At 23 and 20, I find it difficult to know what to buy the kids for Christmas.
They have lives (and homes) of their own and as they both earn their own money, if they want something, they generally buy it straight away or save for it out of their wages which makes them hard to buy for.
Add that to the fact that I’ve been a huge fan of giving experiences over gifts since they hit their early teens when they’re old enough to understand the value of an experience rather than a big present and you can imagine the time that I usually spend of trying to think of the perfect experience related Christmas gift.
Last Christmas, when we were talking about what we were going to get all each other, I made a joke about buying each other a flight somewhere sunny and I was surprised at how much they all loved the idea. We sat down and decided that it was actually something we’d like to do.
After chatting about what we all really wanted, we agreed to put the money we’d have spent on presents towards flights and plan a trip together instead.
We included Miss Frugal’s partner too so there were five of us involved and for ease, I booked the flights and each of the kids sent us the money for one flight. In theory, that means everyone paid for their own flight but that didn’t seem very Christmassy so we did a fun Secret Santa game for Christmas day, with everyone buying a small token gift linked to the trip.
I ended up with a photo of the kids from when we visited last about ten years ago from Miss Frugal and I bought Master Frugal a travel bag that was the size of an under-seat cabin bag.
Honestly, I don’t want to get all mushy but this was the best kind of present as we got a holiday filled with laughter, shared memories, and some lovely time together that felt far more valuable than anything we could have wrapped up.
I know a trip like this can sound pricey, so I thought I’d share exactly what it cost us — from flights and hotel to food and travel — and how we made it all surprisingly affordable. We managed flights, a huge four bed farmhouse with a private pool and car hire for just under £235 per person which I think is an amazing achievement!
Flights
We booked our flights to Nice as soon as we’d agreed on the idea, and it worked out so much cheaper than I expected. Because we were flexible with where we would fly from and we’d decided on four nights in May meant that we were avoiding the peak school-holiday weeks, the prices were pretty reasonable.
We booked direct with Easyjet and our return flights cost £83 each per person including one small cabin bag. The kids were all horrified when they saw the size of the small cabin bag though and did end up adding luggage to the booking at a later date but I’m not including that as they 100% could have packed four days worth of Summer clothes in the small bag that you’re allocated.
Accommodation
We booked our accommodation through Airbnb because when we talked about what we all wanted from our accommodation, that felt like the only way to go. I wanted big family spaces so we could spend lots of time together, my partner wanted somewhere that was in a good location for all the places we wanted to go consider, Master Frugal wanted a bedroom and bathroom of his own and Miss Frugal wanted a pool.
That’s a lot of specifics and we absolutely could have compromised and prioritised what we really needed if we’d had to but there was plenty on Airbnb that really for what we needed so we never needed to have that discussion.
We found a four bedroom farmhouse that had three bathrooms, lots of great space in the open plan living area downstairs and a huge amount of outdoor space surrounding a small swimming pool.
And we paid £514 for a four night stay for the five of us – how amazing is that!
There was also a table tennis table, a small bowling green and little spaces tucked away in the garden with places to sit and relax which made it such a lovely place to stay. The pool was so much fun with loads of pool toys provided to play with and although I didn’t go in as much myself, I loved sitting on the deck watching everyone else play – it doesn’t matter how old your kids get, the sound of them laughing and having fun never gets old.
I’d be lying if I said it didn’t need modernising and wasn’t a bit dusty in parts but you know what? It was so perfect for us!
Car Hire
We realised when we booked our Airbnb that we would 100% need a car as it was a bit further out than we would have liked so we booked a car to collect when we landed at Nice airport.
I can’t find the booking email to confirm how much it was but it wasn’t too much – I’ve just done a quick search to see how much it was and the car hire itself for the period we went for comes up at £137 as the price for a mid size car. I’m sure we paid about £200 though so I am thinking that the figure I have in my head includes the full insurance as we always take that.
Having the car meant that we could explore as much as we wanted and also that we could get to the bakery and supermarket in the village where we stayed which meant that costs were kept right down when we were there.
We had fresh baked goodies for breakfast every day, ate lunch out and for tea, we had a rule where everyone had one night where they were responsible for buying and prepping tea (except for my partner as he was designated driver for the whole time) so we had one night where we had a BBQ on the decking, one night where we got a takeaway, one night where we had pasta and garlic bread and one night where we had a picky tea with lots of bits.
Breakfast cost no more than £10 a day for all five of us as the bakery was super reasonable, the kids paid for their own lunches and ours didn’t cost us much at all as we didn’t do anything fancy and the maximum that tea cost any of us was £35 and the was my night which was BBQ night. Because we took it in turns to pay and prep, it worked out really great from a cost perspective!
And it was genuinely the best trip and the fact that we did it on such a budget just made it even better.
Here’s just a small selection of our photos – I have so many others with laughs, smiles and pure happiness but I don’t want to share pics of the kids on here anymore – I’m allowed to share the ones below as they’re approved by them haha. 😁
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