Best way to split vacation rental cost?

[army_mom]

We have decided to take a family vacation next summer and rent a beach house. As I am looking through rental options I am wondering the best way to split it up so when I email options I can give a good estimate at costs so no one is surprised when given a final cost.

Traveling with us would be our family (will be 5 of us by then), brother A and his family (5), my mom, in laws, and Brother B and his girlfriend. A total of 9 adults and 6 kids. Do I take the total cost of the house and divide per person and add up up how many are in each family for their portion? Most of the houses all have very similar rooms so I don't feel anyone would get the short end of the stick on accommodations. Is there a better way to do this? I have vacationed with brother A multiple times and have had no problems but adding so many more people really raises the cost and size of rental we need.

Also looking for tips on food splitting as we will most likely cook nearly all meals at the house and share kitchen duties. I expect brother B and his girlfriend to not be around for as many dinners because they have no kids and would want to explore the area (and she is more particular about what she eats than all of us). Do we have them pay the same amount or lower their cost? I don't want to get too complicated and over think this [emoji849]. I know I won't have hard feelings if it isn't split evenly but still want it to be fair as food for that many will cost quite a bit!!

Thanks!

[Pear]

Personally I tend towards pay by the bedroom, with some adjustment if one family is planning to squeeze a large group into one room. If someone is getting stuck on the couch they should pay much less than people who get proper beds and privacy.

Don't charge for food. If you want to share meals, then have people buy the food for whatever meals they are cooking for the group.

[ahisma]

Rental - I'd split by bedroom given that most are the same size. Your idea of dividing by person works too.

Food - I'd ask brother B and girlfriend what their preferences are - do they want to join in the group food plans or do their own thing?

[jgenie]

We just did an extended family vacation rental. We split the cost by bedroom - each family got their own room - with a bit of adjustment for my siblings with less disposable income. We did a big shopping trip when we arrived and split the cost between all the families.

[SnuggleBuggles]

We just divide evenly by number of families. Never occurred to me, except reading threads here, to do it by person or bedroom. It's never been an issue with anyone we've done this with and is the default we've all gone to. A vacation house is more than just the bedrooms and everyone shares in the common spaces and amenities.

For food, we rotate who is in charge of dinner- shopping, cooking, cleaning. Great because nights we aren't on duty, it's totally relaxing.

We sometimes do an opening trip and divide the cost. Mostly people just go to the store knowing whatever we buy is communal.

Your group sounds bigger than any I've done though.


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[scrooks]

We have typically split by family with my inlaws paying a bit more supplementing the costs. It irritated me the first year because we had 1 bedroom and SIL had 3 but I got over it...

[meggie t]

When we did this, my sister suggested per person. I don't think this is best. We came out ahead (no kids at the time) but felt we should have paid more. Paying per bedroom sounds more fair. If two families share a bedroom (like a bunk room for kids), they split that cost.

When we arrived and throughout the week we split grocery costs evenly. Eating out we paid separately most of the time.

[DualvansMommy]

Hmm interesting to read pp suggestions to split by number of people or bedrooms. For me, most logical and straightforward way to do this is split the total amount of rental evenly by each FAMILY. As one pp said, it's only a bedroom they're on their own, and rest of spaces in the house is shared.

As far for food go, I usually split costs on items that is shared like eggs, milk, OJ, lunch meat, bread, and the like. Then each family is in charge of however number of meals and are responsible to get those ingredients and pay themselves.


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[carolinacool]

Last Thanksgiving, we went to the beach and rented an 8-bedroom house with family. We also split the cost per bedroom. It was just easy to do it that way since each family unit was four people and under, so everyone could fit in one bedroom and everyone paid for their room. I can see doing it by family but can also see how it raises the price. Like if you have four families going, but need to get an eight-bedroom house because a couple of families need two or three bedrooms. So it raises the overall costs for the family who only needs one bedroom. The house may or may not have more amenities or common areas, it just has more bedrooms. People in my family are cheap, so that wouldn't fly. lol

As for food, each family handled the food for whatever meal they signed up to provide and most people picked up items for everyone to share (drinks, paper products, etc.).

[hwin708]

I would split cost by bedroom. While I understand what people are saying about the common areas being shared, the separate bedrooms are usually what bump up the price of vacation rentals. You are likely looking for a 5-7 bedroom rental. That's pricier than your standard 3 bedroom. You are paying a premium for the separate private areas, not the communal area. So that's what you charge for.

I've never pre-planned split food costs, so I have no advice there.

[hwin708]

Double-post

[cheme]

We've done something similar before and split the cost by bedroom. As hwin said, it is usually the number of bedrooms that determines overall cost, so we felt that was most fair.

[rin]

We do this every year with extended family, and have always done it by bedroom (with slight adjustments for a family that might cramming more kids into one space, and larger adjustments based on relative income levels, since we have a wide range of economic situations in our family). Typically we identify a 'base price' per bedroom, people often share what they're comfortable paying, and then the more financially stable families throw in more to cover the cost.

We also never include food, just do a large shopping trip for breakfast/lunch items at the beginning, splitting according to # people in each family, then divide up dinners (or other meals, depending) between the families (so each family takes turns making a meal including shopping/cooking/cleaning).

