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9 Ideas for Spring Break

This article was written by in Travel. 14 comments.


My girlfriend is a teacher who never takes days for vacation, so we schedule our time away from our regular lives over the summer or during one of several of the breaks in her academic calendar. I do my best to design my schedule around hers; when I worked for a corporation, I requested vacation days to coincide with her breaks, and now that my schedule is more flexible, I don’t have to worry about being granted the days I ask for.

Today’s snow, a continuation of a winter that has seen snow on the ground continuously since December, has me thinking about spring vacation. Typically, we spend a week during the spring with my family in California. Since they moved to the west coast, I’ve generally been able to visit only twice a year, and this week is a good opportunity.

If you’re looking for spring break ideas, and whether you are a student, a family, a couple, or an individual, here are eight that might spark your interest and perhaps save a little money.

1. Rent a vacation house. If you’re going away for more than a few days and need more space than one room, it can be more economical to rent a house rather than to stay in a hotel. Browse HomeAway for a thorough selection of vacation homes throughout the world for rent. In some cases, staying for a week — a luxury you might have over spring break — can help you save even more money.

2. Go camping. If you stick to government-owned camping sites, there’s a good chance you’ll be able find deals you wouldn’t necessarily find at private-owned sites. You can visit Recreation.gov to start planning a low-cost camping trip. The website isn’t perfect, but you can browse for campsites with certain amenities and use this as a starting point for researching your vacation.

3. Travel as a student. If you’re a full-time student, part-time student, or part of the faculty or staff at a learning institution, you may qualify for better fares. Student Universe is a fare search engine like Kayak that offers student rates. A quick check shows the site offers the same fare I paid for a non-student fare for my flight to California, so it’s a good idea to double check any rates that you find. I also realized that I still have my .edu email address from my graduate school, so I could theoretically still qualify for student rates. Youth rates for non-students aged 18 to 25 are available as well.

4. Take a road trip. One of these days, I’d like to take the Route 66 drive from Chicago to Los Angeles. It may be a cliche and tourist-oriented, but I believe this is a good representative of what traveling might have been like before the advent of the interstate highway system. The Mother Road is a website dedicated to this route, and it has turn-by-turn directions for travelers who want to avoid newer road improvements like bypasses, opting for as authentic a drive as possible.

Of course, not all road trips need to be as focused as this; if you have the time, as might be the case for spring vacation, replacing a flight with an interesting drive could lead to new adventures. When I was younger, the free TripTiks offered by AAA to its members was helpful, but today you can have some of those same features using Google Maps.

5. Take a cruise. Spending your vacation on a cruise ship stopping in several ports can be a good way to experience a wide range of activities and a variety of locales in a short period of time. One of my former co-workers is a cruise aficionada, and every year she’d have new stories to share. I’m looking forward to traveling on a Mediterranean cruise at some point in the future, making quick excursions in Greece, Italy, Spain, and Turkey.

6. Day trips in your local city. Although the travel bug often leads people outside of the United States, there’s often a lot to do and see close by. I leave not far from New York City, but if I look in the right places, I can find activities as varied as I could find anywhere in the world. This is the benefit of having such a culturally diverse, large city nearby. In major cities, it’s easy to spend a week-long vacation with something new every day.

7. Go on a photography safari. You don’t have to be a professional photographer to have a great experience with your camera. If you take an organized photography tour, your vacation could be fairly expensive, but access to superb outdoor photographers can change the way you think about the art and craft. To save money, organize your own photography safari by taking any vacation with the sole purpose of coming back with amazing images.

8. Tour vineyards and wineries. Most wine tours are a few hours long, so this isn’t an activity can take over your entire vacation. This isn’t an activity geared towards students or families, obviously. It’s better suited towards couples who are interested in what could be a romantic opportunity. Many wine tours are educational, as well.

9. Participate in a volunteering group. More for students who are looking for a different type of vacation, whether to enhance their résumé or to enhance their set of life experiences, joining an organized group volunteering event can affect life-long values and help introduce you to like-minded individuals. The United Way markets this opportunity as an “alternative spring break,” with projects such as helping underachieving children in Newark, New Jersey and learning how to plan fundraising events in Boston, Massachusetts.

