Admin Please Close Thread.

[BeautyBeastAndNemo]

Family of 5 here, living in the Midwest, making a little more than the top of your income range. We vacation yearly, sometimes twice a year, but are only able to do so due to our specific circumstances:

1. We have ZERO debt outside of a mortgage. We bought our cars and our house back when we were two higher-income earners (I now work less hours to be home more with the kids.) We saved a ton of money before we had kids, put a large down payment down on our home so that our mortgage payment is tiny, and bought brand new cars either outright, or paid them off quickly. We did all this when our income was higher, and it’s helped us survive and still be able to vacation now, as our daily living expenses are very manageable. We are also able to still save for retirement and college, and still have a hefty savings account for home repairs and emergencies.
2. A family member died and left me a considerable amount of money about five years ago. This went into savings and is used as-needed, but I also bought DVC with it. The family member who died loved Disney, and would have been glad I spent some of it this way. Our contract is small and the yearly dues are manageable. If we didn’t have DVC, we wouldn’t be able to vacation as frequently or as nicely.
3. We both have wealthy parents who are NOT middle class like us. They are generous with their money in many ways.

I think being honest about how people are able to afford things is helpful, and it’s something I’m always curious about, too. We would not be able to have such a nice life with our income if it weren’t for the three things I shared here, and I feel incredibly grateful for what I have in life.

I am sorry for the loss of your family member. Yes, you are very lucky with your circumstances. Thanks for responding!

 

[BeautyBeastAndNemo]

Our family is making under 100k. I don’t exactly have child typical expenses beyond a Y membership for the family, and co pays for my special needs son. My son is 16 and lives at home, my DD is 21 and normally at college but recently finished up the DCP and is home (while working) for the summer.

We have a very reasonable house payment (half of what renting would be), and a car payment. I recently paid of majority of credit card debt except one card that is interest free for 18 months (and will be paid off before that). We have some emergency savings but honestly probably not a full 6 months of expenses.

And yes we vacation. Vacationing is a priority here. My kids are growing up fast, making memories is important. I’m dealing with some health issues which is putting life even more into perspective.

We eat at home 98% of the time. We don’t go to movies. We do spend a lot of time doing family nights at home.

But you can still find amazing vacations for semi reasonable if you know where to look. My 16 year old and I are booked on the Disney fantasy eight night in September for an inside guaranteed room with restrictions. Cost of sailing $2800. We will drive there from North Carolina. We got a good hotel rate. We will do a single excursion- parking and tips are going to be the biggest chunk besides the cruise itself. Still we should be able to keep it under $3600.

That is totally worth it for and 8 night cruise and making memories.

I will send healing thoughts your way. I agree that memories are important. That seems like a great deal for a Disney cruise for 4 people for 8 days!

 

[BeautyBeastAndNemo]

This is a good question, but it's hard to put a dollar amount on "middle class" when cost of living and the corresponding salary ranges varies so much by where you live. The term "middle class" can mean so many different things. My family lives in an expensive state, where a combined income of $100,000 would actually be considered "lower" class, especially if you're talking about a household with children as opposed to a child-free couple.

That said, "affording vacations" can also mean a variety of different things, assuming you didn't only mean Disney. Many middle class families probably can't afford a full-out Disney vacation once a year, but maybe they can afford to go all out every OTHER yea, or once every three years. Or maybe they can afford to stay at the campground for 5 days but not at the Grand Floridian for a week. Or maybe they're not going to Disney at all, and are doing weekend trips to more local areas, or renting a beach house somewhere for a week, and splitting the cost with friends or extended family. It seems to me that whatever income bracket you're in, you can find a way to make SOME kind of a vacation work, if it's something you prioritize and find value in.

My husband grew up in a house where money was extremely scarce, and they still found a way to vacation. Their vacations were driveable, and included camping or were only for a few days at a time. My family growing up was solidly middle class, and did weeklong vacations (Disney or otherwise) when the funds were available which amounted to every about every other year. Now, my husband and I as a unit with our kids, spent many years somewhere between middle and lower middle class, and we still found a way to vacation at that time. It never felt like we just "couldn't afford" to travel, we just had to wait and save until we could afford to travel the way we wanted to. However, we did make lifestyle decisions and certain sacrifices to make to make it happen.

