Our trip to Fort Myers came and went so quickly! I can’t believe it’s already over. That’s how good times go, I guess–they fly by! We did a few things right, in terms of saving money, but there are a few things we should have done much better.

Right:

We chose a vacation rental house for the eight of us, rather than getting a few hotel rooms. This option proved to be more affordable, and we had more space to lounge around. It felt homier than a hotel. It was more quiet. We had a private swimming pool. And, we were able to cook some meals at the house. Definitely the way to go when you’re traveling with a group (or even a small family, perhaps).

Wrong:

Even though we had a fully equipped kitchen, we didn’t do the food thing right at all. People went to the grocery several times, and most of the time without a list. We picked up a cartload of snacks and one quick meal of frozen pizzas for $100. Bad. Most of the food got eaten, but without a list, we had so much junk, and no real meals out of it. The other night we ate in, we had bratwursts and hamburgers on the grill. That seemed to go a little better. I don’t know how much people ended up spending on food, but if we had been more organized and created a list (and stuck to it) we would have been way better off.

Right:

We bought our plane tickets as early as we could (January). Prices have gone up quite a bit since then.

Right:

My mother-in-law rented a car that seated five. But, we were a group of eight. So, she kindly shuttled groups of us up and down the island as needed. Even though that was a hassle, it wasn’t that bad. And, it was cheaper than renting two cars, or a larger car to hold all of us. I had planned on taking a taxi from the airport to the rental house, but she wouldn’t hear of it, and picked Shane and I up. She ended up saving us quite a bit of money in doing that. Also, I expected we could take the island trolley to and fro. That thing was seen just a few times. I don’t think it was running on its full schedule.

Kinda right, kinda wrong:

I bought an Entertainment Book for Fort Myers, thinking we’d get at least a little bit of use out of it. Nope. Not a single bit. But, it wasn’t expensive, and my Ebates money covered the purchase price of the book. Plus, as we were leaving, I gave it to the bride & groom, who live in the city. They’ll probably be able to save money with it.

Right:

I’ve mentioned in the past that Shane and I are total debit card people. We hate using cash, generally. But, on vacation, I think it’s the right way to go. We took $300 in small bills to cover all of our trip’s expenses while there. Having that cash helped us keep tabs on what we were spending (we didn’t have internet access and couldn’t logon to see our debit card balance…though we could call several times per day if we wanted). We knew we wouldn’t have trouble buying things at stores that didn’t accept plastic. And, it was easier to deal with at restaurants. The day after we got back, we deposited the remaining cash back into our checking account, so we can use it as normal.

Right:

We spent our money as we had originally intended. I bought a refrigerator magnet (I always do) for about $3. We bought some meals out. And that’s about it.

Wrong:

We didn’t take off our rings before jumping in the ocean. ‘Nuff said.

Additional related posts:

1. Walgreens “Vacation Cash” promotion
2. Save money on your next vacation with Kyle’s coupons

It’s less than a month until Shane and I fly to Florida for his sister’s wedding! We’re so excited for this little vacation, and to spend some time with family.

As I’ve mentioned, eight of us are staying in a vacation home, complete with a full kitchen. To save money, we’re going to cook some of our meals in the vacation house. I’m planning on packing a suitcase full of non-perishable foods purchased from my Aldi store in Pittsburgh, as there doesn’t seem to be an Aldi near where we’re going. We’ll pick up perishable items from a Publix nearby, for which I have a $5 off $50 coupon thanks to my Entertainment Book. (By the way, for those of you who shop at Publix: Do I need a store card to get discounts?)

Here’s some meal ideas I’m considering. I’d really appreciate your help with other ideas. We’re looking for foods that are easy to prepare and don’t require a ton of extra ingredients or special cookware.

Ingredients with a * indicate I’ll buy them at Aldi and bring down.

Drinks:

Lemonade* (powdered stuff)
Coffee* (When going to hotels, I typically save the individual coffee packets. I’ll take some of those and some extra filters).

