★★★★Jordan P.
Does the job. Splitting it per trip rather than one big total is what makes it useful — you can see which half of the plan is the expensive half.
The Two Christmases Travel Budget
It earns its place when one family is a long way further than the other, you are both paying for different parts of it, and December has a number attached to it that you have already quietly gone past once before.
$9
- Excel and Google Sheets both open it — .xlsx included
- Nothing to install, nothing to subscribe to
- Opens on your phone
- Instant download after payment
- 14-day refund, no questions
Two families, two trips, one budget. This puts both in the same place, halves the costs that belong to neither, shows what each trip really comes to per night, and works out who owes whom when it is over.
Nobody budgets two Christmases. They book them
The flights go on a card in September because the fare looked good. The motel gets booked in November. Somebody pays the kennels. Somebody else pays for the rental car at the airport. None of it is written down in one place, because none of it happened on the same day. Then January arrives with a statement, and the conversation that follows is not really about money. It is about whose family, how far, how many nights, and who paid for what — four separate arguments wearing one coat. All four have answers. They are just spread across two months and three cards.
Four arguments, one sheet
What each trip actually comes to, with the shared costs halved, and the distance between the two. It is geography, not favouritism, and it reads better as a number than as a feeling. A trip total is abstract. A night is not. Four nights at five hundred and forty dollars is a sentence that leads somewhere — one night fewer, or driving, or accepting it out loud. Every line has a payer. At the bottom it adds up what each of you has actually put in, joint money included, and names the one number that squares it.
Driving saves $728 and costs you thirty-six hours
The Fly or Drive tab prices both options for both trips, using your own miles and your own fares. Then it says the part a price comparison usually leaves out: how long you will be in the car, both ways, at a realistic average speed. Sometimes seven hundred dollars is worth a day and a half of driving. Sometimes it is very much not, and you would rather know that before December than during it. It does not book anything and it does not quietly change your budget. It gives you the two numbers and leaves the decision where it belongs.
What's inside
- Start Here
- The order to do things in, how shared costs are handled, and one honest paragraph about what the gap is and is not.
- Setup
- Both your names, both families as you actually refer to them, how many are travelling, miles each way, nights with each, cost per mile, and the number you do not want to go past.
- Trip Costs
- Up to 30 lines. Each has a trip, an amount, a payer, a booked flag and a note. Unbooked lines turn pink and add up into Still to pay.
- Fly or Drive
- Both trips priced two ways — fuel, motels and meals against fares, bags, parking, transfers and car hire — with what driving saves and the hours it costs.
- The Split
- The two trips side by side, the gap in one sentence, the cost of a night with each family, where you stand against the cap, and who owes whom. Prints on one page.
How it works
- 1PayCard only. No account, no password, no address. Two fields and a payment box.
- 2DownloadThe link appears on screen straight away and lands in your inbox at the same time. It does not expire.
- 3Open itDouble-click for Excel, or File → Import → Replace spreadsheet for Google Sheets. Every formula carries over.
Specifications
- Formats
- Excel (.xlsx), Google Sheets (.xlsx) and a printable PDF guide
- Tabs
- 5
- Works in
- Excel, Google Sheets, Numbers, LibreOffice
- Opens on
- Desktop and phone
- Delivery
- Instant download, plus an emailed link that does not expire
Who this is not for
If both families are in the same town, you do not need this. There is no gap to measure and no fly-or-drive decision to make.
It assumes two trips and two people splitting the whole of December evenly. Three sets of parents will not fit, and if you divide money by share of income rather than in half, the settle-up block at the bottom will not be right for you — though everything above it still will.
It earns its place when one family is a long way further than the other, you are both paying for different parts of it, and December has a number attached to it that you have already quietly gone past once before.
Before you buy
Do I need to pay for Google Sheets?
No. Google Sheets is free with any Google account. If you would rather use Excel, that file is in the same download.
How are shared costs handled?
Anything marked Both is halved and charged to each trip — the kennels, the winter coats, the tyres. If you think a shared cost really belongs to one trip, change it and the gap moves.
We do not split everything in half.
Then ignore the settle-up block and use the two trip totals above it. Everything else on the sheet works the same whether you pool your money or not.
Does Fly or Drive update the budget?
No. It prices both options and stops. You decide, then you put the winning number on the Trip Costs tab. A sheet that quietly rewrites your budget is a sheet you stop trusting.
Where does 21 cents a mile come from?
Fuel and a share of wear on an ordinary car. It is deliberately lower than the mileage rates used for tax, which include depreciation and insurance you are paying anyway. Change it if you know your car.
Can we add a third family?
Not in this one. Two trips is what the whole sheet is built around. A third set of parents needs a different sheet and, frankly, a different December.
What if it does not work for me?
Email us within 14 days and we refund it. You keep the file. We would rather have the feedback than the nine dollars.
Reviews
★★★★★Alyssa
My family is a four-hour drive, his is a flight. We have had the same argument about whose Christmas costs more every year since we married. Now we have a number instead of a feeling, and the number was not what either of us expected.
All ten holiday planners — $39
The gift budget, the Thanksgiving timeline, the blended-family gift tracker, the remote Secret Santa kit, the cookie swap planner, the two-families travel budget, the fifty-card Christmas list, the mixed-diet menu planner, the toddler activity calendar, and the ninety-day January debt reset. Bought separately they are $90.
Get all ten — $39
