Buying Vacation Time

[adesertsky]

My company offers a "benefit" where, in addition to my normal vacation time, I can "buy" an additional week of vacation.  This is basically an approved, unpaid week of time off, the cost of which is charged by splitting evenly into my 24 paychecks (so there is never a full week unpaid). 

I have been doing this each year at my annual enrollment.  It is worth it to me to have more time of peace, time with family, time to work around the house, and general time away from the grind NOW.  Obviously this elongates my time to FIRE.  I know I am acting emotionally (and face-punch worthy) since FIRE will give me this time later but I really value taking this time now.

I'm curious if others would also participate in this type of benefit.

[iamlindoro]

I personally would not.  In the places I've worked, vacation time quickly accumulates faster than I can take it, as long as you can be relatively conservative over the first year or so of being there.  The money is worth way more to me to accelerate a lifetime of days off.

[matchewed]

My company offered this as well. It has been useful as we have a very rigid policy towards vacation time and how much you can have given your time with the company (seriously it's non-negotiable at hiring). So for people who just started out it has been a great policy.

We're eliminating it for 2014 and going forward (policy changes due to ownership changes). I'll miss it a bit but not too much since I've got more time with the company.

[MrsPete]

I think that's a rather unusual benefit.

At first glance, I'd think that it would be most beneficial to the newer workers.  It's only the people who've been in place a while who are building up vacation at faster rate IamLindoro mentioned. 

Would I use this benefit, if it were available to me?  Yes.  As a mother, it would be worthwhile to me to have time with my children at a time of my own choosing.  This would be more beneficial to me than retiring a few months earlier.  It's an option that can provide flexibility.

[geekette]

It depends on if you want all your free time at the back end of your life or if think you would appreciate it more if it were broken up during your working life.  My husband's old company would let you take shut down weeks (two a year) with accrued vacation, borrowed vacation, or unpaid.  Free time is very important to him, so it was worth it to him to take it unpaid and use his vacation time later. 

Right now he's been "retired" since May, but intends to go back to work in the next year.  It's definitely atypical, especially on this board!

[TGod]

I just started with a new company in May. Up till then i'd been self employed and had taken as much time off as I wanted, which was great since I had two young kids who had pro-days and school holidays - so letting that go was a drag. That said, the trade off was that I often worked late at night after the kids were in bed to keep on top of stuff.

In Canada, it's pretty standard to start at about 3 weeks, (yuck) per year. Rather than negotiating more money at my new job, I negotiated an extra paid holiday week and the opportunity to take a week off of unpaid as well. For me this is great, because it allows my husband and I to take the same amount of time off (he's up to 5 weeks now), and allows me a bit more flexibility. More money would be awesome, but I also want to be able to spend time with my kids, while they still want to spend time with me. I'm saving my unpaid week off for Christmas break this year.

[Kitstache]

My husband's company offers this and he buys a week every year during open enrollment.  He values the extra week.  It helps him not get burnt out, I guess.  He has to works lots of overtime in the winter.  I am ok with it. 

[ace1224]

i do it.  we have a pretty hardcore attendance policy with no sick leave its all just PTO.  our vacation also does not rollover.  i buy an extra 5 days a year.  it makes it worth it for sick kid days, field trip days, or just long weekend vacations.  before vacation buy it is 10 days a year.  if you have more than 4 absences (aka you didn't use PTO) you get written up.

[CommonCents]

How much vacation time do you currently get?  Vacation time, like salary, can often be negotiated when you start.  This is just a choice each year.  What will you do with it if you have it?  Go on fancy vacations, sit at home while your spouse who has less time works?  Or do projects around the house, side jobs, etc.?

Even though I have approximately 10 years working, I get 2 weeks because I only started here a year or two ago.  People who have been here for 20 years get 6 I think.  (Plus 2 more personal days.  Not unhappy at all I missed the cut off for extra personal days by 6 months...even though they told me when I interviewed and inquired, the benefits with those 2 extra days...)  For me, it'd be worth it to the extent when I found out I could take my very rare overtime in vacation rather than pay, I started to do it.  For the person with 4 weeks, it likely wouldn't.

[seattlecyclone]

For me the whole point of saving so much of my money is to buy the right to do whatever I want with my time at some point in the future. If I had the option to delay that point by a week (or maybe a bit more if you take compounding interest into account) in exchange for a week off while I'm still working, I would seriously consider it.

