Money Hack: This annual leave hack can almost triple your days off
Stephanie Yip
Max your time on the beach, not your time at your desk.
Your typical full-time Aussie worker has 20 annual leave days in the year. But that doesn't mean you can only schedule in 20 days worth of holidays.
With public holidays and weekends to take advantage of, if you're smart about when you take your leave, Australians can turn that 20 into up to 58 days off.
The hack
Put in your leave early and book all your trips around public holidays. That's the cliff notes version.
To maximise those days here are a few key things you can do:
Book dates where there are multiple public holidays concentrated in a small space of time. 2019 is one of the best times to do this as Good Friday (19 April), Easter Monday (22 April) and Anzac Day (25 April) all fall within a week of each other. So you can literally have a 10-day holiday from Friday 19 April until Sunday 29 April and only take 3-days off work.
Start your break as close to the weekend as possible and come back as early in the week as possible. For example, fly out on Thursday or Friday and return on Sunday or Monday. That way you're taking advantage of that weekend and not cutting into too much mid-week leave.
For more holidays in the year, take loads of 3-day weekend breaks. They tend to appear more often than you think and mean you don't have to take any time off work.
How many days do I get off in my state?
As this hack relies heavily on public holidays, the number of days you can have works out to be different state-by-state.
All states can get at least 49 days off with most sitting in the early 50s. However, the ACT comes off the most triumphant with 58 days of holidays at its fingertips.
Lucky ducks.
Here's how many days you can get per state.
Those living in the nation's capital can take a mammoth 58 days of time off next year for the price of all your annual leave using this hack.
The capital has 11 public holidays to use, so if you're willing to sacrifice having multiple medium-length trips in the year, you can go all-out with a 23-day break for 13 annual leave days in May and June.
Those living in Victoria, particularly Melbourne, are sitting pretty this year with 11 public holidays working in their favour on top of the mandatory 20 annual leave days.
In total, we've worked out Melbourne-residents can push their leave up to 55 days in 2019. Travel over Easter and you can get a 16-day holiday in for just 7 days of annual leave. How good is that?
Tasmania is peppered with public holidays, though these differ depending on your city. Those in Hobart can take 53-days worth of holidays thanks to the Royal Hobart Regatta and the Royal Hobart Show. Launceston also gets a handful of its own holidays, which you can play around with, too.
The longest trip we found while maxing out your leave is a 17-day trip from Australia Day (26 January) to the Royal Hobart Regatta (11 February) . This costs you 9 days of leave.
Thanks to the Royal Queensland Show, Brisbanites have 10 public holidays to take advantage of in 2019. Calculated, this gives you 52 holiday days throughout the year without digging into unpaid leave.
The longest break we worked out is for 16-days over the Easter weekend and Anzac Day public holiday. That'll cost you just 7 days of leave.
Squeeze 52 days off into your year across seven getaways by making the most of Picnic Day, the Queen's Birthday and May Day.
You can take a heap of mini-breaks off in the year but if you want to have a big one, you can get a 24-day break from Good Friday on 13 April until May Day on 6 May for 12 working days.
With 10 days public holidays in your kit, it's possible to snap up 52 days of holiday time in Western Australia without going into unpaid leave.
With this, you can start the year off with a bang with a 10-day holiday that takes in Australia Day or spend April on a 10-day trip around Tassie for just 3 annual leave days.
There's no easy way to say this. We tried our best but could only muster a maximum of 49 holiday days out of NSW without taking out more than 20 annual leave days.
This is partly due to the lack of public holidays (9 in total) and how spread out they are across the year.
Similar to other states, the longest trip can be had over Easter, where you can score a 16-day break for 6 annual leave days.
