Our family rarely takes long vacations. We usually save our extended trips to visit family in our home town. We do however like to take short trips every few months. Here are some ways we are able to do this without spending a ton of money.
- Stay with friends. This is obviously a huge money saver. Remember, when staying with friends always be a generous guest. We usually try to take our hosts out for dinner as well as bring some groceries.
- If you are going somewhere new, stay in a hotel that has a free breakfast as well as a microwave and fridge in the room. This is another money saver. Even if you eat dinner out, you will save a significant amount of money with the free breakfast and the mini kitchen to prepare lunches.
- Speaking of lunches, pack lunches for your time on the road. In our early years, we would always stop for lunch and then wonder why our kids had trouble behaving in the restaurant. I finally figured out that taking a kid that had been buckled up for a few hours and then making them sit still for another hour to eat was ridiculous. Now we pack a picnic lunch and eat at a rest area. We usually pack a frisbee or ball in the car for the kids’ to play with while we eat.
- Visit places that are free or cheap. Not every trip has to involve an expensive theme park. Plan your trip around discount days, or visit natural places like National and State parks or museums that do not charge a fee.
- Join a hotel points program. My husband travels occasionally for work. He always stays in the same group of hotels, to earn free nights. We also stay in this same hotel group and earn free nights. Most of our family stays have been free or almost free because my husband racks up the points through his job.
- Take a day trip. If you don’t have the money or the time to go away for a weekend, visit a local area for a day. Even when we lived in rural West Virginia there were several historical and state parks within a two hour drive.
- When eating out, share meals and don’t order kid’s meals unless they are really cheap. Many times several small children can share an adult meal for less than the cost of kid’s meals. Order water and skip dessert.
When we went to Williamsburg we packed our lunches and had breakfast at the hotel. A few years ago I discovered a neat trick to packing sandwiches. Wrap the sandwich in a napkin and then place in a ziploc bag. Use a sharpie to label the bag. When it is time to eat, each person already has their own napkin. We save the ziplocs and reuse them the next day.
Our friends that met us in Williamsburg brought a great spread for lunch. They used a homeschool cart to wheel it into Colonial Williamsburg. They brought muffins, fruit, snacks, and sloppy joes!
To keep the sloppy joe meat warm they packed it in a thermos. It stayed warm for over 7 hours in the thermos. When it was lunch time they poured it on buns. It was delicious.
How do you save money on vacation?
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We do the sack lunch thing on trips, too. Saves tons of $$$. I must admit that I saw the first picture before reading the associating paragraph and thought, “Why would she bring PEE in a Ziplock while traveling???”
Wow, I must be tired…
This might be long but remember, you asked for it, LOL!
1. For super long car trips, we would pack a lunch and have snacks in the car. We would stop at McDonalds, eat our lunch in the car, then go inside and buy a pop or juice and let the kids play on the toys to stretch their legs. You can put all sorts of things in thermoses: soup, coffee, juice, jello (smaller, wider thermos), applesauce. Can also make a grilled cheese sandwich and wrap in aluminum foil to keep warm. Not perfectly warm but tastes pretty good with tomato soup from a thermos.
2. When we fly, we fly at odd times and odd hours. We buy snacks to take on the plane with us, we do not buy food in the airport during a layover. To expensive.
3. We too get a room with a fridge. We buy milk from the store, cereal, plastic bowls and spoons, and eat cereal every morning for breakfast. We also buy pop or water and put it in the the fridge. You can buy bread and stuff and make a lunch too for on the road. We don’t usually get a microwave because you like to have dinner out at a cheap place. If we do get one, we pop popcorn, make soup or microwave macaroni.
4. We never stay on property if we go to Disneyland or Disneyworld. We stay at the cheapest motel we’re comfortable with. That way, we can afford to stay two weeks, instead of one week. We figure, we’re gone most of the day so who cares what the room or motel looks like.
5. We take a pop bottle with us into Disneyland, drink the pop, and then refill it during the day from the water fountain. You could take a water bottle instead but I like my morning caffeine!
6. We limit our souveniers to things we can use, like t-shirts, sweatshirts, hat, mug, whatever.
7. We buy Disney souveniers at their discount stores. You can find it online before you go and mapquest for directions. You pay about 50-75% less than you would in the park. Never buy in the park.
8. My husband and I usually split lunch or dinner when on vacation (depending on what meal we eat out on). We figure, it wouldn’t hurt us to lose a few pounds, lol!, and neither one of us is very hungry because it’s usually to hot to eat.
9. We don’t go all out just because we’re on vacation. We don’t splurge on expensive restaurants, souveniers, or anything. We rent the smallest car that will fit us and our luggage.
10. We budget an amount of money for meals, and souveniers and things, and then we strive to stick within that budget.
11. When the kids were little, they were given a certain amount of money for souveniers. We told them they had to wait and look around before buying, so that they could see what they really wanted, instead of buying the first thing they saw and liked.
12. Saving money on vacations start NOW. We are currently saving money so that we can go to Florida (we love Florida) when our oldest graduates. We have less than four years to save the money. Save the money ahead if you can, then you have no regrets afterwards, lol!
Told you this would be long!
O.k., corrections here. We do go to Downtown Disney and buy somet hings there (like I like to buy earrings), but we also do the discount Disney stores. They are a bit of a drive but worth the price.
My oldest has already graduated, we are waiting for the youngest to graduate.
What a great post. With a very regimented school schedule, the only “vacations” we can squeeze in are to see family, so there’s not any lodging cost. I also pack food, water and lots of snacks–so when we do stop for a meal we can often split one order.
Hi again! Just wanted to say that I gave you an award on my blog!
Your family is so precious! What memories you are making.
My late husband and I bought a very cheap, foreclosed timeshare 22 years ago for the sole purpose of forcing him to take a vacation (he was a workaholic). Although I pay annual maintenance fees, it all comes out pretty cheap, as I stay in very nice places that I could never afford. Fully equipped kitchens have had the boys and me eating breakfast, lunch, and most dinners in, and free bikes have been included in many of the places we’ve stayed. From an elegant place overlooking the Gulf of Mexico in Key West, to a full-fledged resort at Disney World to a cabin in the woods in Wisconsin and places in between, we traveled pretty well for little money.
I love your idea on the sandwich baggie–packing with the napkin and writing names on it! Great tip!
We do tons of day trips here! Even though we grew up in this are we are always reading up and finding new things that are 1-2 ours from our backyard!
Great tips! Another plus to packing your own lunch for the road means the kids can kick around a soccer ball or play tag during lunch.
Wow, great tips! Just in time for our trip next month.
I’m definitely going to have to come back and make sure I take advantage of some of these. 