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We’ve been spending our nights in Rodanthe this week, and it’s been wonderfully relaxing!  So today’s post will be short and sweet.  When we return home I’ll write up all of the ways we made vacation for our young family work, even in the midst of serious debt repayment.

The 5 Ways We’ve Saved Money This Week

Money saving tips

Haircut

While I prefer to cut hair at home using my own clippers, one of our older boys has decided that the buzz cut no longer cuts it.  I’m not great at cutting hair, so I’ve always just buzzed their hair evenly and left it at that.

He can wear his hair a bit longer if he wants, but when it starts covering his face, it’s time for a trim.  Luckily, a Mom friend had a coupon that she let me use.  So I was able to get his hair cut for just $6 plus a tip!  It’s not free, but it’s worth the cost to let him have some independence.

Hotel

We’ve been planning our trip, and we needed a hotel to cut our driving time.  I know many people drive all night to avoid hotel costs, but that isn’t an option for our family.  We have kids that don’t travel well, and grown ups that can’t stay awake all night.

So we booked a hotel in advance because we’ve run into trouble finding vacancies before.  A few days after booking, Hubby noticed that the price of our suite had dropped by $35.  I’m glad he was paying attention!  Hotels.com gave us the difference.

Glasses

Our oldest left his glasses where a baby could get hold of them, and boy did she get hold of them!  It wasn’t a repair we could make ourselves, so we had to find a place on the island that would help us out.

The office we found was able to make a fix that lasted us all week.  Best of all, she did it for free!  And even gave us back the old pieces so we could try to redeem a warranty.

Dinner In

One thing we love about vacation on the beach is all the fresh seafood.  But it comes at a steep price, especially when you’re feeding a family of seven.  I won’t say we didn’t eat out at all, but we did cut way back.  Instead, we grabbed some shark and tuna steaks for the grown ups and fed the kids cheap food (which they prefer anyway).  We spent more on the fresh fish than I’d normally pay for groceries, but we saved a ton of cash on dining out.

Enjoying Simplicity

How many times have you gone into the ice cream shop thinking you’d grab a small cone only to immediately get a craving for a fancy sundae?  It happens a lot, and even more when you’re on vacation.

But we’ve been able to resist!  The great thing about a simple ice cream cone is that even the last bite tastes amazing.  And you can actually appreciate it without any guilt over the price (or extra calories).

Those are the 5 ways we saved money this week!

I’ll be back soon and I can’t wait to share all of my latest tips with you then!  In the meantime, check out what I’m pinning in between beach trips.

 

How did you save this week?