Affordable vacation strategy
What are your tricks? I just looked at the internet for any new ideas I haven't yet considered and it didn't yield much new useful info. I'm just looking for any new ideas I haven't yet conside...
Forum Discussion
Don't trip over the dollars trying to save the pennies I agree with but to risk totally blowing your budget, very little is worth that post holiday blues time. Our most precious memories are the things that made us laugh not the huge priced admissions/expensive foods as a family on a very tight budget years ago. I hear and see way too many people trying to pay off the previous credit card vacation or Christmas bills. To us it's not worth it, and for the parents puts a huge dampner on the whole trip after the fact trying to play catch up and high interest rates.. Yes we may have spent an extra 10% or 15% over our budget on occasion but certainly not doubled or tripled it, so I hear you watching your budget. Equally, if it's a one off unlikely ever to experience again thing you really want to do that the memories will stay with you and your children forever then an extra couple hundred bucks here or there once or twice on the trip I would likely concede with for our family in the past. Ironically though when we overspent in one area we scrimped a little more in another to balance out.
As for packed lunches and it being August = pick up those light insulated small bags in Walmart/dollar stores and freeze two water bottles per child to keep the insulation and cooling longer in them with a premade at home roll, fruit snack, bag of chips and have each child carry their own. We even use the plastic empty washed out deli meat containers to pack up each persons lunches. They will stay well cool till around midday to 1pm typically if not left open, and water bottles can be refilled at the fountains during the day.
If you can handle an early heavy breakfast even better and pack some trail mix, piece of fruit, and two frozen bottles of water each without the insulated collapsable bags (we prefer to always use insulated bags personally and they do work for us in the summer months).
When our kids were younger and we did Disney/Universal and other major theme parks, we always brought a few snacks and frozen waters with us - our treat between 2 adults and 2 children were one of those dinosauric size turkey legs between the four of us and my favourite a funnel cake fully loaded with fruit and cream. One of each of those between us all we found ample and a great treat.
Sounds like you'll be having an absolute blast - don't forget to pack some outdoor games to do and some indoor card/board games just in case = keeps the cost down. We found $20 in the dollar store gets us a net of 10 outdoor games (bats, balls, plastic horse shoes, bean bag game etc), a couple blow up pool toys, beach ball, and couple dollar games/jigsaw in case it rained.
We just got in from a week's cruise yesterday,which whilst on many boasted about their free cruises, free drink tickets, onboard credits and we felt totally ripped off having paid close to $1400 for a teeny balcony statesroom you couldn't open the door onto as the chairs blocked it. As time went on it turned out that these various folks had lost $3,000 to $6,000 in the casino on previous trips. The cards monitored how much gambling and drinking and consuming they spent on the ship, hence why they were offered these so called freebies. Good for you for sticking to a budget OP, it was refreshing to read your post today.
Have a fabulous vacation and fun planning it all.
As for packed lunches and it being August = pick up those light insulated small bags in Walmart/dollar stores and freeze two water bottles per child to keep the insulation and cooling longer in them with a premade at home roll, fruit snack, bag of chips and have each child carry their own. We even use the plastic empty washed out deli meat containers to pack up each persons lunches. They will stay well cool till around midday to 1pm typically if not left open, and water bottles can be refilled at the fountains during the day.
If you can handle an early heavy breakfast even better and pack some trail mix, piece of fruit, and two frozen bottles of water each without the insulated collapsable bags (we prefer to always use insulated bags personally and they do work for us in the summer months).
When our kids were younger and we did Disney/Universal and other major theme parks, we always brought a few snacks and frozen waters with us - our treat between 2 adults and 2 children were one of those dinosauric size turkey legs between the four of us and my favourite a funnel cake fully loaded with fruit and cream. One of each of those between us all we found ample and a great treat.
Sounds like you'll be having an absolute blast - don't forget to pack some outdoor games to do and some indoor card/board games just in case = keeps the cost down. We found $20 in the dollar store gets us a net of 10 outdoor games (bats, balls, plastic horse shoes, bean bag game etc), a couple blow up pool toys, beach ball, and couple dollar games/jigsaw in case it rained.
We just got in from a week's cruise yesterday,which whilst on many boasted about their free cruises, free drink tickets, onboard credits and we felt totally ripped off having paid close to $1400 for a teeny balcony statesroom you couldn't open the door onto as the chairs blocked it. As time went on it turned out that these various folks had lost $3,000 to $6,000 in the casino on previous trips. The cards monitored how much gambling and drinking and consuming they spent on the ship, hence why they were offered these so called freebies. Good for you for sticking to a budget OP, it was refreshing to read your post today.
Have a fabulous vacation and fun planning it all.
