Some of us who are savers tend to have the mentality of putting away money for the proverbial rainy day. Obviously, having a blog
header with the words “Squirrel Away Your Money”, I’m one of those people.
There’s something about peace of mind, knowing that you’re helping to take care of your needs in the future. I’ve talked before about financial motivation, and for me it’s to some degree about making sure that I’m not old and needing money. Better to err on the side of comfort in old age versus when younger, a time when it’s easier to do without certain things.
Speaking of taking care of future needs, I tend to keep a similar mindset when it comes to vacation days. You know, when we work so hard, it’s good to take those days off to recharge. I really think that consistently working long hours can be unhealthy, so for health’s sake it’s smart to disengage and chill. Plus, we all want to have more time to spend with family or simply just travel and have fun, depending on where we are in life. All work and no play is no fun!
So, I do value vacation days. I’m fine with what I currently get, though in terms of vacation days by country, the U.S. and Canada tend to trail developed countries in the word. We’re not lazy here. We probably work harder than we give ourselves credit for.
This is why I tend to carefully manage my vacation days. They’re important. In terms of needing days off for family, getting personal things done (doctor, etc), and taking time off to visit people, there aren’t a ton of days available to do everything you want to do. Not to mention that unwinding and relaxing that I mentioned above, which is so important for us.
Here is my pattern: I’ll take very few days at the beginning of the year, maybe 1 or two in the first 6 months. Then, I’ll take 4 days in the summer, to coincide with the 4th of July week. Kids aren’t in school, and with the national holiday, I can have the week off with just 4 (or sometimes 3) days off actually used. Then, I’ll back-load the latter part of the year with more days off.
It’s almost like delayed gratification, and saving money so that I can pay the price first and relax later. There’s something about having peace of mind knowing that you can get through the hard work, to get to your “reward” later in the year.
If we could figure out a way to earn “interest” on those days off that are saved much of the year, that would be even better 🙂
My Questions for You
How do you handle your vacation days?
Do you allocate them evenly though the year, or do you save them for any particular time period?
Do you feel like we get enough days off here in the U.S. and Canada, or are we an overworked society?
Our paid time off (PTO) is split into two banks that I actively manage. One is a group of days you get at the beginning of the calendar year that you have to use by the end of the calendar year, and that doesn’t get paid out if you leave the company. The other is a rolling bank that you get time added to every paycheck, but it caps out at a certain amount. Your balance gets paid out if you leave, so I try to keep a high balance while at the same time not allowing it to hit the max value, since that’s just leaving time on the table.
MB – that’s interesting, two pools of time off. Sounds like given the difference, it would require some good strategizing, which it seems like you’re doing.
Vacation day policies in the US and Canada are far too stingy, in my view. I’m self-employed now, but when working for others I used to get crabby having to go through the process of allocating too few vacation days each year. The sad part is that overworked and frustrated employees are not productive employees, so I think employers only are hurting themselves with tight vacation policies.
Kurt – good point, people do get burned out and need to recharge their batteries. It’s amazing how much more productive one can be when full of energy and having time to decompress and disengage for a while.
I definitely hoard my vacation days. I wish I had more or I probably wouldn’t be like this!
Michelle – yeah, at a certain point I think many folks would start to be much more easygoing with those vacation days. Not sure what that point is – but it would have to be a lot of days.
We don’t get a lot of vacation days. I get maybe a week off each year. Usually it’s a family vacation that I spend those days on.
TB – well, family is most important. Hard to find a better use of time!
As a teacher, I do not get vacation days, I have more than enough vacation working only 180 days a year. I do hoard sick days though. I am rarely sick and I can use them to extend my years with the district for retirement credit. Right now I have over 125 days.
Krantcents – that sounds wise.
For years I was a contract worker, so if I didn’t work, I didn’t get paid. So, no vacation days to hoard. When I did have the days, I always allocated 2 weeks for vacations, and 1 week to be used miscellaneously throughout the year. It always worked out pretty well actually.
Kris – That makes sense, vacation days take on a different spin when working that capacity. If it’s not a paid vacation, it’s a more expensive vacation.
I used to hoard but now anymore. you wait for that “day” to come but what you need to understand is that day is now. Life is not just about work. When you need to go on vacation with your family, go. Don’t make any excuses about work. Make use of your vacation days. Don’t wait for something to happen, make it happen or your life will just pass you by.
I have one pool of Paid Time Off (PTO) for illness or vacation. I get 30 days a calendar year and cannot bank any of it. Thirty days sounds pretty generous, but I find myself managing the time off similar to your strategy, Squirrelers. I tried to leave a generous cushion of days off as I reach the end of the calendar year, because winter is usually the time when I’m more likely to get a cold or something. Barring illness, I will usually want to have more time off around the end of year holidays to squeeze in more baking, gift making, and family visits.
I don’t take much time off in the summer, though. Most of my vacations are during the “shoulder seasons” in spring or fall. I don’t have to plan around kid’s schedules and I prefer to travel when it is less crazy busy.
Managing time off so I’m not left with a glut near the end of the year can be challenge, but this year I’m taking a trip to Scotland in October that will require 14 PTO days, so I’m being more of a hoarder than usual with my PTO time this year.
Living in Europe we have a lot more vacation days, I have 25 days. And we also have 5 days for Christmas, Easter, Queensday, Ascencion, Pentacost. So about 30 days in total. So for me it’s: summer – 3 weeks, Christmas- 2 weeks, May holiday – 1 week. I have colleagues who have even more days and they often use them to have a long weekend. One week a year, I can’t even imagine. In my country it’s even forbidden, by law everyone has at least 4 weeks without the national holidays.
I honestly can’t get through them all each year just because of work/travel, inability to get the kids out of school enough, etc. to even take enough worthwhile days. I hate to burn like 20 days in December too. So, I end up carrying the same days over into the next year but they have to be used early or you lose them. Not the worst problem to have I suppose; wish I could just take cash for a couple a year though.
It’s tough to use them all. I’m going to try to use them this year, as work/life balance can help in the big picture. But, admittedly I’m not good at planning out vacations anymore. Used to be great at it, now there’s just so much going on.
I used to be a hoarder, but at my current company you use it or lose it. Last year I did something similar to you, so this year I’m trying to take a more balanced approach of 1/4th of my vacation in each quarter. I did take 1/4th in the first quarter, but it looks like I’m not going to be able to take time off this quarter with everything I have to get done. I do wish we had more time off. If I had 4-5 weeks a year I think I’d be much happier 🙂