Breakfast:

Fill a small container of oats for oatmeal*
Dry boxed cereal*
Pancake mix*
Syrup*

Tacos:

Tortillas
Ground beef
Lettuce
Sour cream
Cheese
Tortillas
Taco seasoning*
Salsa*
Refried beans*

Hamburgers/hot dogs on the grill

Ketchup*
Mustard*
Pickle relish*
Buns
Sliced cheese
Meats
Chips
Fruit salad (I’ll bring canned mandarin oranges and pineapple)
Deli potato salad

Deli sandwiches/ PBJ

Bread
Deli meat
Cheese
Condiments from above, and possibly mayo*
Peanut butter*
Jelly*

Snacks

Bagged popcorn*
Jell-o mix*
Florida citrus

Extra

Salt & pepper*
Electrasol tabs for the dishwasher*
Laundry detergent (thank you, free samples!)*
Trash bags*
Paper plates*

I might be looking for one more dinner idea. We’ll have two dinners covered (rehearsal dinner and wedding) and then we’ll need to eat three dinners at home or in a restaurant, one or two lunches at the airport, and five breakfasts. I imagine we’ll eat at a restaurant once or twice, but we’ll probably eat most of our meals in the rental house.

I’ll pack these foods in a sturdy suitcase and put it with my checked luggage. For the return trip, we’ll either put that suitcase inside another one so we don’t have to tote around an empty bag.

Help me out! What am I missing? What are good packable meal ideas?

Additional related posts:

1. Our trip to Florida: Flight & more update
2. Flight update
3. Volunteering to take a later flight

Additional related posts:

1. Ideas for long-traveling dishes
2. A review: “Ms. Cheap’s Guide to Getting More for Less”
3. Creampuffs are a cheap and surprisingly easy to make dessert

On our honeymoon, our flight connection from St. Louis to Seattle was overbooked.

Since our cruise ship wouldn’t leave for another few days, I jumped at the chance to see if we could get some sweet rewards for volunteering to take a later flight.

You see, airlines typically overbook their flights. For one reason or another, some people don’t show up to flights they’ve booked. I don’t know why they don’t, but it’s enough that airlines often sell more tickets than they have seats to ensure a maximum-capacity flight.

When everyone shows up for their flight, airlines typically first ask for volunteers to take a later flight. Sometimes it’s later that day, and sometimes it’s the next day or so.

Airlines try to compensate you for your troubles. You’ll likely receive vouchers for food, a voucher for a future flight with the company (perhaps worth up to $300 or so) and if you have to stay overnight, they might even put you up in a hotel.

When the  announcement came over the PA that  our flight to Seattle was seeking  volunteers to take a later flight, I practically ran over to the ticket counter to put our names on the list.

I forget the exact amount of compensation, but they would put us up at a hotel overnight, we’d get dinner vouchers, and we’d each get a free round-trip flight in the future.

Thinking how great it would be to be able to fly home for free, and considering we had some wiggle room in our travel plans, it seemed like a good idea.

Unfortunately, the airline didn’t need us to take a later flight after all. Enough people didn’t show up, so we made our original flight.

When we go to Florida in a few months, we’ll consider being overbooked volunteers again, so long as the terms are reasonable.

I hope that someday, I’ll be able to get a free flight!

For more on how this works, read this article on About.com. Have you ever been an overbooked volunteer? How did it go?

Additional related posts:

1. Flight update
2. Our trip to Florida: Flight & more update

I just received my wedding dress–er, shall I say, the dress I will wear at a wedding I’m attending in May.

I originally hoped to spend no more than $30 on it. Why, oh why, did I set the bar so high? Was I afraid to fail? Maybe so.

Anyway, I found a summery dress on Target.com that will work just fine. I should be able to wear it throughout the summer, I think.

I first logged on to my Ebates account, which earned me 4 percent cash back (yay, $0.85), lol. I clicked on the "Target" button on Ebates, and was redirected to the Target site.

