save money for a vacation

I’d like to save up enough money for my family to go on a trip to 1000 Islands next summer. We’ve been through a lot lately and will be going through more, so I think a vacation would be well deserved. Also it would be a first since we’ve never been on a vacation together as a family.

I want to save some dough to take my husband on a little trip for his birthday in March. Just a little get-away for us both, nothing big, but definitely fun :)

I have 5 months to do it!

So my parents were nice enough to help me pay for a trip to Hawaii last August… my money was skin-tight, but I had a friend who was working in Honolulu for three months that I could stay with, which made the trip semi-affordable (just had to feed myself), so my parents helped me with the expensive airfare. I felt a little guilty about that, so I’ve decided to start saving money specifically for vacations. The problem with that is that I am constantly half-broke (need a new job that pays more than my current one), so I can’t afford to put away a lot of money out of my paycheck. And now that my boyfriend and I are hunting for a house to rent, I really don’t have any money to spare. Argh!

For now, I’ve started saving just a bit. For my birthday, my mom bought me a “Travel Fund” Wishing Pot. The cool thing about this coin bank is that there is no way to open it, so you can’t take money out until it’s full, when you have to actually break it to get the money out! So unlike my regular coin jar, which I’d raid for quarters whenever laundry time came around, this money should add up more quickly: I’m putting in all my silver change, and dollar bills whenever I’ve got a few to spare. Pennies still go in the old coin jar so they don’t take up space in the Wishing Pot. I don’t expect this to fully fund a vacation, but hopefully it will help save up enough to make a nice big dent in the overall cost of my next trip. Fingers crossed!

Paul and I have not been on a vacaion in a long time. That is if you do not count the trips to MN for funerals and such, and I don’t becuase really, who would go to MN in December for a vacation? It is just too darn cold!
But I would love to be able to go somewhere warm and sunny with my hunny. So it is time to put the pennies in the piggy bank.

Dollars saved today- $0.00 (hey I got to get my Xmas shopping done)