Financial Planning

Posts Tagged ‘Vacation’

This past month I went on vacation, and while on vacation I found that many places still do not accept an American Express credit card. I was kind of surprised and disappointed at the same time.A list of places I’ve been to that don’t accept American Express but do take other types of credit cards.

Dentist – actually I’ve been to two separate Dentists and both take Visa or Mastercard and not Amex.
Local restaurants – we walked into a small pizza parlor, and I asked if they took American Express, and they replied with a big fat no. But they did take Visa and Mastercard.
Small shops – mostly tourist shops where you buy souvenirs.

The best plan when you go on vacation is to have multiple payment options. I would suggest bringing a minimum of two different brands of credit cards ie Visa, Mastercard, Discover Amex. Visa seems to be accepted at most venues. It is also wise to bring along some extra cash just in case. I wouldn’t bring your checkbook, because most places won’t take a check from an out of state customer. It really depends on your travel destination, if you are going to a friends house for a week then you won’t really need to plan that much ahead, but if you are going on a cruise or traveling far from home you should plan to bring more resources.

If you plan your vacation ahead of time you can bypass a lot of headaches and just sit back, relax, and enjoy.

It can be a bit difficult to budget in these hard times—and in many ways, budgeting is starting to become a lost art. However, you don’t have to worry about budgeting all the time—it’s actually a lot easier than you might think!

Budgeting for vacation rentals can be a bit difficult, however. How do you come up with at least a thousand dollars so that you can take your family on a nice holiday? How do you budget it out so that you have enough money for everything? You see—budgeting, especially for vacation rentals may not be hard, but it does take a little bit of self control and discipline. Not to mention an idea of what you are looking to achieve.

First of all, look at your bills. How much do you put out each month, for every bill and regular activity? How much do you have left over?

What you have left over is considered “disposable income”. The thing about disposable income is that you do not want to simply hop up and spend it all when you are trying to save for your vacation rentals. Try and put away about half of it as opposed to all. Sure, cutting back and saving IS a good idea, but a certain amount needs to go to what you usually do so that you don’t feel completely deprived.

So, you’ve decided to look into vacation rental deals. But you might be wondering—why should I look into these deals? Why should I bother at all?

First of all, you need to remember that vacation rental homes are a lot better than a hotel room. True, hotel rooms have their perks, but they also have their major downsides. But the question is—how do you know which is which?

Well, compared to hotels, there is a lot more room at a vacation house. You also don’t have to worry about loud people and things of that nature when you’re at the house by yourself—and you also don’t have to worry about how much you’re going to end up ordering from room service or how little sleep, etc, that you are going to get. You see—vacation rental homes and vacation rental deals make it easy for you to get into a comfortable home for the duration of your vacation!

Next, you also have the hard part of looking for vacation rental deals—the part where you have to actually budget out the money for the actual trip.

First of all, try and get a few vacation rental deals. Book early, go off-season, anything that you can do in order to get a discount. Then, you need to start budgeting and getting the money ready.

To budget out enough money, you first have to save up. The best way to start doing this is by taking out your disposable income and saving it.