If only there wasn't picky children who hate things like camping. Ha! I like how you stated it, "It never felt like we just "couldn't afford" to travel, we just had to wait and save until we could afford to travel the way we wanted to."

 

[tvguy]

Great topic. The problem you may have is there doesn't seem to be a lot of middle class left on this forum.

Well, as I have learned, on this forum, "middle class" is defined differently here. A household with two incomes of $150,000 a year EACH is middle class for some here.
Other thing I have learned here during the 20+ years I have been on the cruise line forum is that many people will max out every credit card they have to take a vacation.
For us, we are retired and living entirely off savings until we reach full social security retirement age (within the next 12 months) so we knew when we laid out this retirement plan more than a decade ago, d that big trips weren't going to happen. The pandemic just made it easier not to travel. So we are doing a road trip by car to the Grand Canyon, Sedona, Roswell New Mexico and into Texas with a budget of about $3,000 for everything. Having a hybrid that can get up to 56 mpg, (more likely we'll average 50mpg) and getting out of California into states with much more reasonable gasoline prices will help. The cheapest gas station here right now are $4.15 a gallon. Gas buddy shows gas at $3.59 a gallon in Sedona and $2.95 a gallon in Big Spring Texas. I'll save $12 on a tank of gas in Texas!

 

[pigletto]

No, not this year. We make over the threshold but we are helping one child with university costs and helping one with a wedding this summer. It’s a really expensive year and it’s taking all discretionary income. We are grateful that we can help out with these costs for our kids. There was a time when we just wouldn‘t have been able to.

Hopefully we can do something in late 2024. Even then, we would be using points to cover flights, booking somewhere with discounts… we don’t have 10k for vacation.

 

[hopemax]

"Can you still afford?..." When did annual vacations become a middle class thing, in the first place?

Growing up, only child, definitely middle class, we went to Disneyland in 1980 (part of a work trip for my Dad), 1985 (a real, actual vacation), 1987 (part of a work trip for my Dad). Other than that, every 5 years we would drive from WA, where we lived to the Midwest where all our extended family lived. My parents would try to drive straight through. as much as possible so they didn't have to get a hotel room. It was only when I was high school age, did we even do things like meet up with my Aunt's family on the Oregon Coast (we were in WA, they were in ID) for a 4-day weekend. Even though it felt like we traveled a lot, it was because my parents were piggybacking on a work trip for my Dad, or it was family, so we didn't have a lot of lodging or food costs.

 

[jo-jo]

We live very frugally (no drinking, smoking, share 1 car that’s 10 years old, eat out only once per month). Any “extra” money we get goes into the vacation account (bonus, tax returns, etc). I also use points programs to our advantage and use them for flights, hotels, etc. too. We don’t have extravagant birthdays and Christmas, we prioritize experiences instead. It can be done, just takes careful planning…

At the start of this the thread, I was thinking, it’s not always what you make, but what you spent It on. Granted, someone making 45 grand a year, can pinch all day long and not afford Disney.

 

[DCLMP]

There are cash paying people that make less than $100k.

No one said there wasn't.

 

[DCLMP]

Well, as I have learned, on this forum, "middle class" is defined differently here. A household with two incomes of $150,000 a year EACH is middle class for some here.
Other thing I have learned here during the 20+ years I have been on the cruise line forum is that many people will max out every credit card they have to take a vacation.
For us, we are retired and living entirely off savings until we reach full social security retirement age (within the next 12 months) so we knew when we laid out this retirement plan more than a decade ago, d that big trips weren't going to happen. The pandemic just made it easier not to travel. So we are doing a road trip by car to the Grand Canyon, Sedona, Roswell New Mexico and into Texas with a budget of about $3,000 for everything. Having a hybrid that can get up to 56 mpg, (more likely we'll average 50mpg) and getting out of California into states with much more reasonable gasoline prices will help. The cheapest gas station here right now are $4.15 a gallon. Gas buddy shows gas at $3.59 a gallon in Sedona and $2.95 a gallon in Big Spring Texas. I'll save $12 on a tank of gas in Texas!

