One evening, when our #yearofno was wearing thin (and getting on our nerves a little bit), Hubby and I talked about the first thing we’d do when we were free from credit card debt. We considered a few ideas, but finally decided that a little getaway was the perfect reward for our family.
We sent in our last payment a couple of weeks ago! So we decided to book a hotel for one night of spring break. We took the kids to Indianapolis for a couple of days of fun.
I can’t tell you how relaxing it is to get away with the family on a trip you can cover with cash. It felt truly rewarding after years of looking for free things to do over spring break.
Not that there’s anything at all wrong with having a frugal or free spring break. You can bet we’ll still have plenty of those in our future! But sometimes a cash splurge is just what the doctor ordered.
Now, every Friday I blog about the ways we’ve saved money this week. It’s great motivation to keep up our frugal ways!
If you like money saving tips, be sure to check out the entire 5 Ways We’ve Saved Money This Week Series here.
Or you can grab your copy of the 500 Ways to Save Money book. The book is helpful, because it breaks all of the ways to save money into categories so you can easily find the tips that best apply to your life. Get your copy here.
The 5 Ways We’ve Saved Money This Week
Book
This one has nothing to do with the trip we took, but it saved me money anyway! I’ve been looking for resources to help children deal with anxiety. I found this interesting book, and switched to Paypal to pay for the book.
It just happens that Ebates had deposited my big fat refund from all of my Christmas shopping. So I was able to get the book for free!
I love using Ebates, because it’s so easy. You simply start at their website instead of the store you were planning to shop. They even give you coupon codes for many websites! You’ll get $10 for free just to sign up.
Children’s Museum
The first stop on our little trip was to hit the Children’s Museum in Indianapolis. Everyone loved it! I’ll admit that the teenagers didn’t have quite as much to do, but they certainly kept themselves occupied.
To save money, I bought our tickets in advance. We went on a Monday which made the tickets even cheaper. And when we got there, boy were we happy to skip the long line!
Food
Part of our reward was that I didn’t bring along PB&Js for everyone. Gasp! We actually bought food at the museum!
They had a $25 pizza and drinks deal, which was plenty of food for even our big crew. (We did have to get a couple of extra drinks.) But next time we’ll go back to our cheap sandwiches. I can think of a lot of things I’d rather spend $25 on than one lunch.
We did pack snacks and water bottles, which gave us a nice mid afternoon break. Lockers were a dollar, making it well worth the $2 price to lock it up twice.
More Fun
On the second day of our trip, we decided to check out the NCAA Hall of Fame and Museum. That was fun! The kids got to do a scavenger hunt. There were chances to try out different sports (our boys loved the radar gun for throwing baseballs!). And there was sports trivia!
This museum is already super affordable, but when I found an even better deal from Groupon (with an extra coupon on top of that discounted price!) I was thrilled!
Saving money on something you were going to do anyway is the best kind of savings.
Incidentally, a friend of mine found a Groupon Getaway deal that made heading to Niagara Falls for spring break an absolute steal. I had never checked it out before, but you can bet I’ll be looking there first the next time we want a short getaway!
We thought it was only fitting to have a picture next to an ATM on our #yearofno reward trip!
Pool
Part of me suspects that the kids’ favorite part was the hotel pool and hot tub. They spent most of the evening and the next morning swimming. In fact, if we could find an affordable hotel with an indoor pool and free breakfast, I think we’d be happy with that simple getaway!
Those are the 5 ways we saved money this week!
The splurge was a ton of fun, and I loved the quality family time! Getting away from life with credit cards is so rewarding, and it just keeps on giving as time goes on.
One of my favorite ways to save money is when we find a money saving tip that saves us month after month (after month!). Are you using all 10 of these simple savings ideas yet?
How did you save this week?
I'm Jamie, and I want to help you afford a beautiful life with your family. 
We started 2018 trying to not spend any money on clothing, among other goals. So far so good on that one. One other thing I’ve been trying to do is not spend money on Starbucks (coffee in general). I’ve been good with that except for 2 networking coffees I’ve had to purchase. ~$6 on coffee in Q1 2018 is a win in our books!
Congrats on successfully traveling frugally! We try to pay as little as possible for any vacation, using a lot of miles and points to fund our travel. We recently went on spring break (mostly on miles and points) and wrote about it if anyone is interested in reading more.
https://www.smartmoneyandtravel.com/planning-spring-break-2018-with-miles-and-points/
When I was a kid, we never ever ever bought food at the museums we (often) went to. I hated it. I always felt poor. Even my grandparents, in Florida, when we went on trips to the Space Center, etc, packed a cooler. I’ll never forget the time some liquid got into everyone’s sandwiches and they were damp and gross but we had to eat them anyway. I vowed that when I grew up, I’d buy lunches for my kids at museums and I always have. Of course, they’re no doubt spoiled and don’t realize how lucky they are not to have to eat PBJs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art….
Eating soggy sandwiches does stink. We usually try to make our sandwiches on site, but in a case like the museum I probably would have packed them separately from our water.
We often talk to the kids about how eating a PB&J gives us the chance to spend that money on having more fun. They’re happy with that trade off!
We almost always take lunch with us when we go to museums. Once in a while we will buy it. Museum lunches are never anything special. Glad you had a good time.
Yeah! Glad you had a fun time in my city (well my general area anyway). We love TCM and were there over our Spring Break too.
It was SO much fun! The kids really want to go back again. 🙂