Dream chasing can sometimes (ok, often) be riddled with financial obstacles. Like say, travel. Unless you’re being paid to travel as part of your career, it can get expensive! I think traveling is great, but there are lots of little costs that add up over the duration of a vacation that are easy to account for when budgeting. The most obvious things you probably budget for are transportation and accommodations, but what about food and entertainment? What about insurance and travel gear?
My husband and I have just spent 8 days in Vancouver, a city that is more expensive to visit (read: fly to and stay in) than most of the cities we visited last year on our world trip. So we’ve had to do some research and puzzle-solving to keep the spending under control. I wanted to share the greatest advice I can give you for saving money on your next vacation.
#1 Money Saving Tip: Eat food from a supermarket, not restaurants.
We were lucky in finding a fabulous hotel in Vancouver’s west end, next to Stanley Park. It was on top of a mall which had a supermarket as an anchor tenant. If you have a fridge in your hotel room and get a little creative with your meal planning, you can save heaps of cash by buying your food from a supermarket rather than eating out at restaurants.
Here is a quick comparison of estimated food expenses for an 8-day vacation:
| Restaurant | Supermarket | |
| Avg Meal Cost | $ 20.00 | $ 8.00 |
| Tax | $ 3.00 | $ - |
| Gratuity | $ 3.00 | $ – |
| $ 26.00 | $ 8.00 | |
| # meals per day | x 3 | x 3 |
| $ 78.00 | $ 24.00 | |
| # people | x 2 | x 2 |
| $ 156.00 | $ 48.00 | |
| # days | x 8 | x 8 |
| Total | $ 1,248.00 | $ 384.00 |
And here is a recipe you make in your hotel room for less than $5 per meal (makes 4 servings).
Borrow from Hotel Guest Services: 2 plates, 2 forks
Use from your room: kettle or coffee maker to boil water, ice bucket
Purchase:
Naked Grape Unoaked Merlot (1.5 L for $15, or $1.50 per glass)
Hotel Room Summer Garden Tortellini (4 servings for $3.12 per serving)
- 1 Kg Fresh Tortellini pasta ($7)
- 1 Pkg Frozen Summer Garden Vegetables ($3)
- 1 bottle Mediterranean salad dressing ($2.50)
Boil water with your hotel room kettle or coffee maker. Place fresh tortellini and frozen vegetables into clean ice bucket and pour hot water over top. Let stand 8-10 minutes. Drain and serve with desired amount of salad dressing.
Chocolate Pudding for Dessert (4 servings for $0.25 per serving)
Think this sounds too good to be true? Check it:
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Bon Appetit!
Do you have any hotel room recipes? Do share!
Also, check out my inspiration here:
