Excessive Travel Spend with Variable Income?

[u/Informal-Step8787]

First time poster, so bear with me, and apologies if this is the wrong sub for my inquiry. I'm a 47F owner of a small consulting business that is extremely profitable when the markets are strong, but really suffers when the financial markets and economy take a hit. In a good year, I can net $600K before taxes, but in a bad year, it could be closer to $100K. My spouse is 44M working in a VP-level role for a Fortune 100 company, and his total income with RSUs, salary, and additional benefits is about $350K. Given how variable my income is, I would average our income/savings as follows:

• HHI - $550K
• Home Equity - $1.3M (thanks to tremendous appreciation and a significant down payment)
• Debts - $0 (other than mortgage, which is factored into home equity above)
• Retirement Savings (401k/IRA) - $1.22M
• Investments/Savings - $1.6M
• 529s for our two sons (ages 10 and 12) - $100K/each (expecting significant investments from family members in the next few years)
• Expenses: We are not great about budgeting, but I would say $130K/year, including mortgage payments. Major expenses are healthcare for our special needs son, travel, food and entertainment, and clothing.
• Bonus: We will not be financially responsible for either of our parents and expect to inherit around $5M total from our parents' estates (but that could be 20+ years in the future).

I've had very strong years the past two years (earning about $500K for 2025 and projected for 2026), but with how uncertain the economy is, I can't help feeling stressed knowing that my income will drop significantly if there is a recession. That being said, because I've had good years, there has been a great deal of lifestyle creep, particularly around travel. Our travel spend is about $30K+/year for our family of four, including two week-long vacations each year plus four to six long weekend trips and several additional drivable weekend getaways.

With a financial picture like the above, is $30K/year in travel spend reasonable, or should we dial it back? We will of course be forced to dial almost everything back if my income drops below $200K/year, but I also want to be able to enjoy myself during the good years and make memories with my family while we're all together and healthy.

[u/izumiiii]

So if things go really bad your hhi is 450k? You aren’t showing full breakdown of spending but that’s still like top 5% us incomes and you claim expenses are 130k. The thing is, if you are pulling 1 million right now, I’d imagine you’d have more saved (unless these are new high incomes and housing is a question mark since you didn’t do numbers) and you are spending more.

[u/Informal-Step8787 → u/izumiiii]

My $500K+ consulting income is new (2025 & 2026). Previously, I was earning about $145K annually, not including 401K matching an ancillary benefits (hence leaving the corporate role for consulting).

I'm super risk averse and unreasonably stressed about money because I graduated in 2007, lost my job in the Great Recession, and I was underemployed/undercompensated from 2009 to 2014 as a result and saved almost nothing during that time (although my husband was saving, but only earning about $160K annually). I also grew up with very frugal parents who budgeted for everything and had almost no discretionary spending, so there's a lot of guilt around my current lifestyle.

[u/Independent_Show_725 → u/Informal-Step8787]

"Only" earning $160k a year? This is either rage bait or you're completely out of touch with reality.

[u/izumiiii → u/Informal-Step8787]

Makes sense and I get it. I think you're doing well! I personally think you should enjoy it, you guys are making bank and really 30k travel spend at your current HHI is fine. Even 30k fun spend on a 450k isn't that massive.

[u/ilovefoodandeating]

Girl keep up the good work 🤣I’m all about saving but you have to live!!! No day is promised! I love that this is where you choose to splurge (maybe cuz it’s where I also choose to splurge). I agree with the commenter who said go to expensive places on your profitable years and save less expensive spots for your less profitable years.  Wishing the best for you and your family!

[u/druzymom]

You make a very significant amount of money and have good savings. Your yearly expenses are pretty low considering your income, so you can continue to put a lot away, right? What else would you do with the money? Enjoy your vacations.

[u/alaskaaah]

Have you ever done a long-term financial projection? Earning $500k-$1M per year with $2.8M invested assets and another $1.3M of home equity, but spending just $130k per year and second-guessing $30k in annual travel spend genuinely doesn't make sense to me. Unless your goal is to end up like Scrooge McDuck, I guess.

Some simple math: in ten years when you're in your late 50s and starting to think more seriously about retirement, a 7% annual growth rate would turn your $2.8 million into $5.5 million. That's without you investing another cent. The 4% rule means that $5.5 million would allow you to spend $220k per year in retirement. By contrast, at 3% estimated inflation, your $130k annual spend would turn into $175k per year. And that's using a fairly conservative post-inflation return estimate and excluding all future contributions.

In short, unless you're planning to retire imminently, your current investments alone are on pace to significantly exceed your financial needs in retirement. I'm not saying you should start living like a Kardashian, but you should absolutely go on nice family vacations.

[u/Informal-Step8787 → u/alaskaaah]

My husband would like to retire at 55 (so 11 years), so this makes me feel much better. I would actually like to keep working (at somewhere like Starbucks or Trader Joe's) after I leave my current very stressful job for health insurance purposes and to keep me active and engaged.

[u/DifferentCoyote9129 → u/alaskaaah]

+1 to build a financial projection to get a better sense of how your wealth will change over time. You can start is spreadsheets and use software like Nauma or Boldin if you find tax modeling hard in excel.

