Allie is a close friend of mine who has also embraced the idea that now is the perfect time to get out of debt, let go of old spending habits, and start fresh with a cash-based life. She recently took a vacation, and this is her story of budgeting and saving success in an area where it’s often hard to impossible to keep spending under control.

Allie’s story

My Vacation

So it took some doing, but I was finally able to brow beat my husband into a mini-vacation during Spring Break. The kids were free. The husband had some vacation to burn. But really, we didn’t want to push too much into the short time we had. That’s why we went to the old standby…Gatlinburg, TN.

When I was discussing with Kate that my goal was to pay cash for as much of the vacation as possible, and that I’d found such a great deal online, she asked me to guest blog about it. So here’s what we did.

First, we set a budget. We hoped not to spend more than $500 for the total trip (approximately four days and three nights). The total budget had to include the hotel, entertainment, food, fuel, and souvenirs.

The next thing we did was make a wish list of places to go and see while there. We knew the primary place we wanted to take the kids was to the Ripley’s Aquarium. We also wanted to take them to the Dixie Stampede dinner show, but really didn’t know if that was in the budget this time around. But since this was a “wish” list we put it on there. And basically those were our two primary entertainment costs. The other places were all about nature—and free.

With the money and wish list in mind, I searched online for any deals or coupons that would save money. Now I want to note here that there are a lot (and I mean A LOT) of places online that say they have good deals. But don’t be fooled. There are tons of vacation destination places that will take your money. I’ve heard horror stories of this happening. Or they’ll give you that special rate if only you’ll take a half or whole day of your vacation listening to some spiel about a condo.

Being very aware of this, I started with the city’s main site and worked my way around to the sites for the two places on the wish list (Ripley’s Aquarium and the Dixie Stampede). Now Ripley’s had some pretty nice deals if you were interested in doing more than one of their activities (Ripley’s Believe It Or Not or the Ripley’s Motion Theater). But with one child barely two, that wasn’t an option. [Special note here...don't forget to check restrictions on age, weight, height, etc. before buying tickets in advance!]

Not finding what I was looking for, I went on to the Dixie Stampede’s site. And there it was. I found a link on the combo deals page that led me to the Greystone Lodge at the Aquarium’s website. They had a super special going on through April 31st that gave you two nights stay and tickets to Ripley’s Aquarium for $101.00. It was definitely the best deal I’d found, so I called the hotel and had a wonderful lady help me work out our best deal.

We were able to book two nights at $30.00 per night and add an additional night for $30.00 more. Plus, we were able to get four tickets to Ripley’s Aquarium and three tickets (as my daughter is too small to have her own seat) to the Dixie Stampede. All of this, plus tax, only came to $234.00! It was awesome!

That left us over $250.00 for fuel, eating out and souvenirs.

The room and entertainment taken care of I went in search of coupons for restaurants we like to eat at, and I went to the grocery store for snacks, drinks and sandwich fixings for the trip. The hotel had breakfast covered, so I knew I only had to deal with lunch and dinner. We were going to be there four days and three nights, so here’s what we did.

Day 1

We took our time on the trip up—starting out just after having a big breakfast at home—and stopped off in Knoxville at a little drive-in we’d seen on a Food Network show. We ordered one chicken strip dinner and one order of onion rings. We ate so bad, but it was so good. And those two items were enough to feed all four of us lunch. Did I mention we aren’t really big eaters?

Now I don’t know about your husband, but mine can’t let the opportunity to visit the Bass Pro Shops big store in Sevierville pass him by. He had to stop. Very fortunately, the sales weren’t all that good and we made it out with only a pair of sunglasses for him. :-)

Then on to the hotel. After settling in, we decided to eat a good dinner. My son wanted shrimp and ribs. That left us with a few options, so we settled on Ruby Tuesdays which gave us more options and was less costly than one of the more specialized restaurants.

