Pre-Trip Budgeting For Your Next Vacation

photo credit: m o d e

With summer upon us, many people are heading off on vacation. Taking a holiday is important to help you relax, reward yourself and simply to get away from home, but if it just creates a larger debt to pay off when you return, then all the good is undone. That’s why it’s really important to do some pre-trip budgeting to make sure you’re planning an affordable vacation. Here are a few tips:

• Make a list of inevitable costs of taking your vacation. This might include new luggage, house or pet-sitting costs as well as actual trip costs including transportation, accommodation, meals and sightseeing.
• Do a bit of online research to fill out the details on these costs. Don’t go overboard (or you’ll find you never want to travel again) but check up on hotel costs or entry costs for major museums or theme parks that you think will be pricey.
• Adapt your budget to suit your vacation goals. For example, if you’re heading to a big city and plan to do heaps of sightseeing, it might work out cheaper to stay in a more expensive hotel in the center, but avoid the transport costs of getting in to the center to museums or galleries every day.
• Make trade-offs. If your budget is too tight, agree to have some simple supermarket meals (cheese and crackers and a bottle of wine works well) on a couple of nights, in exchange for a really good meal in a fancy restaurant on the last night of the trip.

Tags: Budgets | Hotels | Saving Money | Vacations