by Gerard Coulombe

Created on: July 01, 2009   Last Updated: July 02, 2009

These are best tips to save money on your summer getaway. They are not conventional. To really save money on a summer vacation, there are half a dozen basic tips to seriously consider. If, after reading the first four tips, you agree that the tips are worth considering and then following because you are really, really serious about saving money, then you will find that the tips that follow the first three have additional money saving value.

Tip No. 1. Stay home. It may sound ridiculous, but last summer lots of folks did it for very good reasons. The most important reason was to save money. Any vacation is expensive- even if you did not stay home last year but went camping instead. If you did not have the gear, it cost you money to get outfitted. It would have been less expensive to stay home. Get your calculator out and, depending on last year's destination, crunch in the cost of the getting there. That would be the flight's total cost or the cost of gas and regular maintenance and other expenses getting to your destination.

Tip No. 2. You have already saved on hotel or vacation home rental for the week or weeks of your vacation stay and other expenses on food and souvenirs and other extras normally part of a vacation as well as expenses for side trips or amusement parks. Your savings are adding up quickly.

Tip No. 3. Whatever one saved above, there is an added bonus to staying home that hasn't been figured into the cost as yet. In the intervening year between last summer and this Sumner's vacation, the price has gone up on everything, from lodging to entertainment, from food to beverages. Even the snacks sold at those dispensers in the rest areas have gone up!

Tip No 4. Should it rain while you vacation at home, enjoy the comforting feeling that will surely come over you just thinking about how miserable you would have felt had you been obliged to cut your vacation short to come home from a vacation where you were forced to remain indoors by the daily downpours caused by climate change.

By staying home this summer, there is all that money you save by not going on vacation. So you are staying home. Call it your vacation. Decide that you will do all those things you have often thought of doing where you live or not too far away but never have because you kept putting them off.

Tip No. 5. Pick a nearby beach at the shore or lake that is somewhat different from the pool if you have one and enjoy going there for the day. Pack a lunch and bring your beverage

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