No Vacation This Summer: Two Families on Staying Home

Hi, loves. New figures from Germany's Federal Statistical Office show that about one in five people in the country can't afford even a one-week vacation. It's hardest on single parents: 39 percent of them don't have enough money for a trip. For comparison, among households with two adults and no kids, it's just 16 percent.

We shared this study on our Instagram account and got a flood of messages from you saying that you can't go away this year either. Here are two of those stories:

As a single mom, I have no savings for a vacation

My name is Marion, and I'm a single mom of two daughters, ages 9 and 15. I work as a speech therapist and occupational therapist at an early intervention center run by the Diakonie, a Protestant charity. I'm paid on a fixed pay scale, and in tax class 1 (the German bracket for single filers) I take home 2,800 euros a month.

Of that 2,800 euros, more than 800 goes to rent. Then there's everything for our three cats (insurance and food), public transportation, after-school care, cell phone plans, and school cafeteria lunches. By far the biggest chunk is groceries. I'm sure I spend 200 euros a week on food.

I can cover our day-to-day life pretty well. Even if one of the kids suddenly needs new shoes, I can pay for that. But when it comes to braces or a class trip, things get very tight. My parents often step in and help out with a little money. I never would have thought I'd still “need” that at 45.

I can cover the day-to-day, but I never have a real cushion, and I can't set anything aside or invest it. There's just not enough for that. And a vacation isn't happening this year either. The kids can go to a church-run summer camp, but only because I get a subsidy for it. Luckily, our city also has a summer pass that gets the kids free admission to a number of things.

We don't have a car, because I don't need one day to day and a car is simply expensive. But that means we have to rely on trains or planes when we want to travel. This year my daughter wanted to go to Paris. A week for the three of us, with train tickets and a stay at an Ibis (a budget hotel chain), would have cost 3,000 euros, and that's without food or museum tickets.

Last year I inherited a little money, and we took a package trip to the seaside. It was wonderful. I've also been on a mother-child health retreat on Wangerooge, an island in the North Sea, which did us a lot of good. But in general, prices have gone up so much that even a weekend in Leipzig would cost the three of us 500 to 1,000 euros.

Sometimes I think I could be even more frugal in everyday life. No more movies with the kids, no more takeout pizza, give the cats away. But then I think, I don't want to live like that either.

If I won the lottery, we'd fly to Canada, and my younger daughter would love to go to London. I went on vacation several times a year as a kid. Being able to give that to my own children? I'm really, really far from that.

---

My husband has cancer, so we're staying home

My name is Elke, and I have three kids from my first marriage: a 15-year-old and 13-year-old twins. My husband also has two children from his first marriage, who live with their mother. On top of that, we have a dog and three cats.

I work 35 hours a week at a group home for people with disabilities, on a two-shift schedule. My husband is at home because of his illness. He'll most likely have to retire early, because he was diagnosed with cancer two years ago.

I make a decent living, but we still have a mortgage to pay off, and my husband of course pays child support for his two kids from his first marriage. My ex-husband pays no child support, because on paper we agreed to a 50/50 custody arrangement, even though the kids are with me 80 percent of the time. Right now, though, I just don't have the strength to go back to court and fight for support.

The three teenagers eat a lot, and I spend a ton of money on groceries. Then there are hobbies and clothes (the kids are growing at a crazy pace). Our oldest has braces, and we keep having to pay out of pocket for part of it, because his teeth weren't crooked enough for our health insurance to cover it.

I just feel like all the expenses add up to an unbelievable amount: a school field trip here, a haircut there, a small gift for a best friend, new basketball shoes, a bike that got stolen and had to be replaced, the dog needing surgery. On top of that, natural gas prices shot up last year, and we really felt it in our heating bills over the winter.

There's no vacation this year, because we had to buy some new furniture that was simply broken. I did look, but a week for five people and a dog can easily run 4,000 euros. Three years ago we took the kids to Italy and stayed in a nice hotel, and it cost us 9,000 euros. That's so much money, and it was a nice hotel, but not a luxury hotel!!!

Of course the kids would love to go away, but they also understand that it's just not possible. We're hoping for good weather so we can go swimming a lot. The kids want to get together with their friends, and maybe we'll drive out to Grandma and Grandpa's for a weekend.

I think you just have to look for the positive in every situation. If we don't travel, nobody has to look after the cat, none of the neighbors has to water the plants, and what matters is that we're all having a good time together. We know very well, at the latest since the cancer, how precious time is.