Keeping Spending in Check on Vacation

[LuvMyHubby]

Peanut..I'm glad you and DH made it home safely, beautiful scenic pics and great pics of all of your stuff.

I loved your descriptions of your days.........almost like going on vacation with you.

[peanut]

Thanks LuvMyHubby. I'm waiting for DH to enter all receipts in Quicken to determine how much we spent. But that may take awhile, what with having to wait for CC statements. I might just have to do some tallying myself...

[mauimagic]

Okay Peanut - we'll take your tallying figures!! Curious minds want to know!!

[jas]

Peanut thanks for the trip details. The pictures were great. I am sure you had great time, I know I did.

[peanut]

Well we had a great time alright! The breakdown for our 3 week vacation is...

$1649.72 air fare
$1082.94 car rental + taxi to and from airport
$411.68 gas for car
$1018.42 food and dining at restaurants
$1704.52 accommodations
$1308.83 STUFF!
$7,176.11

Okay, that sucked the wind out of my sails! That is NOT a frugal vacation. Lessons learned?

~ We are not taking such a long vacation again.
~ We are talking about driving the car down next time we go.
~ STUFF has to be reigned in. I did buy artwork this time, and over $800 worth of rug hooking/quilting supplies. A lot of the hobby stuff was paid back from my dividend money. But not all.
~ Food and dining are not bad considering we were feeding 4 or more people at several meals, and eating out a fair bit. We would normally spend about $400/mth. on groceries, and food in the Maritimes is much more expensive. Still, I think this is an area we could improve on. If we took the car the next time we went, we could take a cooler of food with us too, and that would help tremendously. Course we borrowed one this trip and it didn't help much. It gave us lunch for free for the most part. Breakfasts were often provided. It's the dinners out that killed us.

So definitely not the frugal way to go, but I think it was definitely a once in a lifetime experience for us. It was nice to see the kids and have a good visit.

However, compared to our last big trip down east two years ago...

~ air fare is up
~ accommodation is down
~ car rental is down
~ gas is up (but we saw more people)
~ dining and food are down
~ stuff is up

[Libby]

Yesterday's costs...

? cinnamon buns
$4 Jourimain Nature Preserve
$5 Covered Bridge potato chips (niece insisted they were the best and she is traveling with us)
$128 painting and cards at Victoria-by-the-sea
$10 lemon curd (gift)
$22 chocolate bark (gifts)
$167

I KNEW it was you who mentioned these chips! My sister and I were out at the health food/organic grocery store last week - ma & pa local chain here and well...when I saw these chips I couldn't remember where I had heard of them. They were a bit pricey but that was expected due to the type of store I was in. I picked out the Creamy Dill and finally got around to opening them last week. HOLY. CRAP. Those are some mighty fine and dilly kettle chips! I'm going to have to agree with your niece...those ARE the best kettle chips I've ever had - even vs freshly made! Worth every penny. Just thought I'd share and thank you for the mention!

[peanut]

Glad you enjoyed them Libby. I had them a couple times on the trip, even though they are like TOTALLY off my diet. Still, as a once-a-year treat, I think I'll survive.