The Trials of a Busy Mom

Can I help it if I prefer FREE?

We are planning a trip for spring break. A trip to Nauvoo to see some LDS church history sights and play and have fun with the family. Thankfully, we were able to book the flights using miles from Ryan’s extensive traveling (Thanks, Ryan’s job!), and we’re getting some pretty decent deals on hotels.

As we were talking about the trip, hubby said to me, “Now don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but…..(long awkward pause) maybe you could relax a little bit on the trip, and….maybe let the kids order drinks once in a while.”

What? Are you calling me cheap?!

Well, yes, I AM cheap, or as we in the cheap community like to call it…”Frugal”. I do admit that I like to win my vacations instead of pay for them; if it’s possible to use a coupon at a restaurant, I will try it; and I have a frequent diners card for just about every place we go to eat. Is there anything wrong with that? We try to stay at hotels with free breakfast, and if not, then we end up keeping cereal and milk and granola bars and oatmeal at the hotel to avoid the cost of eating out for breakfast. And drinks! Don’t even get me started about the mark-up on drinks! If everyone in my family orders a soda at $1.99 to go with their meal, that’s an extra $14 added to the meal. I can’t change my personality just because I’m on vacation!

Once when in San Diego, we went to a yummy yogurt place, and with the 7 of us and my parents, we filled up an entire punch card. So, we let Cole get the free $5 worth of yogurt right then, since we were leaving in the morning and most likely never coming back to that place to use our rewards card. He piled on the toppings and enjoyed a yogurt overload. Hey, there are perks to being the only teenager on vacation, you get to be the designated glutton!

We all laugh about the time that we were at Disneyland, and I used the free birthday tortillas from the Mission tortilla factory to make pb & j roll ups, but the jelly all smooshed out of the rolled up tortillas and ended up in a huge sticky mess in the bag. Fun memories!

Of course, nothing can compare to the cheapness in college. Some friends and I went to Disneyland, and instead of buy ANY food in the park, we had brought Captain Crunch cereal, bread, and peanut butter. Halfway through the day, we trooped out to the car, and ate our cruchilicious-peanutbuttery feast. My aunt, who was Disneylanding with us that day, just laughed and laughed at our cheapness.

And sporting events? I can’t say we NEVER go unless they are free, but that’s pretty close of an assessment. Go, Jazz! Same thing with concerts. I’m ok sitting in the nosebleed section to see a concert (Lady A next week–so excited!), although I must admit that those 2nd row seats to see Michael Buble were pretty sweet. I do pay full ticket price for Broadway (or touring) musicals, if I have to. I guess I do have that weakness. I mean, I TRY to win tickets, but it doesn’t always work out for me.

But I did listen to him and agreed that I would try to not stress out about money while on vacation. If that means paying for some things in advance and setting aside a certain amount of cash to use for entertainment and eating out, then I can get on board. Or maybe I just let him pay for everything and not look at receipts (or menus) so that I’m blissfully unaware of how much we are spending. Nope, can’t do that.

I can’t be the only one who tries to save money even while on vacation. How do you do it? Do you just get into that “I’m on vacation” mentality and spend with reckless abandon? Or, like me, do you still try to keep it simple and not go all extravagant even though you are on vacation?

4 Comments

  1. Mom

    I like free, too, but I just don’t work at it like you do.

  2. jen

    Totally in the “I’m on vacation” camp. Sorry.

  3. Robin

    I go with the “I’m on vacation” thing as well (for the most part). You only live once. However…I do save when I can. Check Groupon in areas you will be going for the next few weeks. Also I usually make the kids skip sodas and I am with you on the breakfast thing…I generally won’t stay at a hotel that doesn’t at least offer continental breakfast. If you choose to eat out at fancier places…make the big fancy meal Lunch and save the McDonalds for dinner. Lunches are often cheaper.

    Fortunately for you, Nauvoo is a great place to go if you like FREE. Hotels are relatively cheap and everything else is FREE…except food. So I say splurge a little on the food. Also…did I mention that there is a Spaghetti Factory in St. Louis??? My favorite on-a-budget restaurant…as you well know.

  4. Brittany

    I totally get it Paige…I do!! I am the SAME way. When we took the kids to disneyland last year, we had ‘Tailgate parties’ on the drive down and at seaworld and the zoo that consisted of pb&j. We brought our own snacks for the parks, and only bought ONE churro that we share with all 4 of us. (at $3.50 I can’t justify each of us having our own). We carried in our own bottled water every day we played, then filled them up at the hotel at night. We picked a hotel with a kitchenette, and FREE breakfast AND dinner (M-Thurs) and of course that is when we stayed there and we ate there for every meal that was free. I could go on and on about all the things I come up with to save money while on vacation. Including buying souvineers at walmart or the dollar store for our kids to have. 🙂 They ONLY drink water when ever we DO eat out and we never get dessert. And I don’t think our fun has ever suffered because of my ‘thriftyness’. In fact, Carson thought it was so cool to have a tailgate party and asked if we could do it again! I am glad to see that I am not the only one that thinks this way! 🙂

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