5 Frugal Things post 25
This week has been a packed week of Easter holidays – keeping the children amused, whilst trying to get a weeks worth of blog post scheduled. And pack and sort everything out for the holiday. I need this holiday! Here are a few things we have done to save money for our holiday to Vegas. This is the 9th time I have been to Vegas and we are doing things a bit differently this time. We are splurging on things on holiday but saving on other things. Here are my 5 frugal things post 25.
Booking seats on the plane
We always like to get seats in the economy section on the top deck of the plane. It sort of feels a bit more exclusive but for the same economy price. However when I checked if we could book these seats early it was going to cost a huge £140 for the seats to be pre-booked. So we are going to wait until 24 hours before the flight and will try to grab those seats when we check in. £140 to books seats for two people. that is far too much money. It is something we have done before for this flight but this time we are saving the money and waiting.
Hotel for the night before flight or drive on the day?
Another holiday tradition we are breaking this time is staying in a hotel at Gatwick the night before our flight. Our flight is at 10:30 am so we need to be there at 7:30am. In the past we have got the train to Gatwick and stayed in the south terminal Hilton hotel the night before and had a nice dinner. We then have a taxi pick us up on our return. In the past this has cost around £300 with everything added together.
This time we are driving to Gatwick and parking there using the summer special parking offer. We booked it with Holiday Extras via Topcashback. I searched for Holiday extras using the Topcashback website and clicked on the link…this gave me a 20% cash back discount. Simple! The parking cost went from £58 to £47. Add on the cost of petrol and we are spending around £60. Much less than £300. To get a Topcashback account sign up here.
The cost of looking after the cats whilst we are away
As you will have seen from Instagram we now have 2 cats, Purdy the old lady cat and Trev the new young teenager cat on the scene. Rather than pay for the cattery, my neighbour Lucy is going to pop in every morning to feed the cats and let them out. And then every evening a friends daughter is going to pop up to feed the cats and play with them for a bit. A saving of maybe £50 here.
Travel Insurance
I have just taken out a new annual policy for the whole family. Its so much cheaper to get an annual policy for everyone rather than pay for individual policies as and when needed. I used the Topcashback comparison tool and chose a policy to cover all 5 of us including USA. I didn’t go for the cheapest and still managed to get a policy for £45 for the year after cashback with a recognised named firm.
Holiday Money
I was very lucky to get lots of $$ for my birthday, and I exchanged £1000 worth of dollar 2 weeks ago at a great rate of $1.251. That’s our spending money covered. If we do need any other money then I have a Halifax clarity card. This is a credit card that I only use for holidays. It offers the best rate of currency at that point of time. So at the moment if I look on MSE currency checker £1 = $1.232 at Best Currency Exchange, ordering online and collecting from branch. However if I was to pay for something today using my Halifax Clarity card I would get a better rate of $1.241. Just as a comparison the post office rate is $1.211 today. So get yourself a Halifax Clarity card just for use on holiday.
Most credit card will load an exchange rate fee, as do debit cards making it more expensive and the charges sneakily hidden. This card will need to be paid off as soon as we return from holiday before interest is incurred.
Thanks for reading my 5 Frugal Things, come back again next week, I post it every week.
I am linking up with Cass, Emma and Becky in this week’s ‘Five Fabulously Frugal things I have done this week linky.