The dress I chose was on clearance for $11.19. I found a shirt for my husband (I forgot to budget for him…I thought he had something suitable but he didn’t) and added that to my online cart.

With shipping, both items still cost less than $30. More like $27.15.

We’ve now paid for our flight ($398), our share of a vacation rental home ($327), an Entertainment Book ($25), our outfits ($27), and about $30 toward a wedding gift (I’m hoping to put another $30-35 for the rest of the gift on an Amazon gift certificate I might be receiving). Total spent (and paid for) $807.

What’s left to pay for: Food to eat there ($150), parking at the airport ($40), transportation to and from the airport ($100), $50 for fun, and incidental (?). Total left: $340 (I know we can do it for less than that).

I’ve now racked up a whopping $172 in Ebates money, from things I’ve purchased and referrals (Thank you, thank you, thank you!). I’ll get that check in May, and put that toward the trip costs.

Additional related posts:

1. Our wedding: The dress
2. Our wedding: The wedding party
3. Going to a wedding in Florida

I promised y’all I’d keep you updated on my travel plans to Florida for my husband’s sister’s wedding.

I do this to help myself remember what we did and how we paid, and possibly to help you get a bargain.

After searching through countless vacation home listings, calling several lovely options, only to find that they had just been rented…we finally found a vacation rental and put a deposit on it. Woo hoo!

Our criteria:

• We wanted it to be on Fort Myers Beach, rather than further inland. Though inland rentals are cheaper, we’d have to drive to the beach daily–an additional expense and hassle.
• It had to sleep at least 7 people. The place we chose happens to sleep 10 people.
• We wanted a place with a private swimming pool. Those are pretty common down there, and it seems like a fun thing to have while on vacation. We probably paid a little more for this property because it has a pool–but we might be able to save a little on areas of paid entertainment.
• It had to have at least two bathrooms and central air conditioning.
• It had to have a full kitchen, so that we can prepare our meals there and not eat at restaurants the entire time.
• We don’t want it to cost a fortune!

In my first post on the trip, I put together some estimates for how much things would cost so we could accurately budget. Well, I under-budgeted the vacation rental by about $100. Whoops.

The place we booked costs $1,100 for six nights. Add on 11 percent tax, cleaning fees, and another fee, we were looking at $1400 total for seven people–or $200 each. Yikes!

I asked the listing agent if they would be willing to pro-rate the price and only charge us for the five nights we’d be staying there. The owner agreed to give us a bargain (somehow, even better than a flat pro-rated deal)– we were only charged $850 for six days and five nights. Wow! Add on the tax and fees, and we’re looking at about $1,140.

Asking for a better rate saved our group $260 –or about $40 per person. Woo hoo!

If they weren’t willing to pro-rate the price, I was going to try another bargaining strategy: Paying in full right away, rather than making installment payments.  They’d get all of their money faster, so there might have been an incentive to give us a price break. Since they gave us the pro-rated deal, I decided to be grateful and accept the price.

Still, for my husband and I, that’s $326.57.  Or, for the two of us, that would be $65 per night. Find me a decent hotel along the beach at that price including tax (there aren’t any). So, we still got a great deal, even though I under budgeted.

Why did I under budget?

Well, for one, I forgot to include the 11 percent tax and cleaning fees in my estimates. Another, we weren’t sure if we’d have 10 people or 7. It’s looking like seven now, but possibly one more will join us.

Lesson learned: Budget for the entire price–including tax and fees. It’s a significant number! 

My budget for the whole trip isn’t blown, though.

I added a 10 percent “I forgot to budget for this” bubble–which was $100.

Our flights were a whopping $2 under budget (yay!).

My Entertainment Book for the area is sure to save us money on restaurants and other things during the trip. It even has a $5 off $50 purchase at the grocery, which we’ll likely use.

