frugal underground

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You should always have a plan when you are going to spend money. Consider just three areas where we regularly save by planning.

Groceries. Planning the meals to cover a week or two weeks will help you stick to a budget. Instead of buying food on impulse, you can plan each meal ahead and get the necessary ingredients. You should also make sure that you check the levels of household cleaners and toiletries. Avoiding an extra trip to the store will bring down the chances of an impulse purchase.

Entertainment. Everyone likes to get out and have fun. If you really need to get out once in a while, plan an inexpensive night out. Set the amount you will spend and stick to it. If you use cash only, you will be more inclined to stick to budget.

Major purchases. You can save a fortune if you explore your options. When looking for a car, furniture or major appliances, there is much room for error. Think about quality. It might not be the best choice to buy the cheapest thing out there, because it may not last as long. Check the consumer ratings on the brands you are considering. You don’t have to pay top dollar, but cheap isn’t the way to go with certain things.

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Quality time with family is so important. When money is tight, it is sometimes difficult to figure out how to make a worthwhile vacation on a budget. Here’s how you can get the most out of a family vacation without spending all of your savings.

Photo by elephantsgerald

Take short trips. You can visit amusement parks, local carnivals, local fairs, museums, aquariums and zoos for very little money. Small children will appreciate getting out of the house, and are easily entertained with animals and rides. Site seeing is also a nice change of pace, and you can have a family picnic.

If you want a real get away, drive. Saving money on flight costs will allow some flex in the budget for admissions and food. Also, if you have your own car, you won’t have to rent one. You may also want to find out how much the public transportation in the area is between the hotel and the attraction.

A three night stay in a hotel is just long enough to relax and enjoy a break. If you plan a shorter trip, always budget for the cost of an extra night, just in case. Shortening the stay will save some money, and if you save enough for a longer stay, you can use the extra money for special dinners or souvenirs.

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Ever since I posted a quick blurb about going to a Trendwest presentation, I’ve been getting comments, emails, and searches about Trendwest. It’s clear that people are looking for info, so I’m going to do a short series on Trendwest and you.

This first post is kind of an overview designed to help you understand what Trendwest does.

Trendwest is basically an improved timeshare program. In a traditional timeshare setup, you buy partial ownership in a property, and then are guaranteed a certain amount of time each year to use the property (a week is common). Typically, you have the same week each year at the same property. It’s much cheaper than owning a vacation home, but provides many of the same benefits.

Timeshares were really big in the sixties and seventies because of their affordability and convenience. After a while, though, some of the owners decided they wanted to mix it up a little, and started trading their weeks (”my week in Arizona for your week in Florida?”). This made the timeshare idea a bit more flexible.

Trendwest has effectively formalized the trading system and abstracted it from the “my week” concept. With Trendwest, you buy points, not time at a specific place at a specific time. Your points can then be spent for time at any of the Trendwest locations (of which there are many). This improves on the timeshare idea because you have more flexibility with less hassle.

When you buy Trendwest points, you’re buying them permanently. For instance, if you buy 12,000 points, you get 12,000 points each and every year for your one-time cost (plus an annual maintenance fee). Trendwest emphasizes this (as they should) because of the long-term value. They like to point out that you can even leave your Trendwest ownership to your kids. The comparison is “owning vs. renting”, and it mostly holds up.

In addition to their core program, Trendwest also offers some other associated perks. The one that interests me the most is something they call Bonus Time, which allows you to pay cash (instead of points) at a drastically reduced rate. You can also save up points over time and borrow ahead, both of which are convenient options for longer trips at more exotic locations.

The bottom line is, Trendwest is very convenient. In the next post, I’m going to help you consider the value they offer, and whether it might be a bargain for you.

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I’m writing this from an affordable vacation rental, which happily came with wi-fi—hence the reason I feel free to dole out advice on this subject. Here’s what worked for me:

• Be as flexible as possible. Originally we were thinking about going to Yellowstone. I’ve never been, and we were going to be in the general area for an obligatory trip, so we thought, why not extend it into an actual vacation?

  Good idea, but trying to find someplace we wanted to stay in the general Yellowstone area was downright depressing. First, it’s high season in Yellowstone. Mid-summer is when all the cool kids want to go there. Even the dive motels were relatively expensive and mostly booked solid.

