Frugal Friday With Marsha -- Camping

Hubby's vacation time and we have a camping trip planned.
Originally it was to a lake and the usual tent camping with the family.  Well, then we changed our minds and decided to go to Spring Lake RV Resort and rent a 5th wheel camper to stay in.  Others in the family will still camp in their tent.

If I could buy a new tent, this one looks awesome!


Not as frugal as tent camping, but compared to spending those nights in a motel, it's a good deal.  It's $50 a night for the camper.  The camper comes with the dishes, cookware, eating and cooking utensils, toaster, coffee pot, and microwave in addition to the stove and oven built in to the camper.
They even provide the toilet paper, paper towels, and dish soap.

Spring Lake also offers a regulation swimming pool, so no swimming in the yucky lake water.
They have lots of activities going on like bingo on Friday night, ice cream social on Saturday night, church on Sunday morning.  Plus, it's their Christmas in July weekend so they other fun events planned for the weekend as well.

We are going a lot more frugal on our food this time.  Usually we just shop and buy everything at once that we plan for the meals while camping.  This ends up usually being around $100 or so just for food.  This time we are taking a lot from what we already have here at the house and have spent very little other than that....only around $20 for things we needed to fill in.

I cooked up some chicken in the crockpot and used my grinder.  This will be turn into chicken salad sandwiches for one lunch.  We are taking a pork roast from the deep freeze and taking along the large crockpot to cook it in.  That will give us a nice supper with leftovers.  Mac and cheese on the side.

These are the 2 crock pots that I have.



What kind of frugal vacations do you take?



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Frugal Friday With Marsha--Camping Trip

It's been about forever since I've written here. July was just crazy busy, ending with our family vacation camping trip.
It was such a fun time! So surreal and a much needed break away from home. Awesome family time.

My youngest daughter and her boyfriend didn't get to join us as they had already planned a float trip with his family.
My son came. My oldest daughter, her 5 children, and father of one of them.
My middle daughter and her husband and 3 children.
4 family friends joined in on the fun.
My middle daughters husband, mother, 3 of his aunts, his brother and nephew joined us too.

My brother and niece came and spent the first day with us. A friend of mine and her hubby came and spent an afternoon.
Several of relatives on my daughters husbands side of the family and his friends showed up in and out while there.

Food---there was sure plenty of it!! Everyone shared what they brought for every meal and some took care of entire breakfasts.
If I could have stayed another week or so, I may have gained some weight!

We did get hit by a huge storm the first night. Very high winds took down some of the tents and everything was just drenched. We made the best of it by hanging 6 lines and hanging our clothes, bedding, etc up to dry.
There was 4 inches of rain and I found 3 inches of that inside my suitcase. Oh well, didn't bother me to wear my pj's the next day since it was a cooler day.
I wish I had taken some storm shots, but sadly, dealing with scared grandchildren and getting NO sleep, I didn't even think of it.

However, here are some of the pictures that I did take:

Frugal Friday With Marsha --Preparing for Our Camping Trip

Happy Friday to all!
Our family camping trip/vacation will be here before we know it. We are all excited.
My daughter and her family have reserved and paid for 9 camp sites at one of the lakes. There will be a ton of us there--around 50 I am guessing. It's going to be hot, but it's also going to be an awesome family time too.

In preparing for the trip, my husband has gotten out the camp stove and lantern that he got from his mom's house when she went to the home. He's got both of those in working order.
He also received a free first aid kit from work to add.

I had $13 left from my church cleaning paycheck and spent it at Aldi. I bought a bag of charcoal, styrofoam plates, plastic cups, paper towels, and ibuprofen.

I traded points on the lucktastic app for $20 in Target gifts cards. I have cashed out with swagbucks for $10 Walmart, and should be able to earn another $10 before the trip. I've cashed out with PerkTV for $5 Walmart and should also be able to get another $5 there before the trip. (If you happen to sign up for PerkTV, please use the code 860efbf6 and you will get 50 bonus points)
All of this I will spend to help buy our food and any other non-food items that we still need.

Of all vacations, I would say that going camping is one of the most frugal you can do.
We will be tent camping though, which is something we've not done for close to 20 years! Not sure I'm looking forward to sleeping on the ground, but unfortunately, air mattresses aren't in our budget.

We've owned out tent for almost that many years but have never slept in it. The year we bought it we found that our favorite RV park to stay at rents out campers and cabins too. Yep, we rented a camper and have gone that way every time we've been there since. I didn't even know what our tent looked like until we let my daughter and her family borrow it last year. It's a cool one....tent on each side with a tunnel in between the rooms.

What do you do to make your vacation more frugal?

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Frugal Friday with Marsha--Frugal Vacation?

I made my husband, yes, made him, buy one of the cheap vacation packages while we were at the State Fair this past September.  You know, the package where you have to sit through a 2 hour sales presentation for a time share or a resort membership.

The package was $139.  We procrastinated knowing we really couldn't even afford that.  Then the salesman knocked the price to $99.  Yes, we jumped on that.
Our package includes 2 night at the Palace Hotel in Branson, Missouri. (I was just looking at our reservation and it says 3 nights?)  It also includes 2-2 day passes to Silver Dollar City.

Why did I insist on buying it?  I want to take what I will feel like is a REAL vacation for a change.
I know tons of people take advantage of these packages. In fact, there was at least 3 other booths at the fair for other resorts selling packages so you can easily do this yearly.

We will be renting a car too though.  None of our vehicles are safe on the highway for that long of a trip.  That will be another $150 to $200 added on to the cost of the trip.

We will have a full breakfast provided at the hotel and will have to have our own meals otherwise.  We will pack up a lot of foods--sandwich supplies, fresh fruits and veggies, our own drinks, etc.  I'm sure we will splurge though and eat out as well.

All in all I think we are looking at about $400-$450 total for our vacation.  That's not too bad.

Our trip is scheduled for May 5-7.   I'm really looking forward to it!


In the past the closest we've come to what I would call a real vacation was the year that I saved all my change, which then paid for a 3 night cabin rental at a nearby RV park.  That was lots of fun too!

Otherwise, we have packed up some things and a mattress and camped out on the living room floor of my middle daughters house for a few nights.  Activities in their town with them included going bowling and going to the water park.  Otherwise it was watching movies with them and playing games on the wii.  Don't get me wrong, that was an awesome time too.

One year we went for one night to Dodge City.  We left my daughter (don't worry, she was 16 years old) at the motel while we went with our $42 to the casino to play the penny slots.  The following day we made a day of it going to Boot Hill and then to the wax museum and the Teacher's Hall of Fame museum.  On the road we stopped at another museum as well.

Another time we only did things right here in our own town---a visit to the county museum, a picnic in the park, a trip to the Cosmosphere, eating at a nice restaurant, a trip to the local zoo over the week.

Those vacations are also fun and a much time needed away from home.

What kind of "cheap" vacations do you take?

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