You wait all year for that one or two weeks vacation, the time you get to spend completely with your family, perhaps just relaxing, perhaps visiting family, or maybe planning a trip to see a new site, something that would interest everyone in the family. If you made your plans in advance, you have probably already made your reservations for airline and hotel, and those expenses may already be paid for. One less worry for you.
Dipping into your old school math skills you can also estimate with pretty good accuracy how much it is going to cost for you and your family to eat for the duration of the trip. Meal planning is an important part of the vacation budget and for the most part, families plan on eating on the run, with maybe one or two really nice sit down dinners to regroup and enjoy the dining experience of the vacation. Perhaps you are vacationing somewhere that is famous for its local cuisine, or you are visiting this destination because of the dining experiences. In this case, you would need to allow more of your budget for food.
There is one last, but not least miscellaneous part of the budget. This is the spending money, that extra cash that allows the kids to buy souvenirs and mom to purchase maybe a purse or blouse that is way over the budget that would be spent at home. A vacation is the time to splurge. Creating your budget early and making sure you have put away enough spending money, will make your trip both fun and worry-free.