[SnackDog]

I do just the opposite which is sell back unused vacation time at the end of the year in certain years which I am allowed.  Can be big money to sell back a couple weeks!  Also, I understand certain employers allow one to accrue vacation for many many years and sell it back when they retire. That can be a good benefit also.

[Eric]

I would absolutely take the extra time off now.  Man, I miss my old job with 5 weeks paid vacation.

[jrhampt]

My company offers this option, too, and I have used it in the past.  I have used it before when I knew I had a trip to Asia coming up, for example, and it's not worth going for less than 2-3 weeks.  I have a large family, and almost all of them are outside of driving range, so if I want to see them all, it can suck up a lot of vacation time.  As my salary has gone up, I've used this option less, simply because it costs more to take the time off.  Also, I need fewer days off now that I work from home more, and we already have pretty generous PTO time - almost 5 full weeks per year.

[chicagomeg]

My company doesn't have this explicitly, but I'm paid hourly. I get 3 weeks vacation/year & we're planning a 2 week trip to Peru next spring, so I've been contemplating taking an unpaid week to spend some extended time at home w/my family next year. After 3 years with the company, I would have 4 weeks vacation, which seems like plenty. I had 5 weeks at my first job out of college & that sort of made my expectations skewed, so 3 weeks has been an adjustment!

[Mississippi Mudstache]

I would do it in a heartbeat. My first job out of college was a cushy GovCo job with 4 weeks paid vacation, plus the week between Christmas and New Year's was a holiday. My next job was an hourly job with zero vacation, and now I am in another salaried position with only 2 weeks vacation and few holidays. Fortunately, our vacation is pretty relaxed, and I can take a day or afternoon off when I need to, but there's not much time for extended travel once I figure in visiting family for a week every Christmas.

[nawhite]

OMG TAKE THE TIME OFF!!!

Americans are so weird in this way (I feel like the exception that makes the rule). I never get why people here don't take their vacation time. I get 4 weeks and usually end up taking around 4-4.5 weeks off every year plus some long weekends (oops I took to much time off, looks like you'll have to dock my pay for the day, ooohhh wellll *spoken like Eore from Winnie the Pooh*). On top of that, flex time allows me to work 9 hour days and take off one day every other week. Most people call this 9-80 Fridays but there is no reason that it has to be Friday.

Take the time off and practice being retired. You want to travel in retirement? Try some place new in the off season. You want to RV across the country? Rent one for a week and see if its really for you. You want to buy some land and build your own house? Find a nice general contractor and work for him for a week perhaps even for free (MMM has an open invite going on right now to learn this stuff). Or pick one large project on your own home and just do it all in one go. Want to climb all the 14's in Colorado? Take a random Thursday/Friday and just do one! Want to go on cruises? Find out when they travel back to their home port for repairs and do it for crazy cheap. Want to start a side business? Take a week and put in solid 8 hour days on the prep-work. THERE ARE SO MANY THINGS TO DO IN THE WORLD BESIDES WORK YOUR DAY JOB!!!

I've always wanted to do the following vacation time scheme. People used to be able to donate a week of vacation to other people in need (like someone having a baby). There also were tons of older employees who were hitting up against the vacation time cap where they couldn't accrue any more. So I wanted to find 48 other people to "donate" a week to me while I paid them half their salary for it under the table. It would be a win-win in my opinion. They would get money for the Vacation time they couldn't use and I would get to take a whole year off at half pay. It would be AWESOME!

[jrhampt]

People used to be able to donate a week of vacation to other people in need (like someone having a baby).

To hell with that!  Nobody gets my vacation time but me.  Did they use this policy to guilt people into donating their vacation time to others?

[dragoncar]

Hell yeah!

[cbgg]

This isn't face punch worth at all.

If you have your financial house well in order (high savings rate, no debt, efficient lifestyle) then it's up to you to decide how quickly you want to reach FI.  The objective is not to get there as fast as humanly possible while making all sacrifices.  You need to look at the amount of money that you will forgo and decide for yourself if it's worthwhile. 

[chicagomeg]

People used to be able to donate a week of vacation to other people in need (like someone having a baby).

To hell with that!  Nobody gets my vacation time but me.  Did they use this policy to guilt people into donating their vacation time to others?

My aunt's office has this and they did it when a coworker's spouse had cancer & she had exhausted FMLA. I think it's a really nice option to have.

[starbuck]

To hell with that!  Nobody gets my vacation time but me.  Did they use this policy to guilt people into donating their vacation time to others?

