Last Week's Thrifty Moves

We left home Saturday the 25th for our much anticipated family vacation.  After the marathon leading up to my oldest daughter's graduation we were beyond ready for this.

We packed our own food from home and prepared our own snacks, beverages and meals which saved us a ton of money.  Eating out is terrifically expensive and for three of us to eat two or three meals per day would've been a true budget buster.  We found a Trader Joes to pick up fresh produce and a couple extra items to get through the week with.

Look at this girl driving! 😃

We ate out two dinners and two breakfasts the entire 9 days we were gone and made the rest of our meals.  I packed the cooler with ice made at home and replenished it with ice provided at our hotels the rest of the week.  We also had a fridge in our room which was really nice.

I paid $12 admission ($4 each) to go through a museum one day.  We took advantage of loads of free activities as well as free parking spaces to save even more $$.  Lots of walking meant we got plenty of exercise and we did a lot of fun stuff too including a walk along Lake Tahoe that was absolutely beautiful.

The girls had $25 Disney gift cards (given to them for Christmas years ago) to use for souvenir shopping at the park.  My souvenir for the trip ended up being a leather designer purse I found at Burlington in Carson City, Nevada.  I was thrilled to find it and only paid $17.99, an incredible price.  I also picked up a coffee mug at a shop outside of the park as well as a stuffed Goofy.  Because he is my favorite!

I bought the girls each a treat at Disneyland.  They both wanted cotton candy so I made sure they got some.  Other than that they didn't ask for a thing all week long.

Some of the 15 Minute Chores I accomplished to keep my home in order:

None!  I didn't do any housework, because we weren't home! 😆

Roller coaster ride!

I'll go into more detail about our trip throughout the week so please be sure to check back and see what all we managed to do on our big family vacation.

How was your thrifty week?