How Much Can You Save By Making Your Own Breakfast On Vacation?
My wife scored a great deal on a two room suite with a full kitchen at a hotel with an indoor water park for a quick weekend getaway. We’ve been to this hotel several times, and I vowed never to eat another meal inside the water park. The on site restaurants serve a nice breakfast, but tourist trap prices apply. With two adults and 4 teenagers the bill to go out to breakfast would be rather sizable.
We don’t have to worry about that, because of the full kitchen in our room. When we arrived at our destination, we made a quick trip to nearby grocery store and got supplies to make breakfast in our room. Here’s how cheaply we made breakfast for our group:
- Shake ‘N Pour Pancake Mix: $2.38
- Mini bottle of syrup: $1.00
- Cinnamon Rolls: $3.78
- Disposable baking sheet (for cinnamon rolls): $0.88
- 6Pk 10oz Bottles of Orange Juice: $3.98
- Dozen Eggs: $1.00
Total: $13.02
I’m positive that we saved some big time money by making breakfast in our room. Eating breakfast at one of the hotels restaurants would have likely cost $10-$15 per person, slightly less than that at an off site restaurant. Instead we’re having pancakes, cinnamon rolls, scrambled eggs and orange juice.
We didn’t even try to be exceptionally frugal at the grocery store. We bought single serving bottles of orange juice instead of a jug for convenience as well as to avoid as many dishes as possible. We also bought a mini bottle of syrup which is more expensive per ounce than a larger bottle so we didn’t have to take it home with us. Even with these less than totally frugal purchases, our breakfast bill still comes in really low.
Food accounts for a very large chunk of vacation budgets. If a way can be found to cut down on food costs, the price of the overall vacation can be significantly reduced, or that money could be used for other fun activities.
Do you look for ways to cut food costs while on vacation? Do you purposely book hotel rooms with at least a partial kitchen to help you do so?
Brought to you courtesy of Brock
Brock is a software engineer by day and personal finance blogger at night. He is a fitness junkie and enjoys grilling and smoking meat. Married with two children, Brock strives to improve his skills as a husband and father, and is always on the lookout to stretch his family’s budget as far as he can.
We usually take the kids to a water park resort during the winter months, and we always take bagels and such so that we don’t have to pay for breakfast. Definitely saves money for the trip!
Bagels are a nice inexpensive breakfast as well. Better throw some cream cheese on the list though. 🙂
Great idea, never thought about making our own breakfast to save money on vacation. I have been trying to plan a road trip with my daughter for some time now and I will be sure to give this a try and see how much I can save!
Making any meal while on vacation will definitely save money, however breakfast is just so easy. Give it a try!
You can save a lot of money.
And we don’t just make breakfast, but also take care of the other meals
Ok, don’t think we’re spending all day to cook, but there are many easy to do meals that just take 30 minutes and this saves a lot of money.
We usually spend 2 weeks in Croatia. The accommodation is pretty expensive (about 1000 Euro). If we didn’t take care of our meals, we’d pay about 1500 Euro for eating out (about 100 /day). We do go with this budget in mind and spend roughly 500 Euro for the ingredients, sightseeing and the travel costs (gas and various taxes).
Thanks for sharing, Ramona! Saving cash on meals gives you more funds to do other fun things!
When my wife and I go down to the beach we always make sure that we load up on food before the trip. We know that the beach grocery stores don’t have the same deals as home. So we have definitely cooked breakfast, lunch and dinner on vacation. Definitely a huge money saver!!!
Exactly, Mustard Seed Money – in tourist spots there’s no reason to have sales and deals because the tourists are forced to pay the price – whatever it is. thanks for sharing!
I recently discovered this a few months back on vacation. In all honesty I was on a diet and having achieved significant weight-loss since entering my 30’s didn’t want to ruin my progress. Then I realised how much money it saved! Needless to say we will never be buying breakfast on holiday ever again!