Yes, but OP was looking for a specific income threshold. 300,000 a year would not be considered middle class by anyone's definition. That would put you in about the top 6%.

I know California is expensive, but if anyone making that much can't afford a vacation they are doing something seriously wrong

 

[DLgal]

Family of 5 here, living in the Midwest, making a little more than the top of your income range. We vacation yearly, sometimes twice a year, but are only able to do so due to our specific circumstances:

1. We have ZERO debt outside of a mortgage. We bought our cars and our house back when we were two higher-income earners (I now work less hours to be home more with the kids.) We saved a ton of money before we had kids, put a large down payment down on our home so that our mortgage payment is tiny, and bought brand new cars either outright, or paid them off quickly. We did all this when our income was higher, and it’s helped us survive and still be able to vacation now, as our daily living expenses are very manageable. We are also able to still save for retirement and college, and still have a hefty savings account for home repairs and emergencies.
2. A family member died and left me a considerable amount of money about five years ago. This went into savings and is used as-needed, but I also bought DVC with it. The family member who died loved Disney, and would have been glad I spent some of it this way. Our contract is small and the yearly dues are manageable. If we didn’t have DVC, we wouldn’t be able to vacation as frequently or as nicely.
3. We both have wealthy parents who are NOT middle class like us. They are generous with their money in many ways.

I think being honest about how people are able to afford things is helpful, and it’s something I’m always curious about, too. We would not be able to have such a nice life with our income if it weren’t for the three things I shared here, and I feel incredibly grateful for what I have in life.

I appreciate the transparency. A LOT of people have situations like yours that they conveniently leave out when they talk about how much they can do with the income they have, seemingly implying those with similar incomes are making bad decisions if they cant afford this or that. It's about ALL sources of money, not just income.

It's like all those articles that start with a headline like "25 year old paid CASH for a house on an income of $35,000 per year. See how they did it." And then, turns out they lived at home for free for a few years AND PREVIOUSLY had a job paying $150,000 per year AND didn't have college loans, AND had a hefty inheritance, which allows them to NOW have a "passion job" that pays so little.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

For those that make $100k or less per year combined AND have the following:
*Mortgage or rent payment (If you don't have a mortgage/rent payment...well then you are lucky and probably not in the norm here for this scenario of middle class)
*Kids and their expenses
*At least 1 car payment
(plus the normal groceries/utilities/insurance/etc)

Unfortunately you'll still not get the answer you're looking for. One person's 100K is not the same as another.

Different places have different costs of living, different places that 100K even with all the other stuff you listed goes farther than another place. Groceries costs different depending on where you live (you should have been here for the egg cost discussion at the beginning of the year). Car payments cost different most especially in the last several years as we've seen the used car market be what it is and the new car market sell for more than MSRP as a more normal thing.

As far as mortgages and rents well for one we refinanced into 3 1/8% back in May 2020, totally different situation for someone who just bought a house after the Feds sharply increased the rate.

As for the costs yes but a lot of that recently is being driven by pent up demand with the pandemic. If you went cruising for instance in 2021 and early to mid 2022 you probably got a stellar deal. We have a cruise for this July but at that time they were doing an automatic 2 category room upgrade plus we got a bit more off with a TA and OBC. The company has been doing sales periodically since then (they are doing one now presently) BUT the cruise is sold out and even when it wasn't sold out nothing has beaten the price we got when we booked it in September 2022. Cruise pricing has gone up this year.

So truthfully a lot of this conversation on the DIS was happening a lot in the years leading up to the pandemic and those were a better gauge of the affordability of things. Right now you're having a large disruption still to the travel industry compounded by inflation (although that is ebbing in a lot of areas) compounded by a wonky car market (both used and new) compounded by a housing situation that is made extremely worse by the pandemic. It's not really reflective if your question is "can the middle class afford it"

 

[georgina]

Grew up middle class, 6 kids, stay at home mom. The only vacations we ever took were weeklong (tent) camping trips within about a 2 hour drive of home. None of my friends had big vacation trips either. We enjoyed camping, hiking, swimming, campfires. I don't think it was much of a vacation for my mom though, who still did the majority of the cooking on a 2 burner camp stove.

