vacayWe all look forward to the joy of the holidays every year, and then enjoy so much when they are over. Some have New Years resolutions to be/do something different, and some actually stick to them. But, most just get right back into the humdrum of daily life. Looking forward to, or hoping for, (for most it seems) that summer vacation that now still seems so far away.
By now, if you’ve read my blog, you know how I feel about vacations. We got in an overnight trip to SF over the Christmas break and got to see our Warriors kick some 76er butt. (That blog yet to come 🙂 ) And, we are taking a 3 night trip to Vegas at the end of this month for my love’s 40th birthday!!! ❤

So, to sum it up, (if you hadn’t noticed) I thoroughly believe in vacation taking! Yet, it never ceases to amaze me at home many people do NOT take summer vacations! Even more mind blowing to me is how many people take NO vacations!

I 100% believe you should take at LEAST 2 VACATIONS EVERY YEAR!!!!  Ok, I know that may NOT be practical for everyone, but ONE VACATION A YEAR IS…..and I will give you an excellent way of figuring out HOW!

First, as stated above, we take at LEAST 2 trips a year, so this is a technique that I PERSONALLY do year around, and you can as well! 🙂
By now I’m sure we’ve all seen the pinterest/facebook way of putting money of different amounts every week and end up with over $1000. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s an absolutely great thing to do, as any way of helping yourself save money is. The only issue I find with it, is you can spend it anytime, and we all know life happens. For the past 2 summers a month or so before we’ve left for vacation, something has broke in my van forcing me to spend $500 on it………this is the WAY life happens! lol
So, my way of saving, does NOT allow you access to that money to spend, and therefore, you can end up with more of a savings (in my opinion) for your end goal. I’m sure your wondering ‘what is my way’? So, here we go!

You should…………………………PREPAY your bills!
Now, I know we all DESPISE bills. So, your thinking, why in the hell would I want to prepay them? Well, it’s simple. If your bills are pre-paid, you don’t have to pay them, which frees up that money for other things, such as a VACATION!

So, how does this work exactly? Let me explain. You need to start by adding up all your bills. I’ll give an example by rounding mine. I don’t have Satellite, so you won’t see that, and I’m not including credit card bills.

Electric                $150.                                                      

Water                    $50.

Cell phone           $250.

 Internet                $50.

Car                      $250.

Car Insurance      $150.

Orthodontist       $250.

Total                 $1150.00

Now, this comes close to a LOT of people’s paychecks every few weeks, right. So generally, we get paid, and we use the majority of our paychecks to pay bills, then the rest to buy groceries,necessities, etc. RIGHT?!??!  So, take this $1150 and divide it by however many months your wanting to save. I just started saving again for summer, so that gives me 6 months.

1150/6=200.

That means, I will be paying an extra $200 a month for the next 6 months and prepaying ALL of my bills. What does this give me? Well, if you’ve pre-paid all bills for 6 months it’ll give you $1150. How do you not spend it? Well, you continually pay EXTRA every month, then in 6 months you’ll have NO bills to pay and close to OR more than an entire check! See where I’m going? I personally substitute it as the paycheck I’m losing for not working when we go out of town. However, you can use it for cash while on vacation or, however you choose. Just remember, when taking time off work, that means your next paycheck will be short hours, so you have to figure that amount of money into your vacation fund when trying to figure out how much money you will need to get away. Unless of course, your lucky like my husband is, and get paid time off.

If $200 a month is too much money, just pay half of that, ($100) and in 6 months you’ll have $575.00. However, I have a HARD time believing most people can’t put $200 a month aside to take vacations with. I know most of us aren’t rich, but if you add up how much money you spend monthly on Starbucks, smoking, eating out, miscellaneous crap we don’t need, etc. I’d be willing to bet it comes up to MORE than $200 a month. It just takes re-evaluating when/where your spending your money and re-prioritizing is all. What’s more important this year, daily Starbucks, a new tv, laptop, phone, couch, eating out 4 times a week, etc OR a vacation. If a new couch is it, then a new couch it shall be.

Meanwhile, I’ll be exploring the Northwest United States making more memories than money could EVER BUY! 🙂