Day 2

We ate breakfast at the hotel, and headed out. We’d decided to break up our outings and not overtire the kids, so today would be a trip to the Roaring Fork Motor Trail, a little hike through the streets of Gatlinburg, and then on to the Dixie Stampede that evening. So we took our cooler and headed out on the trail. We had a picnic lunch, and then ate the wonderfully pedestrian fare the Stampede had to offer that evening. The largest cost this day was fuel. We’d forgotten to fill up before heading back to the hotel the evening before, so we ended up paying a bit more than we’d have liked. The good news is that this fill up lasted us all the way home in my very economical Kia Sorento.

Day 3

Again we ate breakfast at the hotel, and then headed out to the Aquarium. This would be our most costly day and we knew it. We’d planned accordingly, saving the bulk of our food and souvenir monies for today. We spent our time in the Aquarium wisely. We looked over every nook and cranny. We also took in with us snacks and drinks for the kids. This is one of the few places that I’ve found doesn’t mind if you bring in food. By the end of our wondrous journey, however, everyone was starving. So after picking out a couple of “clearanced” t-shirts for the kids and a couple of stuffed sharks, we headed further into Gatlinburg. We decided to eat at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.. The price was a bit high, but they had chicken and fries for the kids as well as shrimp for us and we were able to order one kids meal (for the little one and me) and one shrimp sampler plus (for hubby and oldest kid) and a side salad (for me) to share. I admit I did try the shrimp and would have probably been tempted to eat more than my fair share, but I didn’t want to over do so late in the afternoon knowing we planned to go to Pigeon Forge shopping.

And we did. We did a little shopping at the outlets, being careful not to overspend. And then we ended up at O’Charley’s. We had a coupon for $5.00 off $20.00 and with some careful planning we were able to get out of the restaurant very satisfied with a bill of less than $20.00 for all four of us.

Day 4

Our last day was sad. We hated to leave the relaxing fun we’d had together, but on the other hand we were very glad to be headed home. We grabbed our breakfast at the hotel, and loaded up. We still had a few snacks, so we opted not to stop for lunch until we were near Knoxville. We also knew we needed to stop by a Wal-Mart to look for a bat, but that’s another story… We chose to eat lunch at the Turkey Creek Steak N’ Shake. The cost was less than $20.00 for all four of us.

Epilogue

When our trip was over, we felt good about it. We hadn’t overspent and we didn’t have to worry about paying off the trip later. It was paid for. And we’d enjoyed ourselves without the worry and stress that could have come afterward. I’d definitely recommend trying it sometime. —Allie

When she was telling me about her fun (and affordable) vacation, I convinced her to write me a blog post about it. She’s a great friend and she said yes without any hesitation at all. She’s one of those friends you can always count on to help you out and we discuss our financial situations regularly, because we trust each other.

As sensitive as it can be to talk about money and our own financial circumstances, it’s a huge relief to know I have someone I can share these details with on a regular basis who won’t turn around and share these details with someone else.

I’ve never been much of a believer in “support groups” and the like, but sometimes I wish I did. I think it’s a big help to talk things out. I’ve always told my family I think better when I’m talking… :)

If I have a support group, Allie is it. I hope you enjoy her post on Monday.

For now, I’m going to leave you with my own philosophy on vacations and money.

Tips for leaving money worries behind on your next vacation

• Don’t take it unless you can afford it. There’s nothing less relaxing than worrying about money.
• Set a budget and stick to it.
• Use your credit card when necessary–it’s generally safer than your debit card, but make sure you don’t overspend. If you think you might, then just stick to cash. Pay for your hotel room or other reservable costs ahead of time on your credit card, but then make sure you leave enough money at home to cover that cost. Don’t start off on your trip owing money.
• Use coupons and discounts anywhere you can use them. Even $5 to $10 off in a couple of places can add up to a lot of money. Would you throw away a $5 bill? If you have a coupon and don’t use it, you might as well have thrown the money away.
• Finally, enjoy your vacation. If you plan ahead financially, you can leave all your worries at home.

Come back on Monday to check out Allie’s guest post.