Hey y’all! I’m sharing some of our best ways to save money for family trips!
Oh, the power of a penny! In 2007 our family took our first official family of 4 trip. It was the beginning of August and school was about to start back in a week and I had watched (on Facebook) many of my friends go on vacations over the summer, but not us. My daughter had just been born in May and we had stayed home all summer, which I loved, but then with only one week until I had to go back to work teaching first grade, I was ready to go somewhere. Anywhere!
We ended up taking a three day trip to Amarillo! It was the farthest we could get in a day’s time from Houston. With a newborn baby, we stopped probably every two hours and it took us 12 hours, but we made it. We visited Palo Duro Canyon, Cadillac Ranch, The Big Texan, Wonderland Amusement Park, and the American Quarter Horse Museum. It was only a three-day vacation, but we were bitten by the traveling bug and we were hooked!
After that first trip, we knew we wanted to travel more, at least once a year. So our original plan when we came back from Amarillo in 2007 was to save money each year to take a family trip during the summer. I’m glad to report that we have successfully taken a family trip each year since 2007. On a teacher’s and construction worker’s salary it hasn’t always been easy. We’ve had to make some budget cuts here and there, but it’s always been worth the adjustments to take the family trip and make the memories.
$5 bills
Our original travel fund plan was to save every $5 bill that touched our hands. This is an extremely useful way to get cash set aside for your trip. But of course, you have to use cash to make purchases and get cash back in order to have $5 bills land in your hand. Some of our friends know about our $5 bill policy and will purposefully pay us for random things with $5 bills. Thank you, friends! I also love when we get cash back at the grocery store and our $20 ends up being all $5 bills! You will be amazed and so happy to see how quickly the $5 bills add up.
Change Jar
It’s a classic for a reason. We’ve had a change jar since we were first married. We found ours at Pier One. It’s tall, slender, and curvy. I love the way coins sound as they fall into our change jar. They bounce off the glass curves and clink and plink on their way down. We throw all of our coins in the change jar and when it’s time to start booking for a family trip we dump it out and roll the coins. It’s a family event! Let me tell you that those quarters and dimes add up quickly! This is probably our favorite way to save money for family trips!
Eat at Home
I know you’ve heard it before, but it bears repeating. You can save a lot of money eating at home versus eating out. A typical fast food meal for our family of four at our favorite place costs us about $28. For the same amount of money and a little effort, everyone in our family can have a 12 oz New York Strip with a salad and vegetables.
If fast food and a steak dinner cost the same then anything that you cook at home that’s not as “fancy” as a steak dinner will come out costing less money. For example, if you cooked burgers and a side at home for our family of four it comes out to about $12 for two pounds of ground beef and a bag of frozen fries.
Over time these little changes add up. We estimate that we save $25 a day eating at home versus eating out. That $25 difference between eating out and eating at home compounds into $2500 after 100 days, or about three months! That’s a solid family vacation!
Plan Ahead
Before you ever leave your house have an idea of what you want to do when you reach your destination. Is there a park you want to go to? How much does it cost or is it free? A restaurant you want to eat at? Estimate the cost for your family. Book your hotel room or campsite in advance. State parks, National Parks, and government lands are usually extremely good deals if you are trying to save some money and like to camp. We have stayed in many KOA camping cabins over the years and really enjoyed them! Use whatever loyalty programs you can find to help reduce the costs. Look ahead and see if there are things you can do for free or cheap where you are going. We love being outdoors in nature so we often choose to go to parks or other outdoor venues when we visit new places.
Let us know how you save money for family trips or which idea you’re going to try now!
Looking for more ways to save money? Check out this post on how to save money on your grocery bill!
