Where I work you only get 10 days of paid vacation days per year and when you've been with the company for 10 years and over you then get 15 days. I've been with the company for a long time so I do get the 15 and I use all of them. As for sick time, we can only use it if we are sick so I never use all of them unless I have surgery or something that requires a long recovery time. We now also need a doctor's excuse if we're out sick for more than a couple of days. We are allowed to carry over some of our sick time to the next year and as far as I know we can also carry over any unused vacation time. We also get our birthday as a paid holiday so I really have 16 paid vacation days. We used to also be able to use our sick time for personal time off or even vacation time when work was slow but ever since the poor economy we can't. Sometimes if we have to work on a Saturday we can also get comp time which would go towards vacation time. I usually just take staycations, I just stay home during my vacations, because I can't afford to travel and I have 6 cats to take care of and I don't have any one close by that could cat sit them. I also can't afford the prices of professional pet sitters.