Now I remember why I don't go on vacay!

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-05-2006
Now I remember why I don't go on vacay!
3
Sat, 07-18-2009 - 10:20pm
It doesn't matter what you do, every vacation is expensive! We haven't been on a "vacation" in 3 years since we splurged drastically on a trip to Disney World because friends of ours were going and we were just stupid in thinking we could afford it. So we stopped being stupid and didn't even think of anything vacation-like for 3 whole years! So this summer, we are finally caught up on some bills and feeling good and we find out that there's this lake house a friend of ours owns. She never uses it so I tell her that we would love to use it and bang...here we are going to Maine for a week. I thought it would be simple, that all we'd need is some grocery money which we'd spend at home anyway and a few other things, but here we are probably $300 dollars later (I haven't even kept track...well, that's not true. I have kept track, but I haven't actually looked at the total yet!) There was the wal-mart trip where we needed this and we needed that, sunscreen, bugspray, deoderant, diapers, wipes, swim diapers, cheap little snorkels for the kids, etc. That was a $115 dollar walmart trip! Eek! Then there was the $50 dollars in bathing suits and the $30 dollars for getting my camera fixed so we could actually document our vacation etc, etc. So now we're almost ready to go, I have everything packed and I'm thinking that we're going to have to spend probably $50 dollars in gas, and at least $100 in groceries. I'm looking at a $500 dollar vacation here and although as far as vacations go, that is a pittance. For us it is a lot! And I didn't plan on spending this much. The lake house was free for pete's sake! And I borrowed and begged for most everything else! I got a free life-jacket from free-cycle. We're borrowing a sun umbrella and swim shoes from DH's parents. I really tried my hardest, but I guess I have to try harder. Wish me luck on our grocery trip. I'm going to try to make it the cheapest I can! And if we do go on vacation next year, I'm going to plan better!

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-14-2008
Sun, 07-19-2009 - 4:19pm

$500 for a vacation for a family of 5 for a week? You did good Abby!


iVillage Member
Registered: 04-12-2007
Sun, 07-19-2009 - 6:29pm

I agree with the PP - I think you did good on what you spent.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-05-2006
Sun, 07-19-2009 - 8:07pm
I know it's cheap, but I was expecting to spend $150 on groceries and $50 on gas and that was about it (all of that money being in my budget anyway for a regular week!). I didn't plan on buying all this extra stuff and I think that if I would have stayed home and not gone on vacation, I wouldn't have had to spend any money at all so it's a little discouraging because in all honesty, $500 dollars is still a lot of money for us right now. But I'm going to relax and just enjoy the vacation. I did the best I could.