I have always wanted to visit Greece and my children love traveling to other countries. My son is an avid reader of Greek mythology and would love to vacation there. Saving the money to go by the end of 2012 may be a little challenging for my family but not impossible.
Airfare
Airfare is outrageous but the only way for my family to travel with three weeks of vacation time available. The airfare alone will vary from $1,300 to $1,700 per person round trip. Booking early will save us from paying the higher price fare. The lower fare will take us directly into Athens and we can find other transportation from there. I would like to keep the price of airfare under $4,000 if at all possible. I plan to search every flight available and go with the most inexpensive flight. Dividing the weeks left until vacation, I will need to save approximately $100 per week for airfare.
Lodging and Activities
A lot of our time will be spent visiting museums, beaches, dining, and spending time together. Our activities shouldn’t be too expensive and we are only taking $2,000 for excursions. Lodging, I have researched and have found a lot of beautiful choices. In total, I plan on spending $2,500 to stay at one of the five star hotels near the Acropolis and National Archaeological Museum of Athens. Of course, transportation and dining will also be a large expense and I have budgeted another $3,000 for this. Altogether I plan on spending close to $12,000 on our trip.
The Savings Plan
I do have this amount of money in savings but will not spend it on vacationing. I have approximately forty weeks until vacation time to save. I’ll need to save $300 per week to reach my goal of $12,000 in time. Finding an extra $1,200 each month isn’t an easy task but simply cutting out on extras, saving on energy usage, a cheaper cell phone package, and smart shopping will help. For instance, we have managed to keep our utility bills under $200 per month compared to the $600 we used to spend. Our grocery bill has been drastically reduced by smart shopping; saving another $400 per month which brings my savings to $800 already. Changing cell phone providers saved another $150 and the remaining $250 per month I am going to simply hold out of my check each month.
Saving for a vacation isn’t as difficult as I thought it would be; I just have to be smart about the other things I’m spending on and keep track of where I can save.