What are your suggestions for spring break?

Photo: rayced

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Eat Like the Locals and Profit Twice

This article was written by in Consumer. 7 comments.

My wife and I went on a mini-vacation this past weekend (our first using only cash), and while we didn’t specifically plan to limit spending on meals, we managed to do better than I had hoped.

Of course she knows about my serious push to do what I can to erase my credit card debt, but the more influential factor seems to have been the use of the Yelp app on her mobile phone. For example, we both appreciate good German food, so we were nearing New Braunfels, and she found a place with great reviews, so we pulled up directions on the same phone and easily found our way there.

We subscribe to the “eat like the locals” mentality encouraged by people like Anthony Bourdain. Even though in this case we weren’t traveling to a new country, or even a different state, different areas have different advantages. Here we found ourselves in a town settled largely by Germans, and their descendants still know how to make a schnitzel.

Friesenhaus wasn’t cheap, but we stopped in time for a late lunch for $67, and were so well fed that we didn’t even need dinner. The next morning, again with no forward planning, we found a place with “perhaps the best tacos in America,” and got stuffed (not in the British way) for $12.91.

It probably doesn’t hurt that we were on an odd schedule. We seemed to hit the taco place between morning rushes, strolled around the zoo for a while, and didn’t get hungry again until around 5:30 PM. Yelp came to the rescue once again and we got the mad scientists at Bunsen Burgers to solve that problem. (Seriously, it’s the nerdiest menu I’ve ever seen, which really called to my wife and me.)

On our way back home the next morning, Yelp’s success continued with a recommendation for Union Street Station, which boasted a classic Texan menu.

Over the weekend, we managed to avoid both chain restaurants and tourist traps, and still feel like we were on vacation. More impressively, over five meals’ worth of food, two people ate for an average of $12.45 per person.

I don’t mean to gush about Yelp; it’s certainly not the only app of its kind, but for this sort of thing I recommend going where the biggest user base is, and Yelp seems to be it. We had a delicious vacation eating with the locals, and I’m sure we’ll be doing more of the same in the future.

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Crowdsourcing My Ride Home

This article was written by in Software. 4 comments.

Until now, I never paid much attention to the different companies and providers, but I’ve learned that not all GPS devices are equal. I’ve recently been tempted by the TomTom app for the iPhone, especially in connection with the car kit. Turn-by-turn directions, as well as charging my phone, and playing music through the car’s speakers? Yes, please.

visual

But I don’t just go throwing around $100 at every iPhone app. I figured it was at least worth a little research, and I found that one of TomTom’s special attractors is something they call IQ Routes. In short: they gather anonymous user data to provide:

… the driving experience of millions of TomTom users into your maps, calculating your route based on actual speeds driven on roads compared to speed limits. With TomTom IQ Routes you always get the smartest, most efficient route. Saving you time, fuel and money by driving like a local.

Much the same as GMail’s method of eliminating spam e-mail, TomTom “crowdsources” traffic routes in order to save you time. The good news is that you can try out their route planner for free right now and see if it can shed any light on some of your normal routes.

When I started my new job last November, I spent weeks trying different scenarios to and from work, and thought I had it nailed, so I was shocked when I tried the route planner and found a new way home that saved me 5 minutes.

And as we all know, time is money, and in this case, fuel. Give it a try yourself and let us know in the comments how it works out for you.

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Evaluating My Progress Towards 2009 Goals

This article was written by in Planning. 5 comments.

Now that the halfway mark of 2009 has passed by, it wouldn’t hurt to review the financial mini-goals I set for myself at the beginning of the year and determine how far I have strayed from my path. For me, these goals are only milestones. They help my gauge my progress but numbers in my bank account have little correlation to my quality of life and do not have much bearing on my non-monetary, real goals.

Last year, my success at reaching arbitrary financial milestones was hindered by the stock market, so when I set my goals for 2009, I focused on metrics that are not affected by short-term investment performance.

Income

My goal for “Other Earned Income” in 2009 is $108,000, or an average $9,000 per month. My stretch goal is to surpass this year’s success with $132,000.

