Travel Archives - Page 31 of 32 - Making Sense Of Cents

I’m planning a Vegas Vacation for a Bachelorette party this summer!

Last Updated: December 19, 2015 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 27 Comments

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Hey everyone! I hope everyone is having a good week! I’ve mentioned this a couple of times (or at least I think),but I am a bridesmaid for one of my good friends. Her maid of honor is her much younger sister, so I’ll be helping with a lot of the planning. I’m super excited!

The first thing I’m excited to plan?

VEGAS 2012 BABY!

Ok yes, we’re not going until the summer time, and I definitely look forward to planning her wedding, but I want to go on a girls vacation in Vegas.

I’ve been to Vegas before a couple of times. I went with family when I was a teenager a couple of times and I also went with friends around a year ago. It was so much fun when I went with my friends. Seriously the best time ever.

There’s around 6 of us going most likely. We are most likely going to try and get a suite somewhere so that we can all stay in the same room. Even if we can’t get a big room, then we really don’t care, as we will most likely never even be in the room.

One of my main gifts to my friend will be me paying for her hotel and airfare. I can most likely get her cheap first class tickets there and back for around $125 (through my dad’s benefits) and I’m guessing that the hotel altogether for 3 nights/4 days will be around $600-$800 for all of us (and we all plan on splitting it).

So I’m looking at around $250 for her as my present And if I can’t get tickets for her, then I’ve already price checked it and round trip will be around $400 (for coach seats)

My budget for this trip will be around $1,000 altogether, not including her present. I most likely won’t spend that much though since I get free airfare and there will be 5-6 of us splitting a hotel room. But I know that alcohol will eat away at most of my budget. Last time we went though, we hardly paid for any drinks because club managers always gave us VIP passes for free cover and drinks all night long. It was pretty nice, but I don’t think I’ll count on that again (because of course I shouldn’t always rely on free things and get my hopes up).

Our choices for hotels are:

Monte Carlo – we’ve stayed here last time and loved it. And it’s cheaper than the other 3 choices. This is our #1 choice because we liked it before. Awesome pools, lazy river, on the strip, cheap.
MGM Grand – We were at the MGM Grand nearly every night when we went there last and really loved it. A tad more expensive than the Monte Carlo.
Bellagio – More expensive, but we would all love to stay here.
Caesars Palace – Also more expensive. But I think it’d be sooo much fun.

What other hotels do you recommend?

I’m not much of a sight seeing type of person. I’m fine with just relaxing by the pool and going out at night. And so are my friends, so I don’t expect us to do much looking around and spending money on taxis or anything.

We plan to go to Thunder from Down Under (LOVED IT LAST TIME), maybe one day I’ll have the guts to post my picture from that. Have you guys ever been to it? It’s seriously the most hilarious thing on earth.

Some of my friends will be on a tight budget when we go just because of all of the other wedding related costs, so do any of you know of cheap things to do, ways to save money, or anything of the sort?

What else should I know for a bachelorette party in Vegas?

Do you use all of your vacation days every year?

Last Updated: December 8, 2014 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 28 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

When I worked in retail, I wasn’t offered vacation days, so if I wanted a day off, I wouldn’t get paid (even though I was in management and worked there for over 5 years as a full-time manager, but that’s just another depressing story). But now that I have a different job I get actual vacation days. I get 15 days a year (not including holidays so it’s more than that of course) but last year I only used 12 days.

Why did I do this? After not having a vacation day for over 5 years, you’d think I would use them all. I think since I didn’t have vacation days ever, I felt kind of bad for using all of my vacation days.

This year I plan on using all of my vacation days. I still have 4 left, and I’m using one day this Friday and the other 3 the rest of the month. It’ll be nice!

I also came across this article from Yahoo that talks about how $34.3 billion worth of vacation days will go unused this year. Here are some interesting facts:

The average American worker earned 14 vacation days but will only take 12 of them
Most people didn’t use all of their days because they said they couldn’t afford a vacation
Too much stuff to do at work so most people can’t even use their days
Many workers feel that if they took a day off, that they may be fired due to the economic situation
Most other countries use ALL of their vacation time.

“Workers in France earned 30 vacation days, on average, in 2011, and often used every single one of those days. The same goes for employees in Brazil and Spain. In the UK, workers get 25 days and they used all 25.”

Do you always use all of your days?

Retirement Costs in 13 Countries

Last Updated: December 19, 2015 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 9 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

I constantly dream of retiring (who doesn’t), and I would either like to retire abroad or constantly be on vacation. I found an article on MSN about 13 places to retire abroad and their average living costs. I thought it was a good article since I want to travel or retire abroad.

