I know where you are coming from. Our 2008 summer holiday was booked before hubby was made redundant in August 2007(the day we got home from holiday!). He got another job, but unfortunately that too soon went pear shaped and last August we went away with a sense of deja vu, not knowing if he would have a job to come home to- he's a quantity surveyor. I think there were two sides to it, firstly it felt wrong in some respects to be spending money on a holiday that we could otherwise use to 'live', pay bills, cover the essentials etc if he lost his job and didn't find something else. The other thing was we ended up with such high expectations of the holiday- we went away knowing that it could be the last holiday we might have in a long time, so we needed to make the most of it. As a result I didn't enjoy the holiday half as much I expected to, but I think I was expecting too much.
He was made redundant in the end,in October last year and against all the odds found another job. So....we have booked this year's holiday. I am excited, but there is a part of me that is holding back, knowing that if anything happens, I couldn't justify using most of our savings to pay for it and we would have to cancel.
I hope you get your holiday!!

Pam

Hi,
I love my holidays and would hate the thought of not being able to go because of money worries. Unfortunately, in reality and in today's present climate I am starting to feel the need to tighten my belt. We have got 2 holidays already booked for this year - a week in Benidorm Easter time and 2 weeks in the Dominican Republic in August. So far we've been lucky and the whole family (myself, hubby and 2 sons) are managing to hold on to our jobs, eventhough the majority of workers where my youngest work have been put on a 4 day week from Monday. Thankfully, he's not affected....YET!

I've been researching a holiday to celebrate hubby's 50th birthday next Easter (2010) but am worried about booking too soon. I know there are no guarantees but if hubby's work started drying up I know I would have to use some of my 'rainy day' money to afford the holiday. Whereas, I don't mind dipping in, no way could I justify using it for the whole cost of the holiday.

In the meantime, I intend to thoroughly enjoy my 2 hols this year and in no way feel guilty about it. After all, we've all worked hard to afford them and it will be a break from the worries of the UK.

Hi, I'm the same mindset as shirley on this one. We are lucky really in that both our jobs are secure for now ( please god !) and we have a relatively low mortgage and we only have one child, so we can go on holiday ( jamaica this time woohoo !!! ) and not worry about getting into debt for the sake of going on our hols. we have saved long and hard for this , so we are bloomin well gonna enjoy it !
My heart goes out to the people who have lost or are under threat of losing their jobs, so I can understand any reluctance from the people who booked well before the country went into this recession, but , we are only here once and as the saying goes, its better to regret the things you have done than haven't . memories from special things like holidays stay with us long after the gloom of bad days.
cheers,
juby

I think half the problem is the pressure that it puts on you as a family whether you have the money to pay for it or not .

My hubby is a self employed electrician who does contracting work via the agencies mainly in London . Things are grim out there . There are very few large contracts starting and everyone is holding out for the olympics to kickoff . pay rates are going down and there is very little overtime .

I did have a really wobbly time in november and nearly cancelled our easter holiday when he couldnt find work for two weeks but it turned out ok in the end but is due to finish on this contract this week . who knows . Now we have come through christmas I have sort of hardened to it with the attitude of "it will be what it will be " something always comes up . we cannot live our lives worrying about if's, buts and whats. Things are bad enough with the pressure we are all under . Our children wont be holidaying with us for much longer so time with them is precious to us too.

It's really hard not to get caught up in it all isn't it .My husband works in the manufacturing industry and his company has shed jobs already and I work in one of the banks that has just merged so there may eventually be job cuts there .
Don't get me wrong , I know things are bad , but the media are making it so much worse . Some of their reporting and features on the economic situation are bordering on 'shock journalism' and are spooking people even more and then fuelling the downturn even further.
I've got one week booked and that will be it for this year (fingers crossed for a better summer here) as it's hubbys 50th next year and we want something special.
To the vicjayhay -don't worry , it's booked and paid for , don't let all this spoil what you have saved so hard for.

I feel very jittery and wobbly about booking holidays at the moment. Normally have two a year if possible. It seems pretty bad out there. My neighbour works for Reuters the financial news agency and told us in the middle of last year it was going to get really bad, but I was quite sceptical at the time and embarrassed to say I didn't really believe him. Don't know why as he is a sound and honest guy who has never given us a bum steer in the past. I guess I was just in denial.

DH works in an organisation that others buy the services of and he says 50% of them are sitting around doing nothing at present. Its just very hard to know if you are in a company that is going to ride out the storm or not. For me personnaly it does seem irresponsible to book holidays when I dont know what the future holds, although if we dont book holidays that will be another industry that goes up the swanny.

At present I am lucky that we have ongoing work and should see 2009 ok,but dont belive all you read about Dubai,there has been a massive turn down in jobs as the bubble has burst there.Here in Qatar we are expected to be the only Middle East country to have expantion.

We booked our holiday last may but really at the moment we have no way of paying the balance so looks like it will go on the credit card.Luckily its Ai so once we pay thats it but we defo wont be having one next year

Thought I might have to cancel this years hol but thanks to Martin Lewis' website we had a nice little windfall in the form of a council tax rebate. I only stumbled across it by chance and folllowed his advice to find that we were in a higher band than the rest of the whole road. I appealed and luckily it worked in our favour and we had a nice refund going back to 1999 when we moved into the house. Thankfully this will cover the balance of our holiday so it's only spending money to find, although I think it'll be back to holidaying in the UK for us in 2010. A bit but I'd urge you all to double check your council tax banding if you haven't done so already.

Thanks for all your cheerful replies, also to blackcat, we have both worked really hard to pay for this holiday over the last six months, so I am determined to plough on ahead and enjoy it as we only have one big holiday every two years and my boys are really excited, I can prob get spends saved by march so if o/h does lose his job sumer time I think we prob will still go as money will be there, and I think as a family we deserve it!!!
Though I think you will never lose that doubt that the money could go to something more useful, but I think quality time with my boys is just as important.
Though my heart really does go out to all the familys out their that are stuggling with job loses,and do agree that the press are not helping with all of there scare mongering, I no things are bad out there at the moment but they are scareing the life out of people, me included!!!

Great bit of advice nicjw, also to all familys if you have'nt heard of child tax relief, you probably have'nt claimed it,you need to claim by the end of this month, so worth looking into it could be worth between £500-£1000, all you need to do is contact your local tax office or go online, you will need your and other halfs tax codes and national insurance no so well worth a try. it was never well advertised so the say thousands never claimed it , it think it ran from about 2001-2003, good luck to all that try and claim, hope it helps someone!!