Taking a vacation is great. You get to relax, leave behind work stress and spend some quality time with your family. Unfortunately, traveling and vacations also take a heavy toll on your savings. Vacations don’t necessarily have to cost an arm and a leg. Here are a few things you can do to minimize your costs.

Buy a local cell phone connection: Never ever use international roaming. Not even for receiving text messages. It’s always more economical to buy a local prepaid cell phone connection to use. International calls will cost you less and so will the local ones. If you’re a believer in using Internet through your phone, it will be cheaper too.

Eat at your hotel: Try to find a hotel deal with meals included in it. Usually hotel packages have one meal included in them. If you have one or more meals in your hotel package then use it. Passing up the hotel meal to eat at a restaurant is a waste of a good meal and money.

Avoid high end dining. The idea is to sightsee and explore a new country; not eat at expensive foreign restaurants. Eating fast foods or at local cafes will save you money.

Avoid souvenir shops: Souvenir shops are notorious for ripping people off. Don’t go to popular souvenir shops and avoid hotel souvenir shops like the plague. Instead, find shops off the beaten path. Bargain, haggle and depending on which country you’re in, start bargaining at half price.

Another point to ponder is to avoid buying souvenirs at all. Anything you buy – even if it’s just a scarf from India is a souvenir. It just isn’t a miniature of Taj Mahal but it’s a beautifully woven handmade scarf from India all the same.

Exchange currency before leaving: It’s always smart to exchange your currency into the currency of the country you’ll be visiting. If you