When our kids were little our summer vacations were driving 12 hours to visit grandma & grandpa at their lakeside cottage. We eventually got a pop-up camper and drove it to Maine, Yellowstone, South Carolina, and Ft Wilderness. We did fly to Disney a few times in there.

I have family for whom a vacation is renting a cottage on a nearby lake for a week. A vacation that is a huge expensive deal is just not attainable for a lot of people, but it has always been that way. I was 36 the first time I went to Disney World. That was never affordable for us when I was a kid. Now our kids are out of the house & self-supporting, DH and I are doing a lot of travel.

 

[DLgal]

Yes, but OP was looking for a specific income threshold. 300,000 a year would not be considered middle class by anyone's definition. That would put you in about the top 6%.

I know California is expensive, but if anyone making that much can't afford a vacation they are doing something seriously wrong

Maybe not, depending on their housing situation.

At that salary in CA, take home after JUST taxes is about $15,000/month. Housing payments in the majority of the population centers in the state if you get a mortgage today can run over $7000/month. That's close to half. This doesn't take into account Healthcare expenses, retirement plan contributions, etc.

To be fully transparent, our take home salary is just under that amount and we CAN take vacations BUT only because:

1. Our housing costs are lower than typical market rates, at $3700/month for rent. Market rate is around $5000-6000 for the type of dwelling we live in (a 3bd/2bath condo).

2. We have basically free Healthcare. Our maximum out of pocket for the family, per year, is $1000.

3. A significant portion of our income is non taxable.

4. We have a defined pension plan, so don't max out retirement contributions.

5. Kids have special needs and not attending college.

If any or all of these things were different, we would not have enough for a yearly vacation. We haven't been on a big family trip since 2018.

 

[BeautyBeastAndNemo]

Maybe not, depending on their housing situation.

At that salary in CA, take home after JUST taxes is about $15,000/month. Housing payments in the majority of the population centers in the state if you get a mortgage today can run over $7000/month. That's close to half. This doesn't take into account Healthcare expenses, retirement plan contributions, etc.

To be fully transparent, our take home salary is just under that amount and we CAN take vacations BUT only because:

1. Our housing costs are lower than typical market rates, at $3700/month for rent. Market rate is around $5000-6000 for the type of dwelling we live in (a 3bd/2bath condo).

2. We have basically free Healthcare. Our maximum out of pocket for the family, per year, is $1000.

3. A significant portion of our income is non taxable.

4. We have a defined pension plan, so don't max out retirement contributions.

5. Kids have special needs and not attending college.

If any or all of these things were different, we would not have enough for a yearly vacation. We haven't been on a big family trip since 2018.

May I ask how you get basically free healthcare if you make around $300k a year? We make 1/3 of that, and we pay almost $1000 a month, and have a kiddo with severe special needs. Just curious!

 

[AnnabelleTheTalkingTree]

they just have really good credit and charge it all

If you're putting a vacation on a credit card and can't pay it off, then you can't actually afford the vacation. I do know people who do this, so it's absolutely happening. But charging a vacation you can't pay off, and actually being able to afford a vacation, are two different things. We don't ever do vacations that we can't pay for in advance. Honestly if I'm worrying about paying off the vacation I'm on, I'm stressed and anxious and it defeats the purpose of taking a vacation in the first place.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

they just have really good credit and charge it all

Eh that comment would have been more judgy back in the day when you didn't have a plethora of rewards cards. These days what is more important is how you are paying back your balance. Most people who are using the cards for primarily the rewards are paying off the balance every month (and we pay off the balance every month). I wouldn't personally feel comfortable churning CCs so that's not what I'm talking about.

