Vacation Envy

My friend and I often have conversations about our vacation envy.

ME: It popped up on my Facebook feed. This is her third vacation in six months!

We talk about people who are always on vacation.

Because we're never on vacation.

We both make a decent living. We both don't splurge on things in our day-to-day lives. We both have the average amount of bills.

And yet we can't fathom how, in this economy, we're not able to go vacation and people who work less than us and spend more can still afford to disappear for a week to some exotic location.

FRIEND: A week in Paris? I couldn't even afford the plane ticket there!

How is it possible?

How is it possible that I know people who work part-time for less money than I do and I can't financially make a vacation work and yet they can?

What am I missing?

And this leads into a much bigger problem, at least for me.

Overall life envy.

A few months back, I kept running into people who were saying things like:

I sculpt.

or

I paint.

or

I make paper ornaments.

And they weren't saying that these were their hobbies. They were saying that these things were their livelihood--that these were the only things they do.

And I realize that it is possible to make money from sculpting, and painting, and paper cranes, but it can't be good money, right?

It can't actually be enough to pay the rent on anything bigger than a toolshed?

I simply don't know how others are living so well on so little.

What am I missing?

I'm only writing this--aside from the fact that I need to vent--because I genuinely want to hear what others think or if they have some tips that I'm not aware of.

Vacations alone are so costly, how does anybody afford them? Or is everyone just racking up credit card debt and not worrying about it?

Can somebody help me out here?

Sincerely,
The Stay-cationer