Upromise really does work!

I think I have mentioned UPromise a half a dozen times now, but I just have to mention it again.  I just transferred a little over $200 into my sons 529 plan and it felt so good.  I accumulated all the money by registering my credit cards, grocery cards, and using their coupons.  I got some of my family to do the same so the savings are adding up faster than ever!  My dad has been doing it since June and it already added up to over $60!!  Upromise - Start Your Kid's College Savings Today - Join Now

11 Ways to Save Money on Vacation

I love taking family vacations, but sometimes there is more room in the budget for traveling than other times.   To save money on vacations I do a handful of things before and during the family trip. Here are 11 ways I save money on vacations.

1. Use Discounts! Do you qualify for a discount on anything?  AAA, AARP, military, local government, are you part of some sort of club that can get you a discount, or does your child's age get them a discount.  Use your discount on everything you can: hotel, flight, tickets, meal, or activities.

2.  Hotel Breakfast.  Stay at a hotel that serves breakfast.  9 times out of 10 you can find a hotel that serves breakfast for the same price as one that doesn't.  If you are on a week long family trip this could save you money on 5-7 meals.

3.  Combine Attractions  Buy a multiple use pass.  Decide ahead of time some of the things you plan to do on vacation.  Then see if they are selling these activities together.  One price covers all, like CityPASS. CityPASS is an American thing and available in many of the bigger cities.  In Europe you will find similar deals.  In Rome we got the Roma Pass that got us 3 days bus and subway use and into two of the attractions.

4.  Take a podcast tour.  Quit paying to go on tours if you can help it.  You can download free podcast tours of the destination you are visiting.  The podcast will tell you where to start, where to go, and what to look for.  Often you can find multiple podcast tour of the same place.  Listen to all of them if you like, each one will tell you a little something new.  I recommend Rick Steve's podcast for places in Europe.

5.  Extra ear buds  If you go on a museum tour they often have audio guides.  Instead of having to rent one for each person take some extra ear phones.  Most audio tour devices have a place to plug in a second set of ear buds.  You may have to walk closer together, but you will save money on each device you don't have to rent. Even if they don't have a second place to plug in you can just use a headphone splitter.


6.  Subway Use the subway, bus, train, plane, or a car.  Take the time to figure out what is the cheapest way to get around.  A subway system can be very intimidating if you are not familiar with it.  Download a subway app to your phone and it will pinpoint where you are and tell you which subway to use.  It's easy! 

7.  Use Cheap Transportation  Don't assume that one form of transportation is cheaper than another.  When we were in Europe we thought we would take the train everywhere, but it was so expensive.  Instead, we found Ryan Air and flew from one destination to another.  We took three separate flights and it was less than half what the train would have cost and took about a sixth of the time.

8.  Get a Hotel Deal  Watch various websites for the best hotel deal.  Use which ever site you need to.  I use Travelzoo, Priceline, and Expedia.com the most.

9.  Daily Deals  Once you know where you are going on vacation you can sign up with daily deal websites for that city.  Everyday is a different deal.  You can get up to half price restaurant, spa, hotel, and tours.  LivingSocial's Daily Deals and Groupon are available in most cities.

10.  Buy Restaurant gift certificates  Utilize restaurants.com to your benefit.  Look up your hotels zip code and search for restaurants available nearby.  If there is one you want to go to or one that is recommended get a $25 certificate for it.  I do this all the time and pay $2 per gift certificate.  There is usually a minimum of 2 entrees or $35 that you have to spend to use it and they add tip.  If you sign up with them they will send you coupon codes.  I never pay $10 for a certificate, because I always use an 80% off coupon code. 

11.  Free admission  Almost all museums have times when they admit people for free.  Look up the museum you want to visit and find out if they offer this. Even some of the most famous museum in the world do this, like the Prado.

For some other ways to save money on Family Travel check out Veggie Mom's 10 tips for family travel deals.

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Ebates - make money at home

 Have you heard of Ebates yet?  Ebates is a website that you log on to and then choose a store to shop at.  For example I just ordered contacts.  So, I logged on to Ebates and then choose VisionDirect to buy from.  I got a certain percentage back.  I can't remember the exact percentage, but I spent about $140 on contacts and I got back a little over $15 on my purchase.

 If you are doing any online shopping this is the way to go.  I just started my online Christmas shopping and so far I have gotten free shipping deals and atleast 6% back on everything!

I consider this a way to make money from home.  You would have spent the money any way and now you have gotten some of it back.

Timeshare - to Buy or not to Buy

I know a lot of people are down on them, but I am not one of them.  We own two timeshares and that is how we do a lot of our traveling.  We are able to exchange the units we own in Vegas though an exchange company (RCI.com)and stay where ever we like.  We have been able to use ours to go to Hawaii, Canada, and a whole assortment of places in Orlando. 

Knowing what I know now I would never buy one through the actual resort.  I would go to the presentation and get my free gift, but I would not under any circumstances buy from them.  Instead find an individual seller.  That same unit that the resort is selling for 30,000 you can probably get for 5,000.  There are tons of people out there that bought them and never use them.  We use ours, but after the upgrades they did to our resort it was worth more points in the exchange company so we don't need both units any more.  As soon as I have time I will be listing one of ours with a resale company.  That unit sells for around 25,000 at the resort now, but when we got it, it was much less.  We will probably sell for around 12,500.  This is a savings of 50%.  I am betting that if you love a resort and look around hard enough you could probably save even more! 
At this time the only resale company on the internet I trust is redweek.com.  If I happen to find others I will add them. 

