I have been living for several days now in a hotel room without a kitchen. We have managed to feed two teenagers and ourselves without blowing or budget or having rumbling tummies. Here is how we do it.
1. Book a hotel with a refrigerator. This is very important. Having a fridge in the room will allow you to keep cold drinks, milk, and even ice cream for late night snacks.
2. Go to the grocery store as soon as you get settled in. We have saved money by purchasing breakfast cereals, chips, bottled water, bread, and cold cuts. This keeps us away from vending machines where the same items will easily cost 4 times as much. Plus having these items in our room will help us cut back on restaurant visits.
3. We only eat 1 restaurant meal a day. Restaurant meals are expensive, so we limit how many times we sit down to eat in a restaurant. The best time of day to eat in a restaurant is early afternoon when the lunch menu is still being served but it is late enough for the meal to hold you for the rest of the day.
4. Split meals. Go to a pizzeria and purchase one pizza, split 2 Chinese food entrees between 4 people. Share your pasta dish or cut your hamburger in half. This not only cuts the cost of your bill but also prevents you from having smelly doggy bags in your car and hotel room.
5. Try to find restaurants that don’t expect tips. Lower your restaurant bill by 15% by eating in a self serve or buffet restaurant. You can still leave a small tip for the bus person, but you are not obligated to pay 15-20%
6. $10.00 meals. We set a maximum $10.00 budget for our non-restaurant meals. Sometimes we don’t want to eat our non restaurant meals in the hotel room, so we grab a drink and burger, or other dollar menu item from McDonald’s or Burger King, or grab a half dozen of bagels and a tub of cream cheese from the local bakery.
Andrea Hermitt writes for parenting (specifically teens), the home blog, and also the frugal blog, and homeschooling at families.com.
Also read: Family Road Trip: Don’t Forget the Heartland
Beach Bummer: Germs in the Sand
Ways to Stretch Your Travel Dollar