Finally, thanks to YOU LOVELY, WONDERFUL READERS, my Ebates account has racked up a whopping $97. I’ll get that in May.  $17 of that was from my own purchases/personal bonuses, and the rest of it is from those of you who listed me as a referral and bought something using the Ebates portal. Thank you so much for blessing me!

Additional related posts:

1. Our trip to Florida: Flight & more update
2. Going to a wedding in Florida
3. My CVS shopping trip for Nov. 4

I checked to see how much the flight we booked for our trip to my sister-in-law’s wedding in Florida would have cost if we waited to buy it now.

The exact flight is now $20 more per ticket than we paid less than one week ago.

That comes to $40 more for two tickets.

Also, according to Kayak.com, it’s still the cheapest flight available.

I’m glad I bought them when I did!

Now, if we can just get our condo/vacation rental booked…it’s sort of hard to coordinate travel plans with a group of my in-laws. Keep your fingers crossed we can get a good deal!

Additional related posts:

1. Our trip to Florida: Flight & more update
2. Going to a wedding in Florida
3. Thanks!

Thanks, everyone, for your wonderful suggestions on my post telling you about a Florida wedding that’s in our future.

THE FLIGHT: $398 (or maybe $378) I used several strategies that have already saved me money:

• Shopped around for the best deals
• Inputed frequent flier rewards #
• Tried to get a $20 rebate through my Entertainment Book.
• Could have used Ebates, but decided to try for the $20 rebate instead (Update: I clicked through to Hotwire from my Ebates account, and got $6 back after making a purchase. Whoa.)
• Paid for the flight using a rewards credit card

I booked our flight today. I shopped around, checking Kayak.com (I love that site as a starting point, because it checks lots of other sites for deals). We ended up booking it through Hotwire.com. The flight is nonstop and the flight times are good. Total cost including taxes and everything: $398 for two people. Hooray, we’re already $2 under my projected figures :).

Before booking the flight, I signed up for the airline’s reward program. I typed in my reward #, and I don’t know if I’ll get points, but it’s worth a shot. There is a $20 rebate coupon in my Entertainment Book for Hotwire flights. I’m not entirely sure if the rebate will apply to my flight, but I’m going to mail it in anyway to see what happens. I could have first logged into Ebates.com to get 2 percent cash back (and that would have been $8 guaranteed) but I wanted to see if I could save more with the rebate. I wasn’t able to combine offers (Update: Yes I was! I got cash back on the pre-tax total).

I paid for the flight using a rewards credit card. The flight purchase gave me enough points to finally get a $25 Amazon gift certificate and a $10 Amazon gift certificate. Those should be in the mail at the end of this month’s billing period. I hope I can use that "free" $35 toward her wedding gift. The bride-to-be has a cookbook on her registry … and if I get the gift certificates in time, I’ll put them toward that book, if no one else has purchased it yet. Otherwise, perhaps I can use the gift certificates toward something else on her registry that’s also on Amazon.

FORT MYERS ENTERTAINMENT BOOK

I’m already happy with my Entertainment Book for Pittsburgh, so after considering the advice of some commenters, I decided to purchase an Entertainment Book for the Fort Myers area. The list price was $25, which includes the $10 off discount and free shipping. I logged into my Ebates.com account, and accessed the Entertainment Book site through Ebates. I’ll get $6 cash back thanks to that.

This was my first purchase using Ebates. I  had $5 in my Ebates account that hasn’t yet been sent to me (your account has to reach $5.01 first, I believe). So, I’ll get $11 back total, reducing the price of the Entertainment Book to $14. If you decide to sign up for an Ebates account, won’t you use my referral link? I hope we’ll be able to save some money at restaurants, attractions and more using the Entertainment Book. I’ll be sure to keep track of how much we saved thanks to the book. When we leave Florida, I’ll give the book to my sister-in-law, so they can use the remaining coupons in their town. Total spent on the trip so far: $412

Additional related posts:

1. Going to a wedding in Florida
2. A trip to Walgreens
3. Rite Aid & Walgreens rebate deadlines

My husband’s sister is getting married in May. She lives in Florida, and that’s where the wedding will be.

