A little getaway

Last week we got to enjoy a little surprise getaway. My husband's boss offered him the opportunity to go to a training/conference in IL for a week, all expenses paid along with his full salary for the week. We had to make the plans with only about a 2 1/2 week notice, but we thought this was a great excuse to go see my sister who lives in Chicago too. We did have to pay for my plane ticket and our daughter's, but our son still flies free for a little longer! :) We found a great price. We knew that this trip would set us back a bit on our goals, but hopefully not too bad. And, we decided our family was in need of a change of scenery, so we went for it.

We set a strict budget for our spending there, which we did fantastic on! We (me and the kids) didn't have all our meals covered, but we still managed to keep our spending down pretty well by eating at inexpensive places, at my sister's apartment and eating leftovers from dinner for lunches.

We planned a budget to include money for outings for me to do with the kids while my husband was in meetings too and that was really helpful since we realized there was no pool at the hotel after arriving there! :( It's always nice to have some variety and new options to chose from the usual things to do around our town. The kids enjoyed a fun little play area near my sisters house, a small children's museum and a pool at the University of Illinois. All of which costs us less then $15/day!

It was a great week and turned out to be a fun getaway for all of us!

With summer getting started (even though this weather doesn't feel like it!) I thought I'd share with you some of the ways we've found to save money on family outings/trips/getaways that may come in handy for you too. Watch for a few of those later this week! :)