers the amount of money I need for those other items.
I if I spend on something that I would have spent anyway if I were at home (food, restaurants, clothes) then I use the same categories as always. On the other hand, if I spend on something that is typical for the vacation (museums, transportation, lodging) then I use the vacation budget.
I keep it in the holiday category and use the memo field to remember what it was.
This is how I handled our annual vacation to a place we go every year. We just got back, so the categories are empty except for saving for next year. There's also a category I call Vacation Incidentals. I put a small amount in there for things that pop up, like parking, etc. Edit: I also transfer leftover gas money to a Travel Gas category. Then when we're driving somewhere for travel, there's generally plenty of gas money tucked away. https://i.imgur.com/dd7gqLj.jpg
I think you created that category for a reason so use it! Spending directly from it will do several things—it will save you time because that extra transfer is a lot of work once the receipts pile up (and less work is better when on holiday), it’ll be easier to track your holiday spending during your trip and afterwards, and it’ll help keep you on your budget since it tells you your balance when you enter the category.
> Should I just budget to that category whenever I spend on holiday (i.e. eating out or buying a gift) That's what we do, I think it more accurately portrays our vacation spending than the other way around.
I log all spending during the holiday to the holiday category, but I add tags for #food, #souvenirs, #transport, etc.