Interesting and timely topic, but I think, like very often, by focusing on calculating expenses, our average Swiss moustachian forgets to interpret them. Namely, that you should not only look at the absolute numbers, but compare them with alternative scenarios.
A quick illustration: your can
- buy groceries in Coop and cook yourself at home in ZĆ¼rich/Bern/GenĆØve, or
- go to a restaurant in Tirana/Prague/Schwerin,
but you have to eat somehow anyway, right? And who said that option 1 is cheaper than option 2?
I am often thinking if we are spending too much on vacations, and I think we are not bad. For the following reasons.
Now, how do I imagine different scenarios of days of our life from the perspective of our family, focusing on variable expenses.
Scenario 1 (base): working and school day.
Adults bring children to school and go to work. Children are in school and child care. At the end of the day adults pick up children, bring them home, make dinner, and soon itās bed time. After that, itās maybe a sofa and streaming for adults, but most probably a shower and bed.
We pay for childcare and food, there are hardly any other variable expenses.
Some days one adult is not at work, so we donāt pay for childcare, but children are still mostly at school and have related activities. You donāt usually go to an aquapark if there is homework to do and more school is coming tomorrow morning.
Expenses: ca. 100 CHF / per day for the whole family.
Scenario 2: a weekend or vacation day spent in Switzerland.
Good news - there are no childcare costs. And you also donāt fly and you donāt need accommodation, except maybe you do sometimes. But everything else is pretty expensive. Go to that aquapark? 60 CHF. Museum, Cinema - 40 CHF plus as much as you want for snacks etc. Restaurant in the evening - 120 CHF. Ice cream on a promenade: 20 CHF. Luna Park is coming to town - no, I should stop here before I start to cry. But you got the point. And when one day you spend more to have a quick lunch for you and 1 child in Migros Restaurant than for dinner for the whole family in a restaurant in another country few days later (real story), you start thinking.
So, if you want to act like you are on vacation while still being in Switzerland, the expenses are, say, 300, if not 400 CHF per day for the whole family.
Scenario 3: a real vacation! You are in another country, thereās sea below, a castle on the hill, and children are asking what language people speak here.
I will not talk about the advantages of being away from your usual routine, which are enormous for me and the whole family, letās talk money.
Well, like others mentioned, you pay accommodation and transportation. With children, there is not much advantage of staying in the same room in a hotel, they are too young to stay in a room by themselves, so Airbnb will it be. And why it might sound cool to stay in an old house next to the castle, the prices are higher than elsewhere in the city and the comfort might be different than what you expect from your vacation. So, letās say, itās gonna be an apartment 5 to 10 stops on a subway away from the castle, where people actually live. You have separate bedrooms for adults and children, there is a living room and a kitchen, a playground and Aldi nearby. You can go to restaurants as much as you want, but if children are too tired in the evening, there are other options.
Costs: around 100 CHF per day.
Transportation is where itās getting complicated. If we have to fly, I consider myself successful if I manage to spend below 2000 CHF for all flights both ways. Airlines are also known to ramp up prices as you go (extra payments for luggage, etc), and there is not much you can do about it. This range of prices means we are staying in Europe, which is totally fine for me. Itās not like we lack diversity here. If we go for 2 weeks, it adds around 150 CHF per day.
Flights for a family are not just expensive, but also questionable from the ecological point of view. An alternative is a train. Children often travel for free, so you can easily get to, say, 500 CHF both ways for a European destination. A train ride with children can be boring, but can also be entertaining, depending on their personalities and also how you organize things. E.g., the fastest non-stop connection is not necessarily the easiest one.
Costs: 35 CHF per day for a two weeks trip.
After that, itās all up to you. If you really want, you can spend money only on necessities, enjoy the weather and the city and everything that is in it for free and, under some assumptions, spend less than you would in Switzerland during the vacation.
The good news is, if things cost half of that in Switzerland, you are more relaxed with spending and it makes it easier to enjoy life. It does for me. You are probably not bringing the whole family to the most expensive restaurant every day, but outside of it, you can pretty much do anything you desire.
So, all in all you might spend 200 CHF extra in comparison to the scenario of vacations in Switzerland, but the advantages are enormous. After all, money is a tool and we want to enjoy our lives and spend mindfully, right?