The Chase CC my husband got last summer substationally subsidized the very pricey Europe airfare for this July's trip. AirFrance point redemption was okay but I believe British Airways had better (although the cost to select your seat was astronomical compared to AirFrance). The CC points also paid completely for the 2 nights in Venice ahead of our cruise. The Venice hotel was one that was $400-$500 per night. We paid $15K World of Hyatt points per night (Chase points transferred to World of Hyatt points) and it didn't take much to get those points (Hyatt has one of the best point redemptions presently on hotels too). We opted to not use points for our Athens hotel for 2 nights (where hotels are for the most part a lot more economical in cost) and booked using the CC and we'll earn points on that.

Also the Chase CC has all the travel insurance we actually need for the trips we have presently booked with exception medical health coverage (as the trips are outside the U.S. as well). It has lounge access (at applicable places) which is actually really nice to have, it saves you on money at the airports for simple things like food and beverage. It paid for my Global Entry fee (my husband got his paid for through his work).

I could go on and on but yeah. In the world of "charging it" there's a lot more savviness going on behind the scenes than people give credit for.

 

[midwestdee]

You don't have to fly, in fact for a family of 4 driving makes more sense and is probably much more cost effective.

You are assuming either a fairly short drive or a LOT of vacation days. While most Europeans have weeks of vacation time, the majority of Americans have 1 week. A smaller amount get 2 weeks.

 

[DCLMP]

If you're putting a vacation on a credit card and can't pay it off, then you can't actually afford the vacation. I do know people who do this, so it's absolutely happening. But charging a vacation you can't pay off, and actually being able to afford a vacation, are two different things. We don't ever do vacations that we can't pay for in advance. Honestly if I'm worrying about paying off the vacation I'm on, I'm stressed and anxious and it defeats the purpose of taking a vacation in the first place.

There's going to be a lot of people that do and this and a lot of don't. There will probably be less now that low-interest credit card offers are decreasing. I have a lot of different credit cards and I used to get the 0% for such and such amount of time pretty frequently. I got one yesterday for my Amex Delta Gold which was 9.9% until the end of the year.

 

[barkley]

I was in an interesting conversation with a friend.

For those that make $100k or less per year combined AND have the following:
*Mortgage or rent payment (If you don't have a mortgage/rent payment...well then you are lucky and probably not in the norm here for this scenario of middle class)
*Kids and their expenses
*At least 1 car payment
(plus the normal groceries/utilities/insurance/etc)

Are you able to still afford yearly vacations in 2023?

Just for fun, we priced our multiple vacations. We were shocked at the cost of many vacations now.

is that 100K net or gross income (big difference depending on where you live)

if mortgage free what about if your property taxes/upkeep equal what many pay for rent or (prior to psycho recent couple of year prices) mortgages? mortgage free does not mean you have zero housing costs.

 

[DCLMP]

Eh that comment would have been more judgy back in the day when you didn't have a plethora of rewards cards. These days what is more important is how you are paying back your balance. Most people who are using the cards for primarily the rewards are paying off the balance every month (and we pay off the balance every month). I wouldn't personally feel comfortable churning CCs so that's not what I'm talking about.

The Chase CC my husband got last summer substationally subsidized the very pricey Europe airfare for this July's trip. AirFrance point redemption was okay but I believe British Airways had better (although the cost to select your seat was astronomical compared to AirFrance). The CC points also paid completely for the 2 nights in Venice ahead of our cruise. The Venice hotel was one that was $400-$500 per night. We paid $15K World of Hyatt points per night (Chase points transferred to World of Hyatt points) and it didn't take much to get those points (Hyatt has one of the best point redemptions presently on hotels too). We opted to not use points for our Athens hotel for 2 nights (where hotels are for the most part a lot more economical in cost) and booked using the CC and we'll earn points on that.

Also the Chase CC has all the travel insurance we actually need for the trips we have presently booked with exception medical health coverage (as the trips are outside the U.S. as well). It has lounge access (at applicable places) which is actually really nice to have, it saves you on money at the airports for simple things like food and beverage. It paid for my Global Entry fee (my husband got his paid for through his work).

I could go on and on but yeah. In the world of "charging it" there's a lot more savviness going on behind the scenes than people give credit for.

There's a whole community of churners. I'm not sure what percentage of people out there really take advantage of this. I personally don't know anyone other than myself.