Our Big Fat Almost Free Vacation

This is actually a post that I wrote a couple of weeks ago, but took until now to load up the pictures. Have I complained enough about being too busy lately? I need to go back to this place!


Well we are back from our "almost" free vacation. It was such a fun time together. I think planning it for free was half the fun. Here is a list of what we had to work with to produce a free vacation.


1 - my parents gifted us the use of their timeshare condo on the beach in Ormond Beach

This was the view from our unit...watching the sunrise every morning with my coffee......aaaahhh...

2 - We purchased 95% of our food using the buy one, get one free items from Publix over the past few month. We ate spaghetti, taco's, harvest casserole (meal makers) and had chicken for the grill, but ended up bringing that home. We also had all our breakfast, snacks and lunch stuff. We brought back a LOT of groceries.


3 - We had about 150 dollars in cash from birthdays (Pat and I), a walmart gift card for $10.

4 - Four Disney coupons good for a day at Walt Disney World from their Give A Day, Get A Day campaign. This was a great savings as it turned out. I had NOT idea Disney was so expensive!

We did have expenses that we didn't know how we were going to cover. Such as the food at Disney and any soveniers for the girls. Well on our first day at the condo, they offered us a hundred dollar VISA gift card if we would go and listen to a high pressure vacation sales pitch. We looked at each other and said "sure". After a free breakfast, 90 minutes and a "we don't make any decisions without thinking it over for 24 hours", we had our gift card! (On a side note, the vacation plan sounded really good!) We used that Visa card for our Disney day!


We did well finding resources for miscellaneous spending and the vacation. But knew that we would have to pay $140 for our dog who was with a dog sitter. On our last day on the beach, someone approached us about seeing yet another vacation speal. Well, we all said no. Then the guy said he would give us $120 CASH and a 3-day stay in Gatlinburg, TN. Dad said "that will pay for Lucy" and we are agreed to go. After 2 hours, we had the money for the dog. Well almost, we were 20 bucks shy. Turns out, when we arrive to get Lucy, her sitter said "120" because she was such a good dog. Go Figure! That is exactly what we had earned for our last pushy sales pitch!

So the vacation was a success with minimal out of pocket and loads of fun. We had time to reconnect as a family and just hang out. That is priceless in my book. Can't put a price tag on family.

This.....is pricesless......