Annual Holidays Budget Planner

Who this is for

Every trip in the year, costed on one page. Each break gets a line split into travel, accommodation, food, activities and other, and the planned total sits next to what it actually cost. The summary shows how much of the year's travel budget is left and what a night away has been costing you.

Households that take several breaks a year, from a main summer holiday to weekends away and visits to family, and want to decide between them with the whole year in view.

What this helps you track

• Every trip planned for the year, with its dates and nights
• The planned cost of each trip, split into travel, accommodation, food, activities and other
• What each trip actually cost and the difference from the plan
• Totals per category across the year
• What is left of the annual travel budget

How to use it

1. Write the year, the household and the total you have decided the year's travel can take.
2. Give each trip a line with its dates and number of nights, then put your planned amount in each category column.
3. When a trip is over, enter what it actually cost in total; the spending log for that trip is the easiest place to get the figure.
4. The planned total, the variance, the category totals and the summary are worked out in the browser and the workbook; on paper, add across and down.
5. Look at the budget remaining before booking the next break, and move money between trips if one has run over.

Formats

• Printable PDF (A4 and US Letter)
• Fillable PDF with form fields
• Fill in online, saved in your browser
• Excel / Google Sheets workbook

The printable is laid out inside a box that fits both A4 and US Letter, so the two files are identical and neither one is scaled. The fillable PDF has real form fields. The workbook uses plain formulas only — SUM, IF, COUNTIF and the like — so it opens in Excel, LibreOffice and Google Sheets without anything breaking, and every calculated cell is grey so you can see which figures it worked out.

How to print

Download the A4 or US Letter file to match the paper in your printer, open it in a PDF reader and print at 100% — not "fit to page", which shrinks the writing space. Both files leave a 14 mm margin, which clears the unprintable edge on home printers. To print the online version with your entries in it, use the Print this sheet button, which prints only the sheet and none of the page around it. More on printing.

Questions

Why plan every trip together?

Because trips compete for the same money. Seeing the summer holiday next to the weekends away makes it easier to decide which to scale down, rather than finding out in the autumn that the year has already been spent.

What goes in the other column?

Anything that is not travel, a bed, food or an activity: travel insurance, kennels or a pet sitter, airport parking, new luggage, visas. Use the notes area to list what you put there.

How is the cost per night calculated?

It divides the total actual spend by the total nights across trips that have happened. It includes every night recorded, so leave the nights blank on a trip until it has been taken if you want the figure to reflect past trips only.

Where does the annual budget figure come from?

From your own household budget. The sheet does not suggest an amount; it measures the planned and actual totals against whatever figure you write in.