If you are looking for somewhere to buy I suggest you keep several things in mind. 
Location!  Can you get there easily?  If there is not a cheap airline to get you there or it is a reasonable drive, you will never go.  It will have been a waste of money. 
High Demand!  Is there high demand to stay in this area?  The higher the demand is for the area the more exchange points you get through an exchange system.  For example our two weeks in Vegas often exchanges for 3-5 weeks each year in different parts of the world.  So, instead of two vacations we get 3 - 5. 

Some of the things I like about staying at a timeshare is having your own kitchen.  We save a ton on food when we are traveling because we have the ability to make a pot of spaghetti.  I like having a two bedroom unit so we have enough space for all of us!  I especially like not sharing a room with my children.

Parenting tip - Children's Chore cards

I use Children's chore cards at my houseas an incentive for my children to do chores around the house. 

I use a simple 3x5 index card. At the top is their name and that week's dates. Under is a list of chores your child is capable of achieving and the amount they are paid each time they perform that specific chore.

I decide my chores based on realistic goals for their ages. My nine year old can do more than my six year old and my three year old can do the least of all. So the tasks will vary. The earnings for each task reflect on hard the task is. For example when you take out the kitchen trash or the recycling it is easy. They close up the bag and throw it into our garage holder in the garage. It takes less than 1 minute making it worth .25. Also, this is a job just for my nine year old, because my six year old is too short. However, the upstairs trash is different. There are many little trash cans to dump into one bag and then haul down stairs and then it will be taken out to the garabage holder. This task takes more time and energy. My kids can use team work and both make .75 cents each.

Each week we start over with a fresh card on Sunday. All week long I keep track of the chores they have done by placing a star next to the actvity. On Saturday I total it up and they get their 'pay day'. They look forward to pay day and are always excited. Last week they both made $1.75 each. They were happy to make so much money!

On a week where I have had to ask too many times for them to do something or they have given me attitude I make them complete their tasks with no compensation. They lose the privilage of Earning money. I want them to recognize that we enjoy rewarding them, but only if they can have a good attitude without complaining.

Parenting with Rewards

I believe in rewards and incentives as a form of discipline, but I also use them in other areas like reading.

Anytime a kid's movie comes out that was a book originally I don't allow my kids to see the movie. At least, not until we have read the book. Often times kids get down about reading. When my kids do this I use watching the movie as an incentive. Instead of them complaining about reading they can't wait to finish the book and will actually ask me to read them another chapter.

Some ideas to get you started are:

The Chronicles of Narnia - so far they have made two books in this series into movies. A third book will come out as a movie this summer.

Percy Jackson & the Olympians - They have already turned the 1st book of the series into a movie and I know there are plans to make more books into movies.  This is a five book series.  I must say the movie was not near as good as the book and it was very different.  We read the book first and then watched the movie.  For the first time my kids realized how much better a book could be and was.  I thought that was a great lesson for them.

Diary of a Wimpy kid - Right now there are 4 books out, but the next one comes out at the beginning of November.  My kids think these books are hilarious.  They read them over and over.  They loved the movie too.

Ann of Green Gables - I am unsure of how many of these books were made into movies.  I know the first 2 in the series are definately movies.  Also, for younger children you can get a children's version.  I found one at WalMart for $5 and it was a hardback. 

Star Wars - there are tons of these books and they come in various reading levels

Lunch box idea

I usually pack my kids everyday, but it gets difficult to come up with new ideas. My daughter is allergic to peanuts and oats, which rules out any of those ideas.
I saw a cute blog the other day devoted to bento box lunches. I'm not going to go out and buy my kids bento sets but I did take a look around my kithcan and found some items I could use. These are sandwich holders from Tupperware that u got a long time ago. They worked out really well.

I'm a writer over at Travelingmom.com

I am excited to share with y'all that I am now contributing a few articles to Travelingmom.com.

My first article for them 8 Tips for Houseboating with Kids!

House Boating in Canada
House Boating On Lake Shuswap, B.C.

Memorize scriptures

Since becoming a mom my brain is always completely scrambled it seems. I have a harder time remembering things. I used to have what I considered a really good memory, but I would not dare make that claim these days!

My mom gave me a book by Lisa Whelchel called Taking Care of the ME in Mommy. In it she talks about something she calls Scripture Primping: writing out scriptures that coordinate with your primping tasks, and sticking them to the mirror where you put on your makeup each morning.

Foundation: "For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ" 1 Corinthians 3:11

Eyebrows: "And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell" Mark 9:47

Eye makeup: "All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirit" Proverbs 16:2

Mascara: "A rebuke impresses a man of discernment more than a hundred lashes a fool" Proverbs 17:10

Finishing powder: "Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything" James 1:4

Blush: "To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also" Luke 6:29

Lipstick: "Truthful lips endure forever, but a lying tongue is but for a moment" Proverbs 12:19