Two unrelated budgeting questions

[jIM_Ohio]

Question- how much does your household budget for vacations each year? How do you manage to stay within budget (not overspend)?


Question- what type of home internet service do you use (cable co-phone-satellite-wireless or other)

We currently use fuse through the phone company and the monthly phone bill is $100/month. The only phone calls we get at home are sales calls, so we are contemplating dropping the home phone line if we can find a way to get home internet somewhere else- we have a satellite dish, so internet thru cable is not a good option unless someone call tell me they can get roadrunner without having cable.

Thx

[noppenbd]

All-inclusive resorts or cruises are a good way to vacation on a budget, since you know many of your costs upfront. We recently vacationed at Club Med Punta Cana which is a great resort for young families. Total cost was around $3000 including airfare for the three of us.

On internet, check out dslreports.com. You can input your zip code and get reviews of local providers. A quick check of 45150 gave me this provider: http://www.embarq.com/#internet

You should inquire whether you can get "naked" or "dry-loop" DSL. Then you won't have to have a dial tone to get the DSL.

[disneysteve]

Question- how much does your household budget for vacations each year? How do you manage to stay within budget (not overspend)?

We don't exactly budget, as in designating a set dollar amount in advance that we won't exceed, but we have a pretty good idea at this point what our typical trips will cost. We generally travel for 3-4 weeks per year and spend about $2,000/week. It may be somewhat more or less depending on the destination.

How do we stay on budget? That's the easy part since the big expenses are determined in advance: lodging and transportation. We choose reasonably priced hotels or rent vacation homes from sites like vrbo.com or skyauction.com.

As for food, we almost always eat breakfast in our room/home and only go out for lunch and dinner. That keeps food costs down a lot. We also don't do much if any fine dining when we travel. We stick to less costly casual and family-type restaurants.

We rarely buy souvenirs unless we see something that really appeals to both of us.

[skydivingchic]

I don't have a set amount budgeted for vacations, but the costs do come out of my personal saving account, which obviously has a limited amount of money in it. For the forgien trips we've taken, the budget is extremely easy, as those have been package tours so we know all major costs up front (and they are paid for before we ever set foot on a plane). The other costs are usually only a few meals in transit and maybe one or two activities on our own.

DBF and I like outdoorsy type destinations, so our driving trips tend to be to national parks for hiking and such. Hotels are booked in advance, so that expense is known. I try to slightly overestimate gas and food costs so that we don't go over budget. I'll estimate the miles based off mapping software as close as possible, throw in a bunch of slop to account for driving at the destination, and then try to overestimate gas prices. So far my estimates have been very good. Usually on hiking type trips, we snack throughout the day on the trail and only eat breakfast and lunch at a restaurant. Neither of us are foodies so meals are nothing fancy.

I think the biggest thing I do to help the budget is book as much as I can beforehand - show tickets, hotel rooms, activities such as rafting or guided tours. That way you know a big chunk of the cost before you ever leave home and you don't have to worry about not being able to stay where you want to stay or do an activity you want to do.

Our home internet service is a cable modem. When my parents still lived in small town Kansas, they had high speed internet access through satellite. Maybe you can see if that is offered in your area.

[JinCO]

We budget $200/month or $2400 per year for vacations. Most of this money gets spent on weekend trips visiting family. For our week long vacations we usually use hotel points, rental car points, and frequent flyer miles so the main expense is food. We usually try to make breakfast and some lunches in the condo or hotel room and then go out to dinner.

We have the comcast cable tv/ internet/phone bundle @ $99/month.

[Caoineag]

I usually alot myself an allowance per day when travelling. Its always been higher than what I end up using. I do enough research in advance to know my likely costs which is what the allowance takes into account. As to what is budgeted to vacations, that is saved from our fun money for longer trips and simply used as fun money for our weekend trips.

As to internet we have basic cable/internet for $62 because that is the cheapest and fastest service we can get. We don't care about TV so its really only for the internet which in my area is expensive.