There are a lot of things to consider when retiring such as:

Health insurance
Food
Utilities
Phones
Internet and cable
Cars/Transportation
Fun, entertainment and traveling
Personal (clothes, hair, etc)

Of course, all of this adds up like crazy, and it’s recommended that in retirement that you have around 70% to 100% of your past salary for your yearly expenses. Many people think that you should save less, but not everyone will have their homes paid off. I plan on having around 85 or 90% per year.

Here is what the article says about places to retire abroad (these are all per month):

Argentina – $4,000
Belize – $2,200
Brazil – $2,700
Colombia – $2,000
Chile – $2,500
Ecuador – $2,000
France – $3,000
Italy – $2,400
Malaysia – $1,600
Mexico – $2,500
Panama City – $2,500
Thailand – $1,200
Uruguay – $2,300

You can obviously find places for MUCH cheaper than this, but I think these costs are for living very well in most of these countries, while some are just average living.

Have you thought about your retirement? Is retiring abroad something that you’ve thought about?

Also, Daily Worth is having a $10,000 giveaway (5 winners will each win $2,000). Sign up under my link. All you have to do is enter your e-mail!

Travel Reward Cards

Last Updated: December 8, 2014 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 3 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Wise Bread had an article on Travel Rewards Cards, and it got me thinking. I don’t have ANY reward cards. I always hear about people getting their trips for free, which is definitely appealing to me.

I just realized that all of my posts today are about traveling. I did not plan it like this. Obviously my brain is trying to tell me that I need a vacation. Here are some tips on how this lady scores free trips:

Find credit card offer sign-up bonuses. Lots of credit card companies offer different types of bonuses, such as more miles or cash back. Compare and save!
Utilize credit card spending. There are different ways to earn more points. I’ve heard of people (just like it says in the article as well) buying certain coins and so on in order to earn more points.
Get bumped. Getting bumped on your flight can also lead to more rewards or cash. I have friends who have gotten bumped before and if you wait out long enough when your flights about to depart, usually they’ll bump up the amount that they are giving out. Sometimes they will give a couple hundred dollars and reimburse you for your plane ticket.

Do you have any travel rewards cards? Recommend some! What are your tips?

What are your holiday dreams?

Last Updated: October 1, 2014 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 5 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Daily Worth had an article about Holiday Dreams. This got me to thinking and dreaming.

Mine would include a nice snowy vacation in a mountain town with everyone that I’m close to. There would be a massive Christmas tree and lots of decorations!

Also, me and the BF would take cute pictures like this:

One can dream right?

What’s your dream holiday?

Getting a Passport

Last Updated: April 7, 2021 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 4 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

LearnVest recently had an article about how to get a passport. I’ve been traveling a lot lately, but not out of the country because I don’t have a passport. The BF doesn’t have one either, and we are always talking about getting one, but the costs of obtaining one have been pushing us to push the date of when we get to get them back further and further.

Here are the steps if you’re thinking about getting one:

1. Fill Out Form DS-11: Application For A U.S. Passport
2. Submit Completed Form DS-11 In Person
3. Submit Evidence of U.S. Citizenship
4. Present Identification
5. Submit a Photocopy of the Identification Document(s) Presented (Step 4)
6. Pay the Applicable Fee
7. Provide One Passport Photo

Processing Times

Processing times can be found at the link above, but generally it is within 4-6 weeks and 2-3 weeks for expedited service
For expedited service, I know someone who got it within 1 week, so sometimes it CAN be sooner, but not always

Fees can be found here.

Do you have a passport? Do you have any tips for speeding up the process for a person who needs one at the last second?

Would you Couch Surf?

Last Updated: July 13, 2017 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 10 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

People will do many things to save money while on vacation. Not eating out, getting an inexpensive hotel, not flying too far away and so on. Vacations can be expensive and something I heard of a couple of months ago was called couch surfing. I heard about it on the radio and the morning talk show host was trying to convince his intern not to do this and then many people called in and called her crazy also.

The website for this is CouchSurfing.

The website touts that this is very safe, and just like with Ebay, couch surfing hosts are verified and rated by others who have used their couches. This can be a very easy way to save money. Also, it’s not always a couch that you get, most people have extra rooms or beds for you to use.

I on the other hand have a hard time trusting someone. I don’t like the thought of leaving my stuff at someone’s house while I am sightseeing.

What do you think? What would you do to save money? Would you sleep on someone else’s couch/floor/room without knowing them? Would it be more about the experience of meeting new people who are locals or about saving money?