Recently my husband and I went on another road trip. We drove about 5000 kilometers over the course of 8 days, spending time with friends and camping. We are usually really good about sticking within a tight vacation budget,, however, on this trip we were more careless with how we spent our money. And, as a result, our vacation ended up costing more than we anticipated.
Usually most of our meals are cooked on our little Coleman stove at a picnic area or campsite. On this trip, however, we stayed with friends for the majority of our trip, and due to rainy weather, we found ourselves eating out a lot more than usual. Also, because we had fewer days of travelling time, we found it saved us time if we just ate out rather than stopping somewhere to buy food and then prepare it, clean up, etc.
Unfortunately, after adding up all of the costs, we discovered that about 35% of our vacation costs were from eating out. The rest included fuel, camping fees, and groceries. We could have spent a whole lot less if we had made different choices. I am a firm believer that even when on vacation, we should be smart with our money, and eating out too frequently just doesn’t make any financial sense.
So, learn from our mistake. If you want your vacation money to be stretched further, be creative with your meals by buying different kinds of foods from grocery stores and preparing meals yourself whenever possible. This has saved us a lot of money in the past, allowing us to take more vacations without having to forfeit our other savings goals such as retirement, emergency funds, and more long term travel plans in the future.
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