[stressedmama]

Although my husband and I have 2 kids we both claim 0 deductions and end up getting a sizable tax refund every year that we either use for vacation and/or big house improvements. I know, I know, I know that claiming 0 deductions is dumb and that I should up the deductions and save the money, earn interest, etc but for marital harmony I will likely continue to go down this path until DH sees the light of day (sorry for the little rant). We typically spend around $2000 - $2500 a year. Once we decide where we want to go we check on the costs of different types of lodging and how we are going to get there as we can get a good estimate of what that will cost. Typically we know ahead of time how much transportation, lodging, attractions will cost and so we know how much we can spend on restaurants/souveniors/ or extras in total.

[Angio333]

Vacation

I know it is not the best move financially, but my wife and I use our tax refund for vacations all year. We get about $3,000 back. we file married, but filing as single with 0 dependants.

It is a forced savings account for vacations. I know that I am giving up interest, but it works for us. That is where the "personal" part of personal finance comes in.

Internet

we use a cable mopbile with the bill rolled into out cable bill. It totals about $75 if there were no pay per view events that we watched that month.

[tripods68]

We use our Tax Refund (between $5K to $3K every year) to fund our family vacation, except this year. It was the "stimulus check" that funded our San Diego trip. This also pays our property tax and insurance.

We just recently switched to Surewest (triple package deal: landline, Internet - fiber optic speed, Cable Hi Def & DVR) which we pay $150.00 a month. After one year it goes up to $170.00. Still $50 cheaper than our last cable provider.

[Coleroo]

Right now we don't budget for any as we really can't afford to travel. The only place we travel to is from SC (where we live) to my hubby's family home in Upstate New York - we spend one weekend there each January at a total cost of about $400 (that's including gas and meals...we stay with family).

Even if we had the money, we couldn't see ourselves spending more than $2000 on a vacation. Shoot, our honeymoon (6 days in a small hilltop cabin in gatlinburg, tn and visiting various sites around the smokey mountains...plus horseback riding) didn't even cost us $2000. I guess you could call us cheap? lol

As for the other question...

We use Road Runner "Lite" Broadband ($19.95 per month) for our internet service. I had regular road runner for 4 years at double the price - yet I notice no difference now in the quality! I download / upload a lot (especially large image files) with my websites and such and the speed has not changed any.

[PrincessPerky]

we rarely take 'real' vacations because we can't afford them, but we do frequently visit family (we could afford more real vacations if we saw family less)

anyway we save by staying with family, eating their food and letting folk take us out to eat..plus we don't need any souvenirs from 'home'

BUT we do tend to spend on zoos or science center or aviary or museums...I wish I knew a cheaper way to do that...unfortunately we don't get down there enough to buy memberships. though if you want a vacation cheap I recommend pulling up the list of your local museum and find out the 'sister' sites, pick a vacation spot near them....course that only works if you museums zoos required vacation stops.

anyway internet is cable 40ish month no cable tv attached. it is earthlink which is roadrunner without road runner support...so far can't tell the difference except my email is earthlink.net not RR.net

We have not switched to lite because husband does MAJOR work thru the cable...slow enough wihtout making it worse.

[feh]

Question- how much does your household budget for vacations each year? How do you manage to stay within budget (not overspend)?

We don't budget for vacations. We take one or two low-key, low cost long weekends each summer at friends and relatives houses in resort areas. No lodging expenses, so the only real cost is food and inexpensive activities.

Once every five years my wife and I go on a real vacation (airfare, hotels), which usually ends up costing $2500-4500.

Question- what type of home internet service do you use (cable co-phone-satellite-wireless or other)

DSL, for $35 per month. Then we use Vonage (VOIP) on that connection, and our phone bill is less than $20 per month. We don't have a land line.

[safari]

I don't budget money for vacations either. I usually spend $4-5K a year on vacations and use the money from my savings account to pay for them. I put around $3K into my savings account every month, so that covers it easily.

[creditscore]

well i live in the country surrounded with magnificent scenic spots, and i usually spend my vacation in Palawan once a year...well it depends on how many days but i usually spend $400-500 for 2-3 days...

[mrpaseo]

Vacation? What is this?

Just kidding, we alot 100 per month in the budget and do much research to stay within budget. Thanks the Uncle Sam, I spend most of my time in the desert so it's usually only the wife and child traveling, the 1200 goes a long way.

Ray