Frugal Vacations

So, we've been away from home almost a week now and so far we've spent very little cash. How did that happen?

First of all we brought most of our food. As most families who vacation at all know it's cheaper to bring your own food as long as the food isn't going to go bad. The first place we stayed on the first leg of our trip had a full kitchen so we knew we could cook. They also provided our breakfast as part of our costs. [More on this in another post.]

We did have a couple of stops on the trip down for meals and we had to buy gas and there was a trip to the grocery. I did have some coupons to use at the grocery. Some of them I brought with me and some were from the free booklets that the hotel had in the lobby. Never underestimate the power of those free brochures!

But it's not just food that we brought. We brought DVDs for the girls to watch and we spend the rest of our time enjoying the beach, pool, and other stuff around the island that are free. We brought their snacks. I packed laundry detergent and dishwasher detergent and a dishwashing detergent sample I'd gotten in the mail. I know we'll want to go out and enjoy a meal later but we want it to be when we WANT to not when we need to because we just don't have anything in the room to eat.

And there you go. It's not rocket science but by rolling together a lot of Cool Ideas going away on vacation can be done without spending a lot of money. We'll explore some more ideas over the next few days so stick around!