[solsister]

We've done it multiple ways. We have a large beach house and when a large group comes to visit, we make a big trip to costco, before everyone arrives, after making lists with requests from visitors. We also have everyone save receipts for food/booze/snacks, etc, and at the end of the trip, we split it by person, half-price for kids. If they do not drink, they do not pay for the booze part of the amount (we break it down)This has worked well for us, and everyone seems to agree that it works. It makes it so everyone is comfortable grabbing food, making dinners, and sharing food. This is a special group of friends, and it works well for us. I';ve shared same strategy with family, and its worked well, also.

When we rent places, we, typically, do a tentative meal list, do a big costco run, same as at beach house, and split cost by family, let the older people (parents/grandparents. etc.) have the pick of the rooms, and the rest can duke it out! We each take one night for a meal, get ingredients for the meal, and whatever else we want to eat during the vacation. We are all good at sharing, and can always run to store if need to replace stuff.

It seems that we have been lucky and our friends and family are generous, and dont nickel and dime everything. Most people bring nice bottles of wine and spirits and share what they have. Everyones got a cooking specialty and are happy to take a night to share their foods. I am not a morning person, and will wake up to breakfast made and cleaned up. Its why I take over lunch duties and make giant salads, sandwiches, wraps and brownies/bars to share. Its what I like to do and am good at.

[belovedgandp]

For food we've done a tentative plan prior to arriving to divide up some basics. My mother tends to batch cook and freeze a lot, so she'll bring some main dishes. My SIL is particular about brands and in many resort communities there aren't many options, so she brings lots of basics (cereal type stuff). I have the most/biggest kids and stock up on the Costco snack run. We've never itemized those costs but assume they are equal enough in the pre-planning. Once we arrive the biggest initial grocery trip is split and then people just pick up items as needed.

[mmommy]

We do it by the bedroom. This works for us since my brother's family uses 3.5 bedrooms, mine needs 1.5 (my girls share with my niece), and my parents and uncle both just need 1. Everyone shares the common space, yes, but this way everyone is paying for the comfort of the sleeping situation they're in. My brother could choose to pack his 7 person family into fewer rooms and we could get a smaller/cheaper house, but that would be less comfortable and he's/we're willing to pay more so everyone can sleep well and enjoy themselves. At least thats the logic that works with our family.
For food, we do one big shop that everyone splits the cost of for basics like milk, coffee, bread, etc. Basically things for breakfast and lunch. And then we take turns cooking dinner for everyone. Each family pays for the food/drinks they choose to prepare for dinner for the crowd. My brother's oldest kids cook dinner one of the nights, so his family cooks at least twice. We used to split everything, collecting all receipts and dividing it up. And we even had a more complex formula for charging less for young children than adults. But my uncle who was the accountant passed away and nobody else wants to be in charge of all of the receipts. I think this is easy enough, and we all seem happy with it.

[hillview]

When we go with my sister (same family size) we split if 50/50 and then for the first couple of years we saved receipts and totaled it and then split it, now we just buy what is needed and don't worry about the exact 50/50 but we split dinners out and excursions etc. We are both similarly financially situated.

Next summer we are doing a trip with several families (I am running it). We are splitting it by family regardless of size (there are mini apartments so each will get an apartment). One family is not bringing their kids. Expect people will buy food as needed and we won't get too worried about it. Dinners will be split by headcount with a discount for kids.

I think whatever you decide it is smart to send an email stating how it will work so there are no surprises.

[niccig]

We've done it a number of ways. It depends on who we're with and what they're comfortable with. We have really close family friends that we split everything 50/50 despite them having more kids than us. We don't care about it being exactly even. We joke that we can afford the extra $5 for the kids meal and once their kids start ordering steak and alcohol, we can split it by who ordered what.

With my sisters, we've worked out an even split by families for accommodation. For food, sometimes they got to the register first at the grocery store and at other times we got there first. For dinners, we throw in extra or take care of the tip as have DS (no longer orders off kids menu) and neither of my sisters have kids. My older sister and BIL don't care about that, but my younger sister has tighter budget, so I usually insist.

We have friends that work things out to the last cent. I don't care, but they do, so we let them do that and then pay what is our share.

[army_mom]

Thanks for all the replies! I actually had not even thought about doing it by bedroom. I think for this trip it will be about the same as per person based on how we will be sleeping but will keep that in mind in case my other brother ever joins us as they like to spread out more, don't share with their kids, and travel with a nanny!
For the food, seems like a big upfront trip will be easiest and then get what we need as we need it.
Thanks for all the responses [emoji4]

[elephantmeg]

pay by the room. Then we have the meals divvied up by groups. So 5 family groups, everyone makes dinner once, you eat leftovers once and go out once/order in pizza. People are on their own for breakfast and lunches but people might make something and offer it out/people may offer supper leftovers as fair game for lunch. What we did at the last trip that saved a lot of food from being wasted is made some stuff communal-milk, lunch meat, bread, chips, cheese, fruit, condiments (we put on a separate shelf stuff we needed for a meal). Then whoever did the shopping for that day's dinner also restocked the communal stuff and bought any small random items that other people needed. When we've gone with 30-40 people and each group did their own thing there was soo much wasted stuff. Bring coolers to take stuff home in and plan on a leftover night if people don't eat leftovers for lunch

[Momit]

We have split the cost by bedroom. If people want their kids in their own room, they can pay more to have 2 bedrooms. We also have each family shop, cook and clean for one dinner and then go out for the 1 or 2 other dinners. We had one person pick up communal stuff like coffee and condiments and everyone chipped in for that.