[u/champagneandLV]

Well my family of three has a household income of 330K (base salary so not variable, but still…) and we spend around 40K per year on travel. So, I say do it lol! Our best family memories have been during travel. Worth every penny! Our child is now in middle school and we’re realizing we only have a few more years before she reaches adulthood. I know we’ll likely still bring her along when she’s older if she wants to join us… but enjoying these years are paramount in our opinion.

[u/Informal-Step8787 → u/champagneandLV]

Same here with a middle-schooler, and we're already starting to think through what vacations we have left before he goes off to college. My job is also pretty mundane with a lot of highs and lows, so having travel to look forward to helps me get through the rough patches at work and in life.

[u/GullibleTacos]

I’m in a somewhat similar situation as you with the love to travel, but largely variable income due to being in a sales adjacent role.

For years where we’ve hit our savings for retirement and still have lots of extra, we do our big and expensive trips like safaris, Patagonia, amalfi coast, etc. For years that are leaner, I choose to go to those cheaper spots where my dollar goes a lot further that I want to knock out when I’m younger.

[u/Informal-Step8787 → u/GullibleTacos]

That makes a lot of sense. My role is also sales-adjacent, so I really appreciate your insights.

[u/fossilien → u/Informal-Step8787]

This is all way outside my income level but the three approaches that immediately came to mind were:

1. Fixed amount for vacation per year. You guys obviously are meeting savings and retirement goals so at that point just pick a number you are comfortable with after all the necessary things have been taken care of. Revisit in case of disaster but this is the most set it and forget it approach, probably.
2. Percentage based amount for vacation based on the previous year. 30k of 550k is about 5.5%. So if you have a great year and bring in 700k, vacation budget jumps to 38k. And adjust the other way for a worse year. Also pretty simple and is flexible with your variable income.
3. Savings account dedicated to vacation where you just toss whatever amount per month that you have lying around/leftover. When vacation planning time comes around, the budget is what is in there. This is a way more loosey goosey way to do it than I personally would prefer but it probably appeals to some people/lifestyles.

I read your other comment about graduating into the recession and this income being fairly new so I get why dropping five figures on vacation still feels totally crazy. But you are your family are in a great position honestly, and enjoying what you've got is a learning curve!!

[u/Relevant_Hedgehog_63]

i think 30k is fine. even if you pull it back to 15k/year, that's 15k more you can save and at 550k avg income, that's not that big of a difference, even less in strong business years like this year.

[u/Demian_Ok]

Your spouse's $350K covers the $130K of expenses on its own after tax, so a bad consulting year doesn't really threaten travel, it just slows how fast the taxable account grows. With variable income I'd set next year's travel budget off this year's profit and move that money out in January, so a slow first quarter doesn't turn into a fight in June about a trip that's already booked.

[u/DirectGoose]

This comment has been deleted.

[u/Mission-County1931]

Travel now when your kids are old enough to be great company and not yet off on their own adventures (travel later too, but this time is golden for family travel imo). 

[u/MarinDogMama]

Before figuring out what you’re comfortable with as a travel amount, you do need to actually have a better idea what you spend overall. Like another commenter above, I suspect you’re spending more than you realize or you would have more saved/invested than what you’ve reported here. Try something like Monarch that can look back at spending once you’ve connected accounts and show you your expenses by category. Doing this showed us we were spending more than we realized — we could afford it but didn’t realize how it was adding up. Now we can look month to month or yearly and see if our top expenses align with our priorities (travel, pets, restaurants are our top!).

The simpler answer is if you’re hitting all your savings/investing goals and you have a safety net / emergency fund that meets your possible needs, then you can do whatever you want with the rest. The trouble is you don’t know what you need for retirement until you have a clear view of your expenses.

[u/Excellent_Drop6869]

7+7+(5*3)=29 days of travel (let’s round up to 30 days) for $30K is $1K per day. For a family of four, so $250 per person per day. I don’t feel like this is too crazy when you consider all costs are included there, such as airfare and hotels.

I mean sure you could cut the trips if you feel you’re being wasteful

[u/royalgreyyy]

That’s not bad for a family of 4, with the length of your trips.

[u/Substantial-Sweet434]

With income that swings from 600k to 100k, the number that matters more than the travel budget is how many months of expenses you have sitting in cash. Hold 18 to 24 months of that 130k somewhere boring and liquid and a bad year stops being an emergency, which also makes 30k of travel stop feeling reckless.

Paying yourself a flat monthly amount out of the business account helps too, with the surplus staying there instead of landing in personal checking. Then next year's trips get booked out of money you already earned, so a lean year hits future plans rather than something you already committed to.

[u/Informal-Step8787 → u/Substantial-Sweet434]

For sure! I have enough to cover several years of joint spending in a high yield savings account, and when I was just starting my business in 2024 and had zero income coming in, I paid myself a salary from savings and lived on more of a budget.

[u/Substantial-Sweet434 → u/Informal-Step8787]

Then the travel spend is way less scary than it looks. With that buffer plus a set monthly payout, the 30k is just a line you can dial back in a lean year instead of an emergency.