Teaching Kids How to Budget and Save Money for a Family Vacation

Family Vacations on a Budget

Smart Savings this Summer: Budgeting for a Family Vacation

By Joe Laing, El Monte RV

No one disagrees with the notion that it’s hard to save money and stick to a budget, whether you’re an individual or a family unit. But sometimes, the reward in the long run can be worth a little bit of penny-pinching in the present, especially when it comes to your summer family vacation. Do you really want to let the kids down this June and tell them that the family can’t afford to take a few days and road trip together someplace interesting? You can avoid that unpleasant, disheartening scene with a little bit of planning–and not as many sacrifices as you might think.

Why Budget

If you’ve never educated the kids (or your spouse!) regarding the purpose of a budget, having a family meeting before getting started is essential. Let everyone know that a budget is a fun, responsible way to make sure enough money is available for a vacation that year. Keep in mind the following when discussing the family budget:

Using Memory Lists to Remember Your Summer Vacation

One of my favorite blogs that I follow is KimandJason.com. Their whole life is about escaping adultitis and putting more fun into your life with your family. Jason gave me permission to share this great post about using Memory Lists to remember your summer vacation, freeing you to enjoy the moment more! I hope you enjoy this guest post as much as I did!

Memory Lists: The Simplest Way to Remember Your Vacation Forever

Kim and I are all about collecting experiences over stuff. The challenge with experiences is that they are fleeting. Which is why we normally try to make them tangible in some way, in order to relive them again and again.

Some common methods for “tangibilizing” memories are taking photos, shooting video, scrapbooking, and journaling. These are each excellent in their own way, but they also have downsides. With photos and video, you can easily spend more time looking through a camera’s viewfinder than actually enjoying the experience firsthand. And others require a lot of post-event work that doesn’t always get done, as is the case with video editing, scrapbooking and journaling.