Traveling

Our family travels quite a bit and I wanted to share some money saving ideas and input that has helped us.
Last year I attended a "Family Travel" lecture by Kimball Benson that was really good. He gave me a few more great ideas and it also reminded me of the ones Scott and I already use.

• Plan at least 1 family vacation once a year (we usually arrange 2) and 1 couple vacation a year. The latter is harder for us because we always seem to have a baby nursing or I'm pregnant and can't go too far.

• Book your airplane tickets on Tuesday after 3pm EST. You can book flights up to 3 months in advanced domestic and 4 months international.

• Cheapest days to fly are Wednesday through Saturday.

• Use the "notify Me" option given by Orbitz, Delta, Travelocity or whatever airline company you usually use. They will text or email you with deals.

• If you purchase a "package deal" (air, hotel, car rental) you can save more money. Unfortunately we hardly use this option because we either drive to our vacation destination or if we fly we stay at our timeshare or with family.

• Just because you're wanting to go on vacation doesn't mean you have to spend a fortune and go to a far destination. Plan a "Stay-cation". Visit your city's major attractions, visitor's bureau and national parks.

We also have a change container we'll decorate with drawings of the vacation spot we're heading to and the entire family will save money for it.

I have Groupon and other discount offers emailed to me with other fun, inexpensive vacation ideas.