How To Budget And Track Spending For Your Vacation

By Craig Ford (Staff Writer), on July 23, 2010

Vacation is one of those luxuries that can easily cause you to go over budget. Even the best budgeter gets caught up in the spur of the moment. I know no one really wants to budget on vacation.  But, I promise you, there is one thing worse than budgeting on vacation — that is, being harassed by collectors after your vacation just because you spent more than you could afford to pay.

Photo by Fevi Yu via Flickr

Budgeting Is Not Just For Geeks

There is something synonymous about geeks and budgeting.  When we think of budgeting, we imagine a slender person with horn rimmed glasses tracking every purchase with a notebook and pencil.  Learning how to make a budget is about learning how to find a budget that is effective, but uses as little time an energy as possible.

Is there a way to keep track of your spending and have fun on vacation?

There is…and the key is to set up a way to track your spending that is relatively painless.

A Note About Credit Card Spending on Vacation

While everyone has their opinions about credit cards, on vacation the advantages of credit cards and disadvantages are even more extreme.  Seriously, who wants to get in a bind away from home without having a credit card?  Do you really want to email your Granny and ask her to transfer money to your account?  Convenience is a major advantage of credit cards on vacation.  On the other hand, on vacation we tend to say things like, “Hey, we’re on vacation. Let’s just do it.”  Credit cards make spending too easy on vacation.  They might just be too convenient.

The biggest problem with credit cards on vacation is that they only help you track the spending after it has happened.  In other words, most people charge and charge on vacation, and then they go home to add up the total damage.  This is not an effective spending plan.  Budgeting is more like sending in the SWAT team to change the course of events, not like sending in the recovery team to pick up the mess.

For these reasons, I tend to use cash for various purchases on vacation (a major exception is when I can take advantage of a 0% foreign currency credit card purchase).  On vacation, I suggest people steer away from credit cards as it will be really hard to track your spending.

Painless Vacation Budgeting Method

Of course, we all know that budgeting is simply tracking what you have already predetermined to spend on vacation.  So, before you leave for vacation, you will need to do the necessary work of determining how much vacation you can afford.  Once you have those numbers in place, you can adopt one or a combination of both tracking methods below.

Painless Way To Track Spending #1:  Track ATM Receipts Only

Instead of tracking pennies or dollars, you only need to track trips to the ATM.  This way you don’t need to keep receipts or carry a little notebook.

Let’s say you set your vacation budget so that you will have $1,000 in spending money.  Using this method, you would got to the ATM and take out $200 (as an example).   At $200 per trip, you get five trips to the ATM.  All you do is make sure your visits to the ATM do not exceed five withdrawals.

This is a much simpler way than the traditional envelope budgeting system.

Painless Way To Track Spending #2: Prepaid Gift Cards

Another great way to help curb your spending on vacation is by using prepaid gift cards. You might buy a $50 card for your favorite restaurant and $50 for your favorite movie theater.  In addition, you could even consider some prepaid credit cards for other miscellaneous spending.  This way you don’t need to track your spending; you only need to track your card balances.  Once the card balance is finished, you know you have used the full budget for that category.

As an added bonus, you can often buy prepaid gift cards or gift certificate for a discounted price.

Do you track your spending on vacation?  How do you track your spending on vacation?

Recommended articles:

• Moolanomy’s Family Vacation Wrap Up
• How to Budget in Less than 20 Minutes a Week
• Budget Once, Spend (or Save) Twice!
• Personal Budget Software YNAB 3 Review
• How to Have a No-Spend Weekend
• Is Your Budget Doing Its Job?
• How To Vacation Without Disappointment

Tell your friends:

Share  

Get FREE updates:

    via Twitter
    via Facebook
    via RSS or Email

Craig is a fulltime missionary in Papua New Guinea who writes Money Help For Christians and Help Me Travel Cheap, a frugal family travel blog. He is the author of Money Wisdom From Proverbs, has a Masters of Divinity degree, and (most importantly) eats homemade pizza with his family every Friday night.

All posts by Craig Ford (Staff Writer)

Discuss. Share. Interact. Please leave a comment!

Comment Rules: Constructive criticism is welcomed. Please use your PERSONAL name or initials and not your business name or URL, as the latter comes off like spam and I'll most likely delete your comment. Have fun and thanks for adding to the conversation! Here's our comment policy and guidelines.