Before Touristo the Tiny Traveler was born, my husband and I really did not travel that much together. That changed when Touristo was born. This may sound a bit nuts but Touristo was always grumpy unless we were on the move, which included walks, the outdoors and new scenery. When we were inside the house it seemed like the walls were closing in on him. We later found it this probably had a lot to do with the sensory parts of autism.
Anyhow this prompted our first family holiday together. Jetstar were running fares for $500AU (approx $350US) return to Tokyo and since we didn’t have to pay anything for Touristo , we set off for Japan when he was 5 months old. Apart from a terrible first flight, there was no looking back. We were on the move every day and Touristo’s eyes were wide as saucers taking everything in. He was the calmest he had ever been in his life.
Now I have spoken about this part before….. I was meant to go back to work when Touristo was about 9 months old. Long story short……he needed me for a lot longer than 9 months…… We could keep the household running on one income, but it meant no big adventures….. or did it.
So here comes the ‘Penny Pinching Vacation Project’……. When we got back from Japan, I wanted to start planning our next big adventure, but it was not allowed to eat into the household budget at all. We planned to go visit Japan for 5 days, China for 8 days and go on a cruise from Beijing to Hong Kong. So how did I do it.
The very first tip I will give is make a separate holiday account and do not ever dip into it ever. The one I am using at the moment is Raiz, however any online savings account with low monthly fees will work.
The next step is getting some money into this account. To do this I did a lot of little bits of work that I could do either from home or with a baby. Think about it…..if you can do a couple of these and deposit $76 a week, that’s about $4000 at the end of the year for a holiday. Little deposits really do add up.
In coming posts I will add more of these, but my favourite thing at the moment (because it literally takes 15 seconds is this app here. Whilst there are a few online survey apps I do use, I find that they usually take up quite a lot of time for very little reward. This app is much simpler because you answer one question by video on your phone and answers can be as short as 15 seconds. It’s not going to pay for a whole chunk of the holiday, though I have probably made a couple of hundred dollars in the past year from very little effort though.
I hope this will be enough to get you started with a dedicated holiday savings account and I will be back soon with the next installment.
Point Hacks and Autism Friendly Family Travel 