Some ideas for inexpensive vacations

I want to travel more, but with my savings and debt reduction goals, vacations are something that tend to fall by the wayside. A couple of months ago, though, I was talking to my mom's best friend and she said something that made me rethink my view. She said to me, "We've eaten sandwiches out of the back of our van in some of the most beautiful places in the country."

As she said this, I realized that of course there are ways to take inexpensive vacations, I just need to rethink my idea of vacations. Not every trip needs to be a cruise to the Bahamas, or a month long Paris excursion. Often the most meaningful vacations are ones where we explore what different places have to offer.

Take shorter trips

One of the best ways to make your vacations less expensive is to make them shorter. In the past year, rather than blowing all our money on a two week trip, my husband and I have been taking long weekends to cities that are within driving range. The long weekend breaks up the season and gives you enough time to see what most cities have to offer. Also, finding places we can drive to saves us a lot of money on airfare and helps keep our plans more flexible: we can come and go on our own timetable, not the airline's.

Visit friends and family

We're very fortunate that we have friends all over the country now who would love to have us stay. Often my husband and his grad school friends will piggyback a visit onto the beginning or end of a conference or other business travel. Since the airfare is paid for by the work part of the trip, and the housing is free since they stay with us (or he with them), these are very inexpensive vacations indeed. It's also much more positive and fun than visiting a random city where we don't know anyone.

Find the best deal

When we do fly (generally to visit our families), we always shop around to find the best deal. For flights, I usually check Expedia and Travelocity first to see who has the best deal. Before I book, though, I always check the airline's own webpage to see if they have a better rate. Continental, for example, guarantees that their own website will always have the best deals on their flights. Plus, many airlines offer bonuses, in the form of miles, points, or freebies, if you book through their websites.

If I do find the best deal through a portal, though, I always try to click through a rebate site, like ebates.com or upromise.com before I book the travel, to make sure that I maximize my rewards.

Sign up and accumulate points

I belong to just about every hotel, airline, and even train membership that's out there. Since I always fly the cheapest flight I can get, regardless of airline, I like to have all of my flyer numbers handy when I'm booking so that I can be sure that I'm being rewarded for all my travel. Some hotel memberships even have added benefits: when we signed up for the Holiday Inn club, we got a free upgrade; my husband's Omni membership entitles him to a free newspaper, morning beverage and wireless Internet.

I also use programs like E-rewards and E-miles to accumulate a few extra points here and there. The best resource I've ever found for free points is Free Frequent Flyer Miles, which lists a variety of ways to earn, transfer and use points. It's upgraded pretty regularly and is incredibly detailed and easy to understand.

Recovering from my vacation

So, the day after fall semester ended, hubby and I got on a plane to visit our families. The day before spring semester started we got back. While my Christmas was lovely (more on that another time, if I think of it), I feel like I've spent this past week recovering from my vacation.

Some personal finance/frugality related stuff I've done to get back in the swing:

1. Sorted through my mail. We got a couple of bills while we were gone and had them both paid the second we got back. There's a lot of comfort and security in knowing you have enough money to pay things when they come, not when the paycheck comes.

2. Made a budget. New year, new budget. Hubby and I sat down together and made a template for how much we were willing to spend in each category. We've already spend half of our January budget for eating out, but that as they say is a story for another day.

3. Grocery shopped. Our freezer and fridge were bare, so we had to go out and do a major stocking up trip. It was not our most frugal day.

4. Cooked. We spent today batch cooking, a task I really don't enjoy but which I do appreciate once it's done. We froze 10 waffles, 8 hamburgers, 4 containers of chili and 6 containers of spaghetti sauce. Not only does it save me time and splurges for weeknight meal prep, it allows us to buy things like canned tomatoes and ground beef in bulk, so that they are at least a little bit cheaper.

I'm finally beginning to feel like I'm caught back up with my life, but I'm exhausted. Man can I use a vacation.

Happy New Year

May your new year be filled with prosperity, good fortune, love, and most of all peace and happiness.

Financial Escape Plan

As I've said before, I really do love my job. Despite that, though, I have days when it's hard, when it feels like it's just too much, when it's emotionally draining and exhausting and just takes so much out of me. There are things I would like to do, creative things and fun things and domestic things, that at the end of the day I just don't feel capable of doing.

These are the days when I start plotting my escape.

I know that at this point in my life it makes no sense to quit my job. I'm in a lot of debt, my husband is still in school, and honestly if I quit my job I would have very little to make me feel fulfilled. But sometimes it's nice to fantasize about all the things that I could do if I didn't work full time.

So on those evenings I devise a financial escape plan. I sit down with a notepad, a calculator, or sometimes a spreadsheet, and I figure out exactly how much money I would need to survive for one month. I figure out ways I could generate extra income, through part time work and ventures, and I try to make those things as close as possible. Then I figure out how much more money I would need to spend a few blissful jobless months and how long it would take me to save up that much money.

What do I take away from these exercises? Well, besides a strange nerdy kind of satisfaction and sense of calm, I do develop a greater understanding of some truths about my financial situation. For one, I will never come close to financial freedom until I can knock out all the debt, so that is a serious priority. Also, when I can see a goal, like 2 months with nothing to do but bake banana bread, do yoga, and sleep late, my idea of how much money I can cut on entertainment changes significantly. And finally, that the better job I can do at generating alternate income, the easier it will be for me to eventually switch to part time work.

Of course this is a long way off, but for now, a girl can dream.

Fun and inexpensive christmas gifts

In my quest for a frugal Christmas, I thought I'd share some inexpensive Christmas gifts that I've given over the years.

A home manual

When one of my college roommates moved into her first apartment, I put together an instruction manual for her on how to live on her own. It was basically a binder in which I put favorite recipes, cleaning checklists, shopping lists, money saving tips, and other assorted tips that I'd written. I decorated the front, and I taped a Bed, Bath and Beyond giftcard to the inside of the back cover. If I were doing this again, I might also include a coupon envelope and some other assorted knickknacks to help her get started. It was a very inexpensive Christmas gift for me because the only thing that cost was the giftcard, and I think I got that from a rewards program. It was really useful for her, though, and I think she still uses and adds to it herself.

A stress relief bag

A few Christmas ago, I put together a "stress relief" bag for my best friend for Christmas. It contained two boxes of herbal tea (from the grocey store, purchased for next to nothing), 50 cent marble notebooks in 3 different colors, a coloring book (from the clearance table at Borders) and 8 pack box of crayons, a small bottle of bubble bath and various little toys and balls. Most of the things in this bag, besides being useful, were appreciated because they had meaning for the two of us rather than because of how much they cost.

A love journal

The year my husband and I were engaged, I gave him a journal in which I'd written to him every day for several months. I had also glued in things like the stubs from movies we'd seen and pictures of what we'd done. He still keeps it next to his bed.

Pleas share any ideas you may have for inexpensive Christmas gifts which are also extremely meaningful.