For most of us, family vacation is one of the most extreme financial expenses of the year. Unfortunately, even after you’ve spent large sums on the basics of your trip, you also need to factor in a family-sized vacation spending pot to ensure you can all vacation in style and comfort. Too often, this is the cost that breaks the camel’s back. Yet, with everything from food, drinks, and entertainment resting on that spending fund, it’s by no means a travel step that you can afford to skip.
As such, this can often feel like a catch-22 situation, especially if you have no spare cash left in the bank after upfront vacation expenses. Luckily, there are still steps you can take to stop your vacation spending pot from flying away with your trip, and we’re going to consider just a few of them here.
# 1 – Pay for your trip using a credit card
Many of us looking to avoid escalating debts wouldn’t even consider paying for a high-price expense like a vacation using a credit card, but if you already have the money set aside, there’s certainly some benefit to paying for your trip this way. That’s because generally travel-friendly credit card providers will enable you to claim pretty generous cashback and rewards on everything from your flight to your accommodation. You can then put that additional cash straight into your vacation savings pot without necessarily needing to dig further into the bank to make on-trip spending possible.
# 2 – Get smart with your money-making
With most of us typically not having a great deal of time to save trip spending money, getting smart with fast ways to earn can also be a huge help here. Taking the time to sell gold, kid’s clothes, or unwanted electricals, in particular, can see you with a sizable spending fund that doesn’t even dent your already-struggling bank accounts. Equally, quick money-making schemes including online paid surveys and reviews needn’t take all that much time out of your busy vacation lead-up schedule but can prove surprisingly lucrative for funding the everyday elements of your trip.
# 3 – Start logging overtime early
If you have a family of four or more to fund for the entire vacation, then you may need a more reliable and sizable additional income here from something like work-based overtime. That said, piling on the hours the week or so before your trip could leave you so exhausted that you’re unable to enjoy yourself. To avoid this, it’s therefore always worth staggering overtime with perhaps one long day each week from the moment you start discussing your vacation options. That way, by the time your trip comes, you should have a pretty sizable amount of money that hasn’t run you ragged, and which will prove especially beneficial when paired alongside the other saving techniques mentioned.
Your family trip will feel much fuller if you have plenty of money to treat yourselves while you’re away, and with these techniques to hand, that’s never been easier to achieve.
