Saving money for vacation camping

[michigansandzil]

Those of you with a family, have you come up with any interesting ways to save up for your vacations?
I am starting to try to think of creative ways to save for all of the gas money that we will need next summer. Typically, I put aside a sum each month and that accumulates throughout the year to pay for our vacations. That might not work out this winter for us. So,I have all of our things from when the kids were babies and I just started selling off some of those items. Figure that trading in the highchair and swing is a reasonable idea to finance a trip to the Smokies next spring.

Don't really want to "wait" for next year either b/c we want to do the Smokies, then New York, then Yellowstone, etc. Ideally, we'd like to go every year for a vacation and I don't really see how waiting longer is going to get us more money anyway. There's always some expense that comes up. Kids will only have more expenses as far as clothing and activities goes. Then they will be off to college and we will be too broke even to camp! Might as well do it now and make those memories.

What do you guys do?

[hitchup]

The only way we took vacations when we had all 6 kids living at home was for me to go to work. First Part-time job and then I went Full-time.

We only took a big trip every other year. Just trying to find a 10-14 day stretch in summer we could both take off was the hardest part. We did West Coast Beach vacations, East Coast History (Gettysburg, Williamsburg), Disney World, Universal and packed a lot into those 10 days.

Packed bag lunches, homemade Pizza instead of Little Caesar's on Friday nights and the best advice mentioned already was $XXX cash for food each week. DH got his allowance out of it and all groceries, toiletries and kids allowances for their school activities. If I didn't use the full amount, it carried over into the Cash Vacation envelope.

Now it's just the two of us, we full-time and use Rewards CC's to help fund our extras.

Final piece of advice, we didn't send any of our kids to college, they found their own way to pay for it...

[Roy_Lynne]

I don't know how old your kids are but getting them into the game adds to the fun and teaches about savings. Even if you have a penny jar going.

Don't invest your money in market as it is really rigged against the little guy, and crashes every once in awhile to get rid of the riffraff and make the rich richer.

[dahkota]

Only use paper bills/money for purchases. At the end of the day, put all change in a jar.
If you use an atm/check card at the grocery, get $20 cash (or however much you saved buying stuff on sale). Put that in a drawer/box and don't touch it.
If you work, make lunch at home and put the $5-10 you would have spent in the drawer/box. Same goes for coffee in the mornings.

Just from the change jar, we save up over $400 per year.
From the grocery store, about $1500 per year.
From making lunch at home, $1000 per year.
If you save in small increments (pay yourself) it can add up quickly.

[relaxin]

I like my trips as "free" as possible or at least it feels like free.
-save bonus bucks or points on gas purchases and get a couple free tanks of fuel
- buy extra non perishable foods each grocery trip, cans and dry goods pop water, save them for the trip,,,, so a couple bucks extra each week, not noticeable.
- I use to empty my pocket of change into jars and use that for vacations, roll it and take to the bank, would be enough to pay for the camp site.
- if your financial situation does not allow you to easily pay for camping, use a skill you may have and do some od jobs on the weekends you are home,,, good 'ol cash, back in the day I could always make a few bucks here and there, and still could, but have enough work I already do 10+ hour days and work as much as 8 days a week when its busy
cutting grass for someone who can't can net you an extra 20 to 40 dollars a week, have a rototiller?? do a couple gardens in the spring,theres a couple hundred bucks,,,, got a snow blower, do a couple driveways and put the money in a jar. do some hobby stuff,,, if its good enough, sell it online.
up here car detailing can cost up to $75 bucks ,,, not bad for a saterday afternoon

theres always a way to bring in a little extra, its just a matter of finding it, it may be more or less than you make working but even if its less its still something more than you had without it. I know of an adult who has a paper route on top of his full time job, he looks at it as he goes for a walk every day which is a healthy thing to do, and he gets paid, not much but better than not having it.

[loulou57]

Supercharged wrote:
I started on this in 1962 when I first started workout west. I invested well as I made more money I invested more, and more, and then came along inflation, so I used it to reinvest and reinvest until I had two incomes and then three and to five and then ten. So when we want to go on a vacation I just open up the vault and take out a bushel at a time and spend it.

You did it right, I hope your children watched and listened.

The sad thing, today for young families and older ones having to start over, filling that bushel and getting a good price for the corn is a lot harder. Job losses, unstable economies etc has made it a struggle to save for anything.
Also, we have become a "want it now so we'll have it now" society. A lot of people have gotten caught up in the easy credit given out and then through no fault of their own lost a job and are struggling.
Our vault is an envelope. It gets a weekly deposit.

[Supercharged]

I started on this in 1962 when I first started workout west. I invested well as I made more money I invested more, and more, and then came along inflation, so I used it to reinvest and reinvest until I had two incomes and then three and to five and then ten. So when we want to go on a vacation I just open up the vault and take out a bushel at a time and spend it.

[c3saving]

We have to set the money aside. We did one big trip to Orlando this year. Big expense!!! But well worth it. The budget was tight for the remaining portion of the summer, because I did not have an envelope set aside during the year. Every other year that's what we did. I fell over the envelope wagon, but am back on now.