  So what did we do? We considered other options. We consulted a map of to see what was in a reasonable distance of our route back home, and came across several good options. There were two areas that are well-known for their winter activities, and as a result, end up having abundant (and low-season-priced) accommodations in the summer. They’re still very nice areas in the summer, with lots of biking and nature attractions.

  Bottom line: being flexible means can help you find a nice location at low-season rates.

• Carefully consider your needs. Travelling with kids is a lot different than a “just the two of us” getaway. Attraction-centric trips are also very different than trips where the goal is to just lay low.

  Think about your schedule, and what you’ll need out of your accomodations. If you’ll be in or around your lodgings most of the time, it makes sense to find something with a kitchenette—you’ll be able to save on meals. If you’re going to be at Disneyland all day, or meeting friends and family members for meals out, then the extra cost of a kitchenette may be just that: an extra cost.

  Likewise, staying somewhere with a pool may or may not matter to a single guy or someone with a full agenda, but it can be a huge benefit on a family vacation—for the included cost, you have hours of fun and entertainment.

  Bottom line: being specific about your needs will save you time searching and money on your trip when you don’t pay for things you won’t use.

• Look for individuals. Property management companies can be a good resource to find lots of options, but in my experience, working with an individual can save a lot of money. Obviously this isn’t an issue with hotel/motel/lodge kinds of places, but when you’re looking for a house or a condo, you can sometimes find really excellent deals when you move away from the “standardized pricing” of a larger agent.
• Try alternate sources of information. This made the biggest difference for us out of all the tips here. It can be fast and easy to use Travelocity or its competitors to find a place to stay, but you’ll pay for it—especially if you’re looking for something other than a hotel.

  I mentioned our trip idea to my mom, and she told me that her sister has a cabin in the Yellowstone area. The timing didn’t work out (it was already rented for some of the days we were looking for) but it brings up an important point: you don’t know who your contacts know, and this could be a great resource. It’s easy enough to just mention that you’re thinking about taking a trip in such-and-such area, and see if anyone knows someone with an unrented vacation rental.

  The method that was successful for me was craigslist. It eventually occured to me that I use craigslist for all sorts of work-related things (finding freelance gigs, finding contractors to do work for me, that kind of thing) so why not use it for finding a place to stay on vacation? This ties into the “Look for individuals” tip since most listings on craigslist are from individuals.

  Once we’d narrowed our locations down to the two summer-is-low-season spots, I pulled up the respective craigslist sites and looked under vacation rentals. This involves a lot of sorting the wheat from the chaff, because there were all sorts of things listed that were out of our price range, but it wasn’t hard to find several properties in both locations that were within our budget and actually had a lot more features than we expected.

  In the end, we chose a craigslist-located condo that is much nicer than the standard hotel setup, and much cheaper. In fact, when we drove in yesterday, we passed a standard hotel, so I just looked up their rates: a full $60/night more for something comparable. Multiply that over our four-night stay and it really adds up!

I hope these tips help you the next time you plan a vacation… and now I’m off to go enjoy some more of mine!

Related Link: Car rental Malaga Cheap car rental Malaga Spain. All inclusive in Prices.

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Some research says it can.

I just read an interesting article on the topic called “C’mon, get happy. Seriously, it pays.” According to the article,

“[researchers] found that those with a song in their hearts are more likely to, among other things:

• Get a job interview
• Be employed
• Perform well at work
• Get higher evaluations from bosses
• Make more money
• Have jobs with more autonomy, meaning and variety
• Avoid job burnout

Sounds like quite the deal, huh? And the important take-away from this info is that the research suggest that some people are successful because they’re happy, rather than happy because they’re successful (which seems like the order what most of us would expect).

They also found that how often you’re happy matters more than how happy you are when you’re happiest. (It’s more a question of your general disposition.)

Of course, happiness isn’t everything—other qualities (like talent, perserverance, etc.) can make you successful even if you’re a sourpuss. But I’d suggest that happier people can also get by with less, so aside from doing better at work, they also can save more money.

What would make you a happier person? Can you do it right now? Or do you even go for this idea?

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