My DH coaches swimming full time and a highschool team part time. The check he gets for the part time job we use for vacation. He gets paid in 2 checks, so the first check he gets January 31st we use for our deposit and airline tickets if needed, and the second check pays it off and goes towards food. It works great for us.

We're military so we find a military base where we want to go and stay at on post lodging. We went to Jacksonville, FL and stayed right on the beach at a Navel base for $40/night.

We also have a vacation fund and any extra $$ left over at the end of the month goes there, it's a great incentive to watch my spending for the month!

We are saving up for a trip to Niagara Falls in June - hopefully before passports will be required! We are doing the change jar, savings account, and tax return steps. I found a HUGE help is to price as much as you can before you go. Internet is such a blessing! You can budget all the admissions to attractions and print coupons. We can actually come home with money by budgeting the entire trip.

Also, if you have younger kids and plan a trip to amusement park - some of them will tell you height requirements online. It helped so much when we went to Mall of America with kids. They knew what they could or couldn't ride ahead of time.

Planning out side trips ahead of time over the internet helps to budget. Also there are often passes available for purchase ahead of time that admit to several attractions. I have used city passes on trips to Philly, Chicago, Paris and NYC, but they are available in a lot of cities. Not only does it save $$ on admission overall but also cut out time waiting in lines.

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We use any large amounts we get for Christmas to help fund our vacations. For instance, Dh's grandma used to give us one big check for the whole family. We just told the kids that Grandma gave us money, and we would use it for vacation (rather than splitting it up amongst the family members).

This is also a great opportunity to lead by example in showing the kids how to save for a trip rather than use credit. We've set up visual aids (think of a thermometer type tally) and had yard sales, used ebay and/or savings from other areas of the budget to show progress towards the amount needed for the trip.

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Homeschooling Mom to Daniel (12 Years), Andrew (9 Years), Stephen (7 Years) and Emily (3 Years)

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