Photo Credit: “Riches”, © 2013 Sheila Sund, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio
When our son asked us to consider a family trip to Paris as his graduation gift, I sensed a “NO WAY!” rising to my lips. Since he asked midway through his junior year, though, I decided to take the challenge. Paris for five, a trip that normally costs upward of $12,000. Could we save enough to make it happen? We did! Here’s how.
5 tips to save $ for vacation
1. Cut unnecessary expenses.
You may have heard it before, but it bears repeating. A daily trip to Starbucks averages about $6.36. Get Starbucks twice a week for the 50 weeks each year (2 weeks vacation) and hat works out to be $6.36 X 100 = $636 spent. Skip Starbucks for a year, and voila! Your vacation savings plan is started. Similarly, the average family of four spends almost $3,000 per year on restaurant dining, which works out to about $62.50/week. Eat out only every other week and add $1500 to your vacation savings. See how quickly it adds up?
Get creative! What can your family cut?
- Cable. The average cost of cable is $1000/year.
- Gas. Consolidate errands and grocery shopping to spend less each week.
- Dining out at work. The average employee spends $37.50/week or $1862.00/year.
Where does your son live? We're in NC, just east of Raleigh. 🙂
those are some great tips.
These are some really great tips – and handy, too, since we're saving up for a trip to see my son in North Carolina.
I'm going to adjust my thermostat right now. I also REALLY need to get rid of cable. All we ever watch is Netflix. That would be a huge savings right there.
Thanks for the great reminders on how I can save towards my trip 🙂
These are great tips. We are masters of the thermostat! 🙂
As always you have such great and really practical tips! We have been doing the staycation thing for a few years now, for a variety of reasons and I have to say it never fails to entertain us! So often we never get a chance to be a tourist in our own towns!! I love the idea of making the saving a family affair too! Thanks again!
I love the community piggy bank idea! I bet that's exciting for the kids too.
I REALLY need to adjust my thermostat. I “sensed a no way” when reading your settings/savings.
As a family on a tight budget, we often do staycations. Especially since having a child. Even though I'd want to have a vacation or some sort of honeymoon getaway with DH, I can't even imagine going away for more than a day from my son! My attachment to him is enough of a budget setter. :p
Those are fabulous ideas. Our teenager son saves plastic bottles and helps his grandmother with odd jobs to save money. Plus we have always saved our change for the end of the year for Christmas. I like the idea of allocating those funds towards family vacations.
I think a family vacation is a wonderful graduation gift!
I have a friend who lets her (4) kids choose somewhere to go as a family when they graduate from high school or college. They've been to so many places, including other islands here in Hawaii, Australia and Europe. And recently, she just returned from Turkey – the place chosen by her son who had just graduated with his bachelor's degree.
Enjoy your trip to Paris!
Kristina 🙂
Amazing how the pennies can add up. Super great tips to save for not only a dream vacation but other great dreams in your life:)
Thank you so very much for sharing at Freedom Fridays.
Have a super great day!
These are some great tips that I definitely needed! I’m going to pin this for future reference for a vacation hopefully next year. 🙂 Thanks!
Thanks for pinning this post! I’m glad it’s helpful. Where do you plan to go?
We live close to a beach and since Rowan was born, Staycations have been our favorite! Love these tips! Thanks.
Kudos for a great list! You’ve made The Budget Diet girl proud! Cutting out not just Starbucks but all trips to a drive-thru can really add up! I worked with a client that added up every single trip to the drive thru for a month, and it totaled $600! She was shocked…in her mind it was just a Starbucks in the morning, a quick lunch, snack for the kids after school!
I appreciate your enthusiasm! I’m amazed that people are surprised at how impulse spending and habits add up. The actual cost for a home cooked meal for five is anywhere from $6-$20 for the average meal, but the cost in a restaurant (even fast food), quickly escalates to $30-$50 or more. We eat in so we can travel! 🙂
Great tips! I know all about that last one. We have went the past few summers without a “real” vacation, trying to save for Disney. Hopefully it will all be worth it once we get there in November!
Theresa, Have you seen our Disney planning guides? Type “Disney” in the search box for budgeting advice and itinerary tips for each of the Disney parks. I hope that helps you get the most from your budget and enjoy your vacation with less stress!
Soon we’ll have a Disney page, but that’s not quite ready for public viewing yet! 🙂
Happy travels.
Those are great money saving tips. We too save up for a holiday. This year we are trying to get the kids to help and save up for next yrs trip to Japan.
we’ve been doing the staycations for the past two years-mostly do to job loss, I’m lucky if we get to starbucks twice a year much less twice a week =}
I do like the looses change ideal –I think the tips are handy vacation or NOT =)
Cable is outrageous for the channels you never watch! I recently cut our phone bill down quite a bit by getting rid of all of those extras on it. The taxes are as much as your bill though, so you shave it down, but can’t get rid of the biggest cost on it.
Great ideas as always, Karen. I especially like involving the kids. We’re a very frugal family with many things, but spend on travel and education. Our kids are turning out to be great shoppers and savers!