A little over a week ago, I was talking about our upcoming vacation. Since my honey wanted to go to a casino, we were able to compromise and avoid going to Las Vegas. Instead, we ended up going to Lincoln City in Oregon…but we still spent a ton of money. 
On the good side, my husband had an awesome time and we really enjoyed ourselves. I had mentioned that I anticipated this vacation to end up costing us around $2,000. I wish we only had spent that much, holy crap—we spent way more money than I thought we would.
Vacation Spending (6 nights & 7 days)
Hotel $636.51 ($106.09 per night average)
Food & Beverages $220.27 ($15.73 per day, per person)
Gambling $2,400.00 ($171.43 per day, per person)
Other Stuff $97.77 ($13.97 per day)
Total: $3,352.05
So now that we’re back home and settled, the reality of all that money is freaking me out. I tried to be okay about doing something to make my husband really happy but it’s hard. I worked really hard for a long time to save that money and most of it is gone in a week. Crap! I’m not really concerned about the hotel, food and other stuff, pretty much just the gambling. That’s a lot of money, maybe it’s not to some people—but it is to us. Now it’s gone. I’m really going to have to step things up to recover from this.
Hotel 
We stayed at the Liberty Inn in Lincoln City, which doesn’t really have an ocean view. Our first night, we stayed in a standard room because all the other rooms were full because of the weekend. The next 5 nights were spent in the King Jacuzzi room. The room wasn’t really nice but it was still better than many average rooms and there was even a mini-fridge and microwave. The people working at the hotel were crazy nice and made us feel welcome. They even put my birthday on their sign outside, that was really neat. I was actually able to save over $200 by making the reservations over the phone with the hotel opposed to Expedia, Travelocity and a few other places. That was really surprising, I’d always thought that going through the hotel would be more expensive.
The hotel also offers a continental breakfast (so long as you don’t sleep in) which had sausage, scrambled eggs, hash browns, breakfast scramble, waffles, bagels, toast, yogurt, biscuits, hard-boiled eggs, doughnuts, coffee, apple juice and orange juice. Sadly, they didn’t have bananas any of the days we were there. The free breakfast really helped us save money.
The Best $3.00 we Spent
Not everything has to cost a ton of money. 
One day while on vacation at the beach, my honey and I saw seagulls walking around near the ocean and decided that they looked hungry. So we went to a little supermarket to buy some bread, so we could feed them. Honey said we had to get white bread instead of wheat bread; later I found out it was because he thought it was cheaper. That was kinda sad because I wanted to feed them a healthy dinner, but some dinner is better than none…I guess. We had SO much fun breaking up the bread and throwing it to the many seagulls who flocked around our car, begging to be fed. It was a really great time and we didn’t get any bird poop on our car.
What’s the most you’ve ever spent on vacation?
The most I’ve ever spent on vacation was a week at a marine biological institute on an island off Scotland. They ran a camp for gifted children and parents tagged along. We scraped the bottom of the sea bed on a research boat, we boated next to seals, we dissected things, we caught bugs and flowers and looked at them under microscopes, we rode bicycles around the island and saw prehistoric rock cairns, we caught plankton using light traps, we looked at bacteria under electron microscopes…best vacation we’ve ever had. Tuition was $11,000 for the four of us (me, husband, two kids) and airfare and hotels were probably about $4000. Worth every penny of the $15,000.
Wow. That sounds like an awesome vacation, it must have been amazing so be able to see and do all that stuff.
My husband and I have yet to take a vacation since we got married in March. We are hoping to try and take a cruise around our 1 year anniversary and keep things around $1,000. I feel you on the gambling…he plays poker and I compare it to rolling down the window and throwing money out.
A cruise does sound like a great way to celebrate your 1st anniversary. I’ve never been on one but it seems like it would be really cool and there’s always so much to do on the ships. It really does feel like throwing money away, at least we both understood that we were essential playing very expensive games and wouldn’t get our money back or ‘win big’.
You’re expenses weren’t that huge. If you had won some more money it would have paid for it all! If only it were that easy.
Overseas trips are the costliest for me. As a young Aussie, that pretty much meant every holiday…big island : ) I always grow when travelling, so it’s well justified.
Yeah, it would have been pretty awesome if we’d left with money. I can’t wait until I take a trip overseas, that will be so awesome (and spendy).
Don’t worry about it too much Jen. You enjoyed it and I you made some good memories (which are priceless). You can also look at it as a learning experience.
We really did have an awesome time and amazing memories. I just wish we wouldn’t have fed the casino so much money. I’ve totally learned from this, next time…NO CASINOS!
We went to Vegas 3 years ago, but decided not to do any gambling while we were there (No gambling in Vegas! Crazy!). We knew we would blow a ton of money. So we totally avoided it and just went to a bunch of shows.
This spring we went to Italy. It was our most expensive vacation by far. We spent 10 days there and went to Rome, Venice, Naples and Florence while were were there. Total cost for the trip was a little over $4,000. It was the most amazing vacation. Totally worth the money.
We went to Vegas 2 years ago and didn’t have your strength not to gamble. It was expensive but it was another great batch of memories.
Italy! You lucky dog; I bet that was amazing. We’re actually hoping to go visit Italy next year, but I’ve got a lot of saving to do.
Our ten days in New York next April will be the most we’ve ever spent – in all it’ll be around £4k ($6.3k). Totally worth it though!
Love your blog name in the sand
I’ve never been to New York before, I bet you’re pretty excited.
Are you guys going to do anything special there?
I thought it would be fun, and of course I added a .com before we continued walking down the beach. 😉 My honey was stunned, he was like “Wow, you have nice handwriting.” I thought it was pretty funny because I was writing with a stick. lol.
The seagulls story made me laugh! But seriously, vacations are like a black hole for my money. I may have an idea of what I hope to spend and usually eclipse that in the first day since I’m “on vacation,” and it’s that “Oh, c’mon it’s VACATION mentality I can’t seem to shake” since I haven’t really had many! Whenever something even remotely resembles a vacation conscious spending goes out the window!
When I’m on vacation, conscious everything goes out the window.
We go to Vegas at least twice every year, but we don’t gamble much. We go for the comedy convention. Our weakness is trying out different restaurants while on vacation. We always blow our food vacation budget. But we are on vacation right
Glad you had fun and created priceless memories.
PS : Blog name in the sand is awesome!
I would be in debt if we went to Vegas twice a year. I suck at trying new restaurants because I’m too d@mn picky and don’t really eat meat. Usually I end up getting grilled cheese, pizza or eggs and hashbrowns. I do so much better eating at home. Vacations do seem like the perfect time to splurge though.
We had a fabulous time and have some very interesting memories.
Thanks, I thought it would be pretty cool.
I wouldn’t stress too much about how much you spent. You saved for it, you didn’t go into debt for it and you both had a wonderful time. That’s worth more than money.
I think the most expensive vacation we’ve ever taken was a week in Key West. I want to say it cost around $3K (it probably would have been more if I hadn’t been pregnant and could drink). That included flight, hotel, rental car, spa treatments, food, activities, etc. I don’t regret a single penny that was spent.
Oooooh, spa treatments.
That’s what I need. Drinks really do add up while on vacation, unless you go to Vegas or another casino that does that.
Just got back from a week in Colorado and cost around $2,300. Did not intend on spending that much, but with 2 kids having the time of there life’s and wanting something from every gift shop/ gas station that we stopped at on our 2,700 mile trip, it is understandable. All I can do now is work my butt off and save so we can go again! Money is a joke anyways. I like what that guy said about growing while traveling…. So true, the trade off for money and experience is way worth it.