My aunt's office has this and they did it when a coworker's spouse had cancer & she had exhausted FMLA. I think it's a really nice option to have.

Yea, my husband donated 40 hours of vacation to his close friend at work. He had a daughter born with serious health problems and he ran out of FMLA. Nothing wrong with paying it forward.

[HappierAtHome]

We call this "purchased leave" in my office and it's so popular. I think it's very mustachian - you lower your income in exchange for more time, isn't that part of this whole concept??

It's not worth it to me now because I'm trying to get as close to FI as I can before I have kids, but I would definitely do it otherwise.

[chasesfish]

I took almost every day when it wars offered.

Then a couple of jerks with a class action lawyer tried to sue over the benefit, claiming deducing money from the next paycheck violated some employment law rule.

Purchased vacation was then cancelled

[2527]

I'm surprised so many companies offer this option.  The only one I know of is Vanguard...but maybe everybody works at Vanguard!  If you want the time more than the money, take the extra week.  If you want the money more than the time, don't take the extra week. 

Personally, I think the extra week off makes life a little more civilized. 

[ch12]

It is worth it to me to have more time of peace, time with family, time to work around the house, and general time away from the grind NOW.  Obviously this elongates my time to FIRE.  I know I am acting emotionally (and face-punch worthy) since FIRE will give me this time later but I really value taking this time now.

Do you know what is Mustachian? Doing whatever you want and acting in line with your values. You are doing both by taking a little extra vacation time. It's unMustachian to throw yourself into the grind and get worn out by corporate craziness. Kudos for actually taking your vacation time; that's something that a lot of people at my company struggle with doing.

[Peter]

For those of you that get the opportunity for 1.5x overtime, it makes sense to buy out all the vacation you can get, then pay-out instead of bank your overtime. That's what I do at my company.

Gives you an extra 0.5x of pay if you buy a week of extra vacation and work a week of overtime throughout the year.

[ritchie70]

I'm surprised so many companies offer this option.  The only one I know of is Vanguard...but maybe everybody works at Vanguard!  If you want the time more than the money, take the extra week.  If you want the money more than the time, don't take the extra week. 

Personally, I think the extra week off makes life a little more civilized.

I know Zurich had it when my wife worked there 5-ish years ago. She could buy up to two weeks I think. They were strictly PTO though, if you're out you're using a day with no differentiation between vacation and sick.

I don't know if I'd buy more time but I have 4 weeks of vacation a year, plus a floating holiday, and a birthday holiday, and the standard US "fixed" holidays, plus all the sick time I need.

[SnackDog]

I get 26 days of vacation plus 17 Brazilian holidays in 2014. If I could sell back a few weeks of that I would love the cash. I don't mind the work at all!

[minmax]

In the UK its a no brainer as a higher rate tax payer. I buy an extra 5 days per year, I sometimes roll 5 over. I therefore normally have 38 days + 8 days bank holiday = 9 weeks off work.

[Mumintheburbs]

Wow, I forget how different things are in Australia. The minimum annual leave entitlement here is 4 weeks and 10 days of personal leave (all paid). Progressive companies allow you to buy and/or sell annual leave, and I know of a number of organizations that offer "career breaks" which allow you to take 1-2 years unpaid and return to your former position. I work in HR and I really feel like these kind of options make employees happier and have a better work/life balance (whatever that may mean to the individual)

[krenwren]

Holy crap, American companies pretty much suck when it comes to paid leave!  I guess I have been under a rock about this.  When I had my kids, you got six weeks to eight weeks off and that was it or lose your job.  Today's moms can take up to 16 weeks of protected leave but most of it is unpaid unless you have generous benefits or planned really well.  Compare that to our friends to the north in Canada where moms can enjoy up to a year of paid leave.  YIKES!!!!!!

[CommonCents]

Holy crap, American companies pretty much suck when it comes to paid leave!  I guess I have been under a rock about this.  When I had my kids, you got six weeks to eight weeks off and that was it or lose your job.  Today's moms can take up to 16 weeks of protected leave but most of it is unpaid unless you have generous benefits or planned really well.  Compare that to our friends to the north in Canada where moms can enjoy up to a year of paid leave.  YIKES!!!!!!

FMLA is 12 weeks - and actually doesn't apply to a lot of employers (such as those with under 50 employees).  So it's worse than you thought.

But, it's a trade off.  Canadians pay higher taxes and those without kids are subsidizing those with kids.