Vacationing with a Budget – Plan Ahead and Start Saving

The best way to vacation is to have the money set aside and ready to go for vacation. This way you will never miss the money and when you return from your wonderful vacation with your family you will not have leftover “vacation” bills! Like I indicated in my previous post, my husband and I have committed to taking our boys on a vacation every year. We put money aside every month for that vacation. If you save just $100 a month in your vacation fund, in a year you will have $1200 for a vacation! In my mind that is more than enough for a “budget friendly vacation”! So do you want to vacation next summer? Then make the commitment NOW and start your vacation fund!


So how do we save for our vacation? We use Smarty Pig! This site is amazing! You can set up saving funds for all kind of reasons, vacations, new home, new car, education, anything! So you can start your vacation fund today for only $25. Then all you need to do is set up automatic withdraws from your current savings or checking account to be automatically deposited into your Smarty Pig Vacation Fund! How easy is that? You will not even miss the money! We set up a monthly withdraw which occurs the day after my paycheck is deposited. So it is like the money was never there! The best part is, your Smarty Pig account will earn 2.15% in interest. I have not seen an interest rate like that at any of our local banks. Plus if you withdraw money from your account in gift cards you get a bonus!

When you get back from your vacation, start your next year vacation fund! I would even make it a bonus if you come home with leftover vacation fund money, buy something special for the family deposit it into next year’s fund!

Can you guess the beach above?

Stay tuned for more tips...