Family Travels on a Budget

Travel with kids: theme park family deals, cruise ships for kids and best cruise lines for teens and other cool places to visit, including adult getaways

5 tips to save money for vacation

by 23 Comments

As an Amazon affiliate, and affiliate with other businesses, I earn from qualifying purchases.

5 Tips to Save for Vacation #budget

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.
2. Involve the whole family in saving.
 
One family I know recently started saving for a dream vacation. Each member of the family has a vacation savings piggy bank. As their vacation draws close, they plan to pool their money to offset some of their vacation expenses. Our family, similarly, has a vacation bank: all our loose change, including the pennies my daughter finds in parking lots, goes into the bank. When it fills, we deposit the money into our vacation savings account. Over the course of a year, the change really adds up. For our Paris trip, those pennies, nickels and dimes totaled over $200.
When my sons were six and nine and we were saving for a trip to China, they added to the piggy bank by walking dogs, pulling weeds in neighbors’ gardens, and washing cars. They invested in the trip and saved more than $600 toward it. Parents can use their tax refund to help, too. In fact, a tax refund estimator can help determine how much of your refund can go toward vacation planning.
3. Adjust the thermostat.
 
Adjusting the thermostat can save hundreds of dollars each year. Every degree the thermostat is lowered in winter or raised in summer saves 1% on fuel costs. For a heating/cooling bill of $100/month, that’s a dollar saved. Adjust the temperature by two or three degrees and really notice the savings. We installed adjustable thermostats. In the summer, we set our a/c at 73 degrees at night for better sleeping, but raise it to 76 during the day. In the winter, we set the heat at 62 degrees at night and raise it to 68 during the day. Our bill has dropped by more than 20% with these adjustments.
4. Save on groceries.
 
I’m not talking hard-core couponing, though if you’re up to the challenge, you can really save big! Shop smart, though, and you can still save a bundle. Plan menus according to what stores have on sale and stock up on meats, canned goods, peanut butter and breakfast cereal. If your favorite store matches competitor prices or coupons, be prepared to take those along. Put grocery savings (printed at the bottom of the receipt) into the vacation fund as a reward for savvy shopping!
5. Staycation.
 
Saving for a big vacation might mean a couple years without a “real” vacation. Living close to the beach and the mountains, we take advantage of both while saving. Day trips to either location provide a break from the routine without breaking the bank. The money saved in vacation “off” years is set aside for the big trip. The key to staycation success is thinking outside the box! Don’t go places you know well, but discover what else is out there: schedule a tour, take a cooking class, go rock climbing. Make it fun!
Working together toward an exciting vacation goal, the whole family will look forward to vacation and appreciate it more. The kids will learn valuable budgeting skills with an excellent reward. AND, you won’t come home with an enormous credit card bill to pay off. Everyone wins when the family works together to save for vacation!
Happy travels!
Please keep in touch. Our FACEBOOK community is active, and a great place to ask questions. On TWITTER, I share great content from destinations around the world. Follow our adventures on INSTAGRAM — we love to answer questions during trips. And, we’re on PINTEREST saving all sorts of great content from around the web.

Comments

  1. mamawolfe says

    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!

    Reply

  2. Courtney~Mommy LaDy Club says

    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.

    Reply

  3. Pamela R says

    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 =)

    Reply

  5. Theresa says

    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!

    Reply

    • Karen says

      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.

      Reply

  6. Kristl Story says

    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!

    Reply

    • Karen says

      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! 🙂

      Reply

  9. Evelyn says

    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!

    Reply

  10. Kristina says

    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 🙂

    Reply

  11. T. Lorraine F says

    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.

    Reply

  12. Mommy Roxi says

    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

    Reply

  15. Kathy Radigan says

    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!

    Reply

  17. Spilled Milkshake says

    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 🙂

    Reply

Trackbacks

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

**This site may contain affiliate links and sponsored posts for which I earn a small commission to help cover the costs of running a blog.**

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.