How to Save For Vacation

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By Lila30
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Have you been dreaming of a vacation? It’s important to budget for your vacation early so that you can save money to pay for the trip without using credit.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Step 1

Sit down and decide what kind of vacation you want to take. In this example, we sit down in September to plan our trip for next July. We decide we want to go on a Caribbean cruise.
Step 2

Do a rough calculation of what you will want to spend on your vacation. Include estimated airfare, hotel costs, transportation, dining, entertainment and souvenirs. In this example, we calculated $4,000 for a 7 day vacation.
Step 3

Calculate how much you need to save each month to get to your goal. For a $4,000 vacation, we would need to save roughly $450 per month (4,000 divided by 9 months).
Step 4

Decide methods of saving. The following steps give examples.
Step 5

Do you already have some savings that you are willing to use for this vacation? If so, subtract those and recalculate your monthly savings requirements. Say you already have $500 in savings that you are willing to put toward your vacation, then you can take $4000 minus $500 divided by 9 months to get a new goal of saving approximately $390.
Step 6

See how much you can put into vacation savings from your monthly pay. If you have extra money each month, how much are you willing to put away for your vacation? If you decide you can easily put away an extra $50 a month, your new monthly goal would now be $340 above that.
Step 7

Are there things you are willing to cut out of your monthly budget? For example, if you go to Starbucks twice a week, you could cut that and save around $10 per week. $10 per week multiplied by 4 weeks per month will give you another $40 per month. Now you need to save $300 per month above that.
Step 8

If you can't get the entire monthly amount into your vacation savings, just put as much as you can in. Then, each month, calculate your new monthly savings goal. (Amount you want for vacation minus amount currently in savings divided by months remaining until vacation).
Step 9

Here are some ideas to make extra money toward your vacation savings goal: Have a garage sale, Sell books/DVDs online, work a part time job, request cash for holiday gifts, donate plasma, tutor, baby-sit, use your tax refund, raise or bonus amounts at work, etc. Creatively think of ways to make or save money and put that toward your dream vacation.