As a bonus, we’ll be in there during our first anniversary.

This trip is going to be really expensive. We haven’t yet put money aside for it, since we’ve been putting money toward other more pressing things.

With about four months to go, it’s definitely time for us to start socking away funds.

But, how much?

Paidtwice has a recent post explaining how a trip was a total budgeting failure. It failed because she didn’t take a detailed look into past trips to come up with a realistic dollar figure.

So…I’m going to do my best to estimate what this will cost. I’m going to put these estimates on the high side, and then add a cushion to the overall figure. My goal is to spend as little money as possible, so if we over budget and have money left over, we won’t spend it in Florida. We’ll use it to throw at our emergency savings.

We don’t yet know how long we’ll be there, or where we’ll stay. So…that leaves quite a bit up in the air still. We’re thinking a five-night stay, so I’ll use that for these calculations until it changes.

Please, if you think I’ve left anything out or if you have suggestions for me, let me know!

• Wedding gift $50. They’re registered on Bed, Bath and Beyond, and I’ll be able to use a 20 percent off coupon. We’ll choose something that will fit in our suitcase without much risk of breaking along the way.
• Dress for me to wear $30. I have absolutely nothing suitable to wear to a beach wedding. I will start shopping now at thrift stores and discount stores, and hopefully I’ll find something much less. I hope to only buy a dress, and use shoes I already have, if possible. Also, DH thinks he has something he can wear, so no need to budget for that now.
• Things we’ll buy solely to use on the trip. I’ll probably buy a better sunblock than I have now, for one thing. Other things inevitably come up. $20.
• Parking at the airport – no more than $6.75 per day, but we’re looking for online coupons, searching for deals in our Entertainment Book, and will use our AAA membership to see if we can save more here. For 6 days, that’s $40.50.
• Flight from Pittsburgh to Fort Myers – I’ve seen deals for $200. Let’s hope the price stays where it is, or dare I hope? Drops.
• Taxi from airport to hotel. Since we’re under 25, renting a car is not an option. Well, it is, but we don’t want to pay the insane daily surcharges for that. Double this, since we’ll also want to go from the hotel back to the airport. Let’s say the taxi costs $30 each way (I have no way to check rates yet). $60. If we didn’t have luggage, I’d say we could take the city bus. But…that’s a bad idea.
• Hotel/condo for five nights. We might join some family and rent a place to save money. I’ve seen a few that might be available for $800/week. If we fit 8 people into a place like that, that’s $100 per person plus tax, so about $220 for DH and I. If we have to get a hotel on our own, it will be much more expensive.
• Food. If we get that condo, we’ll cook breakfasts, maybe lunches and snacks there. We’ll probably share the cost of groceries. Since I can make breakfasts and lunches go a long ways, I’m only going to put $20 in this category.
  • Two dinners will be covered (rehearsal and wedding dinner), and that leaves three more dinners. Let’s say each dinner is $20 per person (hope not!). That’s $120 for dinners for two.
  • I always get airport food. I know I shouldn’t, but I do. I won’t try to hide that from my projected budget, but I don’t usually spend more than $5 per airport, so $10.
• Fun. We need to figure out some fun things to do after the wedding. I imagine we’ll spend some time on the beach n’at, but I don’t know what else. $50 for now.
• Total: $1,020.50.
• Adding 10% “Forgot to budget for this,” so total needing to save is $1,122.55.

I’m going to scour the internet for deals, as well as use my Entertainment Book for airport parking discounts, and we’ll go to AAA to get tour books and see if they can help us save.

Also, to get around the Fort Myers area, we’ll either share a rental car with our in-laws (who don’t have to pay the under-25 surcharge). If that doesn’t work out, we’ll take the city bus.

Ideas for saving money or things I’ve forgotten in this budget are appreciated!

Additional related posts:

1. Our wedding: The wedding party
2. Our wedding: The dress
3. Our wedding: The photography