Obviously, renting a house at the beach during prime vacation season isn't exactly "thrifty," but we saved up for it and we had a great time. The other major costs of the trip were gas and food. I couldn't do much about the cost of gas (we did fill up at Costco once, which helped some), but I knew I could save on food.
Our twelve passenger van doesn't have a ton of cargo space, so I knew packing as little as possible would be essential. However, beach towns are notoriously overpriced when it comes to groceries and the like, so I really wanted to pack as much food, paper plates, cups, etc. as we could possibly manage.
During the weeks before we took the trip, I used every available brain cell I had to come up with a menu plan for the week of our vacation. I also asked friends for ideas. The parameters I was working around were these: the meals needed to be freezable (so that I could make them ahead of time), easy to prepare once we were at the beach house (I didn't want to spend too much vacation time in the kitchen), special (I didn't want the same old fare we have at home) and could not include pasta or casseroles (some people's taste buds wouldn't tolerate these).
I also knew that the first night in the mountains and the first and last nights at the beach would have to be extra easy prep wise, because we'd be busy unpacking/packing. Plus, no menu items could be cooked on a grill because we wouldn't have one. No problem, right?
Here's the plan I came up with:
breakfasts: waffles (made at home, frozen, then toasted each morning), eggs (from Paul's chickens) and sausage.
lunches: leftovers from the previous night's dinner, pb & j or turkey sub sandwiches, chips, fruit
snacks: granola bars and Nabisco mini cookies (bought before the trip with coupons for super cheap or free), trail mix (from the bulk bins at Winco), grapes
dinners: cabbage burgers, tostadas with homemade burrito filling and various toppings, chicken enchiladas (served with mexican rice and refried beans) and white chicken chili (served with cornbread). We also ate pizza two nights.
I made all the dinners and sides ahead of time and froze them in disposable containers. We packed all of the dinners into one small cooler along with some dry ice and everything stayed frozen solid for the whole trip to the mountains (about seven hours), at which point we put everything into the freezer in the rental house.
We ate lunch out twice. Once was a planned outing to Mo's. We sold a few things on Craigslist before we left to cover this one. The other time we ate lunch out was unplanned (more on that later).
When we left the mountains to go to the beach, we stopped at Costco on the way. We were able to stock up on fresh produce, bread, breakfast sausage and more lunch meat there. When we ran out of milk and mustard later that week, I headed to the Rite Aid in Lincoln City. My twenty percent off Wellness card discount actually made those items cheaper there than they would have been at Safeway.
Speaking of Safeway, I don't normally shop there, but before we left I checked the coupon blogs for good deals to be had that week. I knew once we arrived in Lincoln City, I would purchase grapes for 99 cents a pound. I was also able to load a couple of e-coupons to my loyalty card which helped defray the costs of the obligatory ice cream (thanks, Dad) and a few other little items.
When we arrived in Lincoln City, Matt and I visited the chamber of commerce office to get the scoop on fun stuff to do and check for coupons for local activities. The women there were super helpful. They gave us coupons for free kid's admissions to the aquarium in Newport. They also told us about the free-to-borrow sand wheel chair that was available through the local Elks Club. The wheelchair worked out great for my mom who just had had knee replacement surgery. I was also able to pick up some Papa Murphey's pizza coupons there, which came in handy for my dad (since he treated) our last night at the beach. The women at the chamber office also told us about Regatta Park, which we never would have known about had they not told us.
We had a blast flying all of our kites on the beach. Three of those kites were purchased by my dad as gifts to the kids on a previous beach trip that we took together about ten years ago. One kite (a big beautiful one with dolphins on it) we found abandoned on the beach on a different trip some years back. The other two kites, both intricate in design, are kites I purchased at yard sales. The only expense related to the kites was the purchase of a few replacement rods and a couple of new spools of string at the kite store in Lincoln City (not exactly free, but necessary to make some of the kites flyable).
In the weeks before the trip, I picked up water socks and sandals for all the kids at yard sales and Goodwill. When I buy used shoes, I just throw them in my front loader washing machine before we wear them. They come out cootie free (at least enough for me, anyway). Grace also found a pair of North Face pants similar to these at Goodwill to wear on the trip. We paid $2.99 for a pair of pants that looked liked they had never been worn.Before we left on the trip, Matt and I looked into getting a cargo carrier like this one to go on the back of the van, but the price tag seemed pretty steep for something we thought we might only use once a year. Matt remembered that my aunt and uncle had given us a bike rack hitch several years ago. So he and Paul fastened a sheet of plywood to it to make a shelf. Then, to make the surface less slick, they screwed an outdoor mat made of old tires(cut to fit) onto the wood. This provided a "grippy" surface with enough room to accommodate our huge white cooler as well as our small red cooler. The coolers were then tied down with straps. I'm pleased to say that the coolers made to entire trip there and back with nary an accident.
So all in all, I would say we were successful at staying within our vacation budget. The two unplanned budget events were two meals that required emergency stops for burgers. One meal was eaten after we left the Newport Aquarium. We hadn't planned on being there so late, so we stopped at 2 p.m. and ate lunch at Arctic Circle.The second unplanned burger outing was on the return trip. Isaac began screaming in his car seat about an hour from home and we could do nothing to appease him. So instead of pushing through a stressful drive to get home for a late dinner, we decided to stop. A visit to a burger joint, even with shared orders of fries and waters all around to drink (and a diet coke for da mama), ends up costing us around $30. But at that point, Matt and I decided our sanity was worth thirty dollars.
So there ya have it. Vacation Macduff style--not as fancy as some, not as thrifty as others, but it worked for us.
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