We just spent 7 days vacationing in Northern Michigan, and it was FANTASTIC.
Over the course of those days, we spent just under $800. To some, this seems like a crazy amount of money, but if we really consider seven days for four people, I’d say we worked pretty hard to stay on the lower side of vacation spending! I thought I would share how we worked to keep our budget so low for our family vacation, and what we have learned for next year’s vacation, too!
Here is our budget break-down for our family of four on an 8 day vacation. Really, we spent four days staying for free with my in-laws, and most of these costs were racked up in four days:
$95 groceries (this was for the entire 8 days breakfast, lunch and most dinners except for eating out- see below)
$45 gas (Southern Ohio to Northern Michigan)
$52 ferry ride to Mackinaw Island
$48 lunch on Mackinaw Island
$35 bike rental on Mackinaw Island
$8.50 fudge on Mackinaw Island
$1.65 water purchased on island
$29.25 dinner
$39 camping spot
$5 firewood
$35 brunch
$30 gas
$216 hotel in Traverse City
$5 ice cream
$28 food trucks for dinner
$50 tubing
$10 lunch/sandwhich food
$20 park pass parking
$30 gas
$15 dinner
Totals:
Gas: $105
Food: $275.40
Lodging: $255
Outings/Entertainment: $162
Total: $797.40
- Budget BEFORE vacation. When Theo started his job a year ago, we agreed to put a portion of our “savings” into a “vacation” fund. Each month, Theo put some money aside for our family vacation. As vacation approached, we evaluated how much money we had in our account and planned accordingly. We knew we couldn’t afford to fly anywhere, and we knew we couldn’t afford to pay lodging for more than three nights. Based on this knowledge, we narrowed our vacation down to a place within driving distance, and hopefully one where we could secure some free lodging for a few nights.
- Use Cash. This could be controversial, because no one really wants to carry a wad of cash around touristy places while everyone is out of their routine. I get it. BUT, if you really want money saving tips…cash is one of the best ones out there. Since we knew our budget, we took all the money out of our account in cash. The money we spent came only from this budget. It helped for sure for us to stay on the budget and not just spend here and there and here and then say that was for “household” or “grocery”. Any money we spent during our vacation came out of our vacation fund. Cash is so helpful because it allows you to SEE how much you really have left and how much you are spending on each thing. It can be a helpful tool to show kids, too.
- Forego “Comfort” Lodging My ideal vacation would be to sit in a hotel room, watching the multi-channel TV, then making my way to the resort-like activities, food and drink located around the hotel. Well. That’s not going to happen on our budget. Maybe one day we can save enough money to do that, but today is just not that day. The area of vacation spending that Theo and I really love to cut down on is lodging. We try to stay with people we know in the area (and plan our vacations around people we know LOL) or stay in cheaper locations like Airbnb. This time, we planned our vacation to Michigan because we knew that we could stay at my in-laws cabin. Next year we would like to try to go to a different state and perhaps we will find a state that has a friend we can visit on the way or while we are there. It also helps to pick a destination and then stay on the outskirts. For example, a beach trip is fantastic, but staying in a hotel on the beach is automatically going to cost twice as much. Going to a destination city like Houston or Chicago is fantastic, but getting a hotel on the outskirts of the city is going to be so much cheaper. YES, it makes it more inconvenient, but again…if we really want to save money, that is the way to go! Camping is always cheap and it’s not too difficult to make it happen comfortably! But that’s a different post for a different time!
- Buy Groceries. One MUST for us on vacation is having a kitchen or at least a kitchenette type thing (small fridge, and at least one stove burner). When we arrive to our vacation destination, I make a menu plan for the days/week, and then hit up a grocery store. We have agreed to eat out no more than one meal a day on vacation, and the rest is food at home base. This food doesn’t have to be fancy, and we even agreed to splurge a bit more on grocery items (special cereal for breakfast, nice ice cream, easy meals that are frozen or boxed). This trick saves SO MUCH money.
- Choose Experiences. We LOVE the experiences of vacation. We would gladly forego hotel lodging and camp if it means getting to do the bike riding, horse riding, tubing, exploring and zip lining that costs money. Because we love this type of thing so much, that is where we focus on spending most of our vacation money. However, we still can’t do it all. So before leaving for vacation, we picked our top experience wishes. Theo really wanted to do the bike riding around Mackinaw Island and I really wanted to do the tubing down the river. We were able to do both those things but that meant not going horse back riding, visiting the butterfly house or paying for a tour of the island. And we all agreed that was just fine! One day maybe we will have a child who LOVES butterflies and we would much more enjoy the butterfly house over riding bikes. Maybe one day we will have a million dollars and be able to do it all, but when that day comes I probably won’t be writing blog posts like these sooooooo. Yeah.
- Avoid Shopping. Vacation is often a time for us to kick back, relax and do whatever we please. Too often, we take leisurely shopping trips and pick up many trinkets from our travels. Of course, it might be necessary to pick up some baby Tylenol or buy a new pack of undies or a forgotten dress shirt/belt for the wedding/church outfit. But one thing that works really well for us is that we do NO spending outside of food, gas, lodging and outings/experiences. I don’t shop boutiques or bookstores and this really helps to keep our budget down!
Some may say that the only way we kept our budget so low was by staying at my in-laws cabin, and this would be 100% TRUE. Sure, not everyone has in-laws with a cabin, but we all know people who live all over the place who would gladly open their homes to us (Hi! if you want to come to stay in Ohio!). We could have easily chosen a destination that did not involve a free cabin, and that would have made it more expensive, but this year we specifically planned the trip around that lodging.
Friends living on a budget, what are your favorite ways to keep costs down for your family vacations?