Sticking to a budget on vacation

We just came home last night from a two week family vacation to drop our son Joey off at college down in Arizona. The first week we were on the road, staying in hotels that had free breakfast, but no kitchen, which meant eating out for lunch and dinners. Once in Arizona, we were blessed to have a family who let us stay in their home the entire week, which, was huge savings in terms of hotel and dining out costs. We went to the grocery store and purchased enough food for the week, but did have some meals planned out since we also celebrated our 24th anniversary and my birthday on the trip.

We also incurred some extra costs not knowing what else Joey needed for his dorm room, so we did have to go to Walmart, Target and Costco to pick up those items. Today I will go through our accounts and make sure that Summit’s Climbr assigned all expenses the proper tag and use the vacation savings to pay off the credit card we used while on vacation. I do have to say, it was not as easy as I thought to stay on budget while traveling. Dining out costs majorly killed the budget. In most cases, Steve and I would share a meal, and since we ate at a few Mexican restaurants, the free chips and salsa helped curb appetites anyway. Overall, it was a great trip but very hard to say goodbye to Joey.