“Other Earned Income” refers to the gross revenue (before subtracting expenses) derived from running a number of websites, most notably Consumerism Commentary. I don’t write much about how I earn money through these websites because I feel it is too introspective to publish. It would be like writing a book about writing that book or singing a song about singing that song. There is a market for self-referential writing, but I’m not particularly interested in writing about the minutiae of blogging. Consumerism Commentary is a blog about money, not a blog about blogging.

Anyway, according to my June financial reports, I am on target to meet my target as long as I maintain about $4,000 Other Earned Income per month for the rest of the year. Barring any unforeseen problems, this is achievable, but mostly due to significant income earned earlier this year. To meet my stretch goal, I would have to earn an average of more than $8,000 each month for the rest of the year. That is less likely as I expect the remainder of the year will look more like May than March.

Grade: B.

Investing

  • Contribute the full $16,500 to my 401(k).
  • Contribute the maximum to a Roth IRA if possible; if not, contribute to a Traditional IRA and convert the account to a Roth IRA in 2010.
  • Contribute the maximum to an SEP IRA.
  • Invest $250 per month into an account to help pay for future children’s education.

According to my most recent pay stub, I have transferred $8,836 to my 401(k), split evenly between “Before-tax” and “Roth” contributions. It seems I may overshoot my goal, so I will make sure to adjust my contributions to prevent my 401(k) from hitting the maximum early, reducing the amount of employer match I receive.

I have not yet contributed to my 2009 IRAs yet, although this might be a good time to do so. Usually I want until the tax deadline, but with the stock market hitting lows again, I should consider starting my IRAs now.

Although I set a goal to invest $250 per month for the education expenses for a theoretical future child or children, I have not done this. My internal debate is whether to start the fund now and get a head start or to wait until I plan on having children, reducing the risk of being penalized for withdrawing the funds at some future date without education expenses to cover.

Grade: C.

Saving

I’m working on finding a tax accountant to ensure that my tax bill isn’t any higher than it is supposed to be. After I pay my taxes, I’d like to take half of whatever I have left and earmark that amount for a down payment on a house.

Through 2009 so far, my savings progress has been strong. I do not think I specifically earmarked half of my remaining savings on April 15 for a future home purchase, but I have been paying attention to my “Orange House Fund.” No, I do not particularly plan on purchasing a house colored orange; “orange” refers to the fact that this bank account is housed at ING Direct, a bank that has claimed orange as its color. The fund currently sits at about $13,000, and I add money occasionally.

If I need to buy a house in a hurry, I could draw from a number of other accounts to come up with 20 percent of a reasonably priced house in this area. I tend to distribute leftover income to a variety of goal-based savings accounts, and a house is only one of these.

Grade: B.

I did not set a net worth target for 2009 as this number is pulled in different directions by the stock market, something over which I have very little (that is, zero) effect. My investing strategy is to stay invested in the stock market for all assets other than cash I might need in a few years, so as time goes by, my net worth is driven increasingly by the performance of stocks.

How are you progressing against your goals?

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Revisiting FICO 08 Piggybacking

by Smithee

Your money is important, and so I want to make sure I’m telling you the truth in every instance. A few months ago I wrote an article called What You Need to Know About the FICO Update, which contained some news about the process of “piggybacking”: Not too long ago companies started offering to add ... Continue reading this article…

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President Obama’s Financial Disclosure

by Flexo

In a move should sound familiar to readers who have been with Consumerism Commentary since 2003 and to those who have noticed my monthly personal financial reporting, the President and Vice President have used the White House blog to provide updates on the financial condition about each of the Executive Branch families. President Obama and ... Continue reading this article…

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Airline Baggage Fees Increasing in Popularity

by Flexo

When I traveled to Arizona in April, I was charged $15 for each flight for checking my luggage. While I knew that many airlines had begun charging extra for services that were once “free,” like meals and baggage check, I didn’t recall seeing any warning when I originally booked the flight several weeks earlier. I ... Continue reading this article…

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Stopping at a Gas Station for Directions Just Got Cooler

by Flexo

There’s a new kind of gasoline pump being shipped to gas stations, and it’s the kind of thing guys will like. If you need directions, just check the pump. These new devices are equipped with a stripped-down version of Google Maps, pre-loaded with locations hand-picked by the station owner. Once you find your destination on ... Continue reading this article…

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