The holidays are one of the greatest incentives of any middle class person and workers who throughout the year have to go to their position without grinding waiting for the long -awaited rest to arrive. Although having a few weeks on vacation a year is something that everyone needs, few prepare them economically or are planned for it.
The professional and founder of the School Options Call and Put, José Luis Díaz, analyzes this existing problem of a multitude of families and people who after having a good vacation need to even be returning loans that they used to finance that rest. “Planning a specific vacation budget is fundamental in good personal financial management,” says the expert in personal finance. For the medium Men’s Health.
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Holidays are not a luxury, they are a “mental need”
Díaz is clear and considers that vacations cannot be a luxury or something extraordinary in our annual calendar, but must be seen from the perspective that the body needs a mental and physical rest, so it is necessary to integrate them into the annual budget in the same way that expenses such as the mortgage, the rent or the car insurance are included.
“The reason is clear: holidays are not an optional expense, they are a necessity for our mental and physical well -being. If we do not plan financially, we run the risk of becoming a ‘black hole’; that increases our expense and destabilizes our entire annual budget.”
In addition, it is the only way to anticipate an expense that we are not normally prepared, so that our economy works due to inflation and other factors. This will avoid borrowing to have a break.
“If you earn 30,000 euros a year, allocate 1,500 – 3,000 euros per year to vacation is reasonable”
“The key is to treat them as one more fixed expense. When you include holidays in your annual financial planning, you can distribute the cost over 12 months, avoid indebtedness and enjoy without guilt because you already have the money left and destined for that purpose,” says the expert in financial options.
To this adds a simple example with which to be able to organize economically taking into account the holiday spending: “My recommendation is that you dedicate between 5-10 % of your annual income to vacation, depending on your priorities and financial situation. If you earn 30,000 euros a year, allocate 1,500-3,000 euros annually to vacations is reasonable,” he explains.
3 out of 10 people ask for loans to go on vacation
Although it seems normal and everyday, the data suggests that it is not met in many cases: according to Díaz, 3 out of 10 people who go on vacation in Spain do so asking for personal loans with an average of 6,000 euros that take between 12 and 18 months to return. A price too high for a few weeks of rest.
With this context, some strategies of self -financing such as “lending” money to oneself with the promise of returning it later, do not seem so strange. But they don’t work either. “I do not recommend it at all. This strategy is a mental trap that can create very dangerous financial habits,”. “You break the discipline of savings, create a debt with yourself that is the easiest to forgive and establish a very dangerous precedent. If you do it once ‘because they are vacations’, what prevents you from doing it for a face face, a whim or anything else?”
The solution: dedicate 10 or 15% of the monthly salary to a separate account
And what then does it propose as a realistic alternative? A system that eliminates the willpower of the equation and converts savings into something automatic. His favorite tool is the principle of “page yourself first.” “As soon as you charge, which is automatically transferred 10-15 % to a separate access of difficult access. The trick is to use percentages, not fixed amounts, so you always save proportionally to what you enter.”
With this modus operating not only it will be possible to save effortlessly, but you can reduce financial stress. “Saving must be like breathing financially, not something you do ‘when money is left over’, but something you do to live calm and have freedom of decision,” he says. “The difference between those who save and those who do it is in savings systems, not in the willpower. Those who depend on saving each month always fail. However, those who automate it end up getting it.”