How to Save for a Vacation

A few posts ago I talked about my favorite personal finance books.  One of those books, Get Your Sh*t Together by Sarah Knight, has a chapter about how the author saved enough money every day so she could quit her job comfortably.  If you are considering a career move, I highly recommend picking up a copy of this book.  However, this method can be used for anything!  I like to save for vacations this way.  The first time my husband and I went to Maui, we used this method and didn’t feel like we were paying anything off when we got home.

Here’s how we saved for a vacation to Maui without breaking the bank.

We took our time planning for our vacation and set a date 9 months in the future.  Then, we added up the cost of flights, meals, activities, rental cars, and hotels and came up with a grand total.  We divided the cost of the trip by 9 months (270 days) and transferred that amount from our checking to our savings every. single. day. until the trip!  It might seem tedious but it actually gave us a sense of accomplishment when we made the transfer every day.  It kept us on task and helped us feel financially responsible.  We even overestimated and ended up spending a little less on the trip and then had some savings left over!

Here are some other ways to save:

Rental Cars
Maui is not an especially walkable vacation destination, so unless you are planning to sit on the beach all day a rental car may be a good idea.  Wherever you vacation, I would suggest getting your rental car away from the airport and closer to your destination if available.  The prices are much cheaper and the line is much shorter.  Don’t forget to factor in the cost of taking a taxi from the airport to the car rental!

Points
If you have points from using your credit card or hotel rewards, this is the time to use them.  We paid for our entire hotel stay using points we had just been accumulating.  If you are vacationing in an especially expensive location, I would recommend using points here versus paying out of pocket.

Pack a Lunch
Don’t eat every single meal at a restaurant!  While it’s fun and important to support the local restaurant business at your destination, try to cook a few meals yourself!  If you’re staying somewhere with a barbeque or stove setup, take advantage of it.  Or, pick a meal that you can always eat at the hotel or pack with you.  When we went to Maui, we found that we didn’t really need lunch out at a restaurant.  Snacks that we picked up at the grocery store (sandwiches, granola bars, spam musubi, etc.) in Maui and brought with us on our adventures were plenty to tide us over until dinner.

I encourage you to try out this method of saving for your next trip.  I can’t wait to hear how it goes for you!