• Open up a savings account, just for this purpose; e.g. summer trip. You’ll only be making one withdrawal and a whole bunch of deposits in the 6 months, so a saving account is fine. ING direct offers a 2.75% interest bearing savings account, as a promotional offer they even contribute the first $25 deposit for you.

• Have your employer deduct $50 a month, and automatically go in to this account, which is only $25 a paycheck. You won’t even notice.

• Savings that we save usually disappear, as we spend it on other things. If you’re saving with a purpose in mind, like a vacation, you need to write down every dollar you save, and at the end of the week literally deposit that amount in cash, or write yourself a check for that amount.

• Plan for a yard sale: we all have extra clothes and toys we need to get rid of. This could easily bring in $100 -$200

• Grocery Coupons: you don’t even have to buy a news paper; there are some great online coupon sites like couponsuzy.com, couponmom.com. Set a goal to at least save $10 per week, which is $40 a month, $240 in 6 months.
• Take coffee /soda /snacks from home; you’ll save at least $2 a day, which is $40 a month, $240 in 6 months.

• If you’re used to eating out for lunch at least 3 times a week, and say spend $5 each time, that’s $15 a week. If you carry your lunch from home and still eat out once a week, say $10 per week, which is $240 to $360 of savings in 6 months.

• If you’re used to going to the movies once a month, and say for 2 people spend about $25 each time. Go every other month, and save $75 in 6 months. Wal-Mart and some other stores have a self serve movie rental, called Red Dot, usually by the door. It costs $1 per night, you can even reserve online, and they usually have the latest releases.

• Look into your cable, home phone, cell phone, internet bill, there’s probably around $25 a month you can shave off the bill, by downgrading or consolidating those services. I recently called our cable company and they took off $25 for 6 months as some promotional offer, because we were considering changing our service. Plus they gave us free HBO for 6 months, for being loyal customers. That’s $150 of savings in 6 months.

• Replace a paid activity / entertainment for a free one and carry a picnic with you. For a family you can at least save $25 a month. Check with your local newspaper, magazine, parks, community centers, there’s always some fun family activity going on. You can save at least $150 in 6 months.

When you come back from that trip, you’ll feel very good that you paid for it and don’t have a credit card bill to pay off!

Do you usually save for a vacation? What frugal ways did you follow to achieve your goal?

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