How to manage your family vacation budget and not spend all your hard earned money!

Preparing a family vacation budget may sound a little old fashioned and irrelevant, but believe me, it reduces a lot of stress on your family if you don't have to get on your kids about not spending all their pennies. We have taken family vacation getaways with families who don't have a set budget for their kids and have watched arguments explode into serious drama because the parents failed to set guidlines for their kids. This is especially so for families that have junior highers or teenagers.

Okay, one of the first things we recommend in a family vacation budget is for the parents to sit down and decide upon how much money they can afford to spend. If you don't have a number written down, this can cause stress down the road between spouses, because each person will have a different idea of how much money they are comfortable with. For example, usually the person who controls the "purse strings" in the family has a smaller spending amount than the person who doesn't control the "purse strings." This is not a knock on the spouse who doesn't manage the family budget, but rather a point I want to make that the person who has their finger on the pulse of the family spending has a good idea where money is most wisely used. Now once you have your vacation budget figure picked out, then you can proceed to the next step.

Your kids need to know how much money they will be allowed to spend, if you are going to be giving them a vacation allowance. In our opinions, it is usually best to give the kids a figure that works into a daily spending amount, rather than a lump sum. For example, if you have two children and you plan to take a 10 day vacation, you may decide to give each child a lump sum of $400 for the vacation. In this vacation budget, you will let your children know that they are responsible for paying for their own entertainment out of this budget. To make the figure easier to handle, however, we recommend that you tell your children that they will get $40 a day to spend. If they want to go to a theme park, you will pay to get them in, but they will have to use their vacation budget to buy any souveniors or food. By breaking down the total budget into daily increments, the kids or more likely to be more careful with their spending and not blow it all in the first couple of days.

I must re-iterate that you have to be firm with your family about the vacation budget. Your vacation is meant to be a lot of fun and unique, but no vacation is worth going way over your budget and taking the next 2-3 months catching up on bills and credit card statements, because you weren't disciplined enough to stick to the family budget you agreed upon before the vacation. As mentioned before , it is really simple to save money here and there by eating breakfasts in your hotel and tightening the vacation budget by purchasing sandwich meat and bread and making your own meal once a day.

Another important item about planning your family vacation budget is to prepare for the possibility of getting robbed. People don't expect it and often aren't prepared for it, but statistics show it happens more often than many think. Don't be a part of that statistic. One of the ways to prevent robbery on your family vacation getaway is to teach your children how to be more vigilant and careful with their money. Oftentimes when parents give their kids money to spend, that money goes into your child's pocket. What easier target for a robber than coming by and sticking his fingers in your child's pocket and snatching it out. Robbers know these things and look for kids that have just bought something and where they put their left over change. A good preventative measure is to buy or make a waist pouch for your children. The ideal waist pouch will attach around the waist under their shirt. Although it is not perfect, a waist pouch goes a long ways towards deterring most thieves. A last method of preventing a catastrophic robbery from happening, is to not carry much cash on your persons. I know this sounds redundant, but you would be amazed at how many families who carry around several hundred dollars in dad's wallet or mom's purse. What would this do to your vacation if you got robbed? Prevent this from happening by carrying smaller amounts, or splitting the money up between you and your spouse and hiding the money in several different spots on your person. This way if you get your wallet or purse stolen, you have emergency money to get to.

Taking action and planning out your vacation budget is a smart thing to do and will make your family vacation getaway far more enjoyable if you have already planned out what you can and cannot buy.