Over 50% of Americans Don’t Use Their Vacation. Don’t be one of them!

***Extremely Mickey Mouse voice*** – Hi Kids! Today’s Mousekatool is Paid Vacation

I am fresh off of our first full week vacation in 2 years.  While we’ve taken a few long weekend trips, we haven’t had a full week off during this time.  We took our daughters to Disney World (geez… could you tell?) and we all had a great time and created many memories that won’t soon be forgotten.

My wife and I have already started discussing our next vacation!  I think we can all get behind more vacation, right?

Well, the answer is apparently a big fat NO.

As I have been reflecting on the week gone by, I recalled an article I had read that stated that roughly 52% of Americans don’t use their paid vacation.

Let that sink in.

Your boss is willing to pay you money… to not show up for work.  And we say, “No Thanks” more than half the time!

That sounds crazy, right?   Crazy, but true according to Project Time Off, a coalition formed to help change the way Americans think about vacation.  Project Time Off publishes annual reports on American’s vacation usage.  You can find their State of the American Vacation 2018 report here.  52% of unused vacation sounds terrible, and it is, however, the percentage has slowly dropped from 55% in 2016.

I took a look at my own vacation balance, and found that I am guilty as well!

Hypocrisy, thy name is Mr. Heartland on FIRE!

We’ll get back to why people skip vacation, but first off…

Why is vacation so important?

• Stave Off Mental Burnout – Vacation allows you to break away from the daily grind and provides the opportunity to reduce stress and get refreshed.
• Improve Your Health – A 2005 study by Gerhard Strauss-Blasche shows that vacations can actually provide health benefits.
• Experience New Things –  Vacations can expose you to different foods, traditions, and environments.  You may come to find that you particularly enjoy the food, scenery or customs at your vacation destination.  Without vacations, you would never have known!
• Gain New Perspectives -When you break free of your work routine you meet new people and have new experiences.  These encounters can change how you think about issues.  You are able to hear from or experience a different side of a particular issue.  As an example, you may not use public transportation; however, after spending a week riding buses or trains, you may gain an appreciation for the value they provide.
• Regain Appreciation for What You Have – It’s easy to get caught up keeping up with the Joneses and take what we have for granted.  Vacation can help you appreciate what you have in a couple ways.  You may experience discomfort, such as a lumpy bed, large crowds, or lack of air conditioning that will make you long your comfortable and private home.  Secondly, you could travel to a poorer area and meet people that seem happy with much less material possessions than you have.
• Increase Your Real Hourly Wage – I previously posted on the importance of understanding your true hourly wage.  The math supporting vacation is simple.  Your true hourly wage is your net income/divided by your work-related time.  Taking vacation reduces your work-related time without reducing your earnings; thereby increasing your true hourly wage. So don’t skip vacation… you’re just giving yourself a pay cut!

Reasons People (Including Me Apparently) Skip Vacation

• Fear of falling behind at work – This can be a fear of returning to a mountain of work.  It can also be a concern about falling behind professionally and a loss of raises, bonuses, or promotion.
• A mentality that “no one else can do this” – Employees fear that work issues that pop up cannot be handled by others in their absence.
• They can’t afford to go on vacation – There is no room in their budget for costs associated with vacation (travel, lodging, food and entertainment) .

These first two are me to a “T”.  Usually, I have a large workload to juggle, and as a consultant, there are numerous issues that come up from nowhere that require quick action daily.  As a result I typically experience an incredible amount of stress leading up to vacation.

How to Stay Caught Up at Work

Planning ahead can help keep things moving while you are gone.  This has been very helpful for me.  I put a list together of active projects, key contacts, and next steps and distribute this list to everyone in my office that is likely to get a call or email.  The next step I take is to notify clients that I will be out and who to contact in my absence.  The very process of putting the list together and reaching out to clients helps me to grasp what issues or questions may arise while I am out.

As an additional benefit, your boss may be impressed by your planning.  I’ve received great feedback from my supervisors on several occasions after sending out this list.  This makes sense because in the end, you are making their lives easier while you are out.  The less time they spend on witch hunts looking for items, the more time they can spend on their workload or helping move your projects forward.

Worried about how your vacations look in the eyes of your employer?  Don’t be.  People that take vacation are statistically more likely to receive a promotion than those who don’t.

I don’t know about you, but when I review my work product after a particularly stressful period, it is not pretty.  After a vacation, I feel I can better focus on my work and I am more motivated.  Don’t take my word for it though.  A study by Stanford University has shown that reducing working hours does not decrease productivity and may in fact increase it.

What Can We Do About the Costs?

Create space in your budget for vacations. In the Financial Independence Retire Early (FIRE) community there is a emphasis on lifestyle optimization.  That is, spending on things that bring us happiness while cutting back on things that don’t.  Avoiding consumer debt and cutting out unnecessary expenses, such as expensive cable packages, going out for lunch daily, and driving a gas guzzler, can free up a lot of cash.  Think about it, which would you prefer a handful of Chipotle lunches (no offense to Chipotle… I like it) or an extra night of lodging, or a fun activity on vacation?

Can we reduce the costs of vacations without cutting back on the fun?  Sure.  One great way to do so is with Travel Rewards.  Accruing points on credit cards can result in lucrative savings.  As an example, we were able to cover about 75% of our airfares (for a family of 4) traveling to Disney!  That’s hundreds of dollars.

But you can do much better than that.  Brad Barrett of the Choose FI podcast and Richmond Savers famously was able to do Disney for FREE for a family of 4! (Note: this works for way more than Disney… I just have mouse ears on the brain right now!)  This is an area we are planning to take full advantage of moving forward.

When you factor in the physical and mental health benefits, new experiences along with improved work performance it’s easy to see the value of vacation.  Hopefully, this post will have you reconsider the next time you think about bypassing your hard earned vacation time.  I don’t know about you, but I just put in for some more vacation.

Thanks for reading!