by Ashley
Good Monday morning, everyone! Thanks for giving me a few days to recover from my illness! At first I was sure I had the flu because I had all the classic symptoms (body aches, pounding headache, chills), but it went away after only about 3 days and Dr. Google says flu symptoms (particularly fatigue) tend to last longer than that, so I have no idea what was going on! I’m just glad I’m on the mend and seem to be getting better! Thanks for your suggestions about where to find a good chicken noodle soup! I really appreciate it! : )
Now, onto a little analysis of the costs of our trip to Austin…
- One night hotel (we did the same thing as our last road trip – stopping mid-way on the way there and driving straight through on the way back) = $140
- Dollar Tree road-trip toys = $6
- Food and Drinks (in cooler) = $35
- Food and drinks (purchased on trip/fast food) = $40
- Gasoline = $88
- Total = $309
Say what???? How is it that low???
Welllll, hubs’ Mom ended up generously sending him a gas card to use for the trip. We used it about every-other fill-up, plus gas ended up being CHEAP (we scored $1.84/gal at its lowest). So that’s why that’s so low.
Aside from that, we didn’t end up paying for anything while in Texas. We never went out to eat and the only activities we participated in were free (insider tip for those who live in Austin-area: we went to Rock’N Lights near Dell Diamond, and it was INCREDBILE! They try to make you do the drive-through for $20/car, but you can park and walk through the Christmas Town for free! They had free hot chocolate, free donuts, free pictures with Santa, and all kinds of additional super cheap things! My MIL paid for both toddlers to have a pony ride for only $2/each! Way fewer crowds than the Zilker Trail of Lights and so many fun photo ops! A Must Do for next year!)
We were only in town for 6 days and so much of it was jam-packed with visiting families (we have my mom’s side of the family, hubs’ family, + my Dad ended up coming to town for the holiday so we had the equivalent of 3 separate families to visit) that it turned out to be a good thing because we didn’t have any time to run around spending money on miscellaneous things.
So there you have it. A $309 cross-country road trip. Not too shabby!
Did you go out of town for Christmas or New Years? How do you keep expenses low on road-trips?
Hi, I’m Ashley! Arizonan on paper, Texan at heart. Lover of running, blogging, and all things cheeeeese. Freshly 40, married mother of two, working in academia. Trying to finally (finally!) pay off that ridiculous 6-digit student loan debt!
Wow that is awesome. I’m planning a trip from Maine to southern NJ for 6/16 which is only 1.5 years away. My son will be graduating high school. We plan on making a vacation out of it. So we want to stay 6 days which would be all hotel stays. I usually try to do as cheap as possible, but hubby has never really seen around that area so we’ll take him sight seeing. It’s going to cost us about $1000–1500 which includes all gas, food, hotel, tolls and everything else. I’m budgeting for $1500 which should be plenty then if we have left over that is cool too. We are very frugal anyhow, but I want to take DH to Philadelphia to sight see– so much history there. So we want to make as much out of the trip as possible. When we usually go we only end up staying like a day then coming back. Way more relaxing to stay 6 days and then drive the 10 hours back. Plus hubby has only been down there quickly once about 5 years ago.
What a fun trip (and a reason to celebrate, too!) I think its a good thing to have longer-term goals like this to save for and look forward to. June 2016 will be here before we know it, I’m sure!
Well I can’t start saving until I’m back to work which will be around April. So I figure June is almost here then. So by then I’ll have a year to save or maybe a little over a year.
$1.84/gallon?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
WOW! That’s so retro! 😉
I know I saw some memes about gas being so low and the Cowboys doing well, how its like being back in the 1990s lol
Congrats on a frugal and fun holiday trip! And now you are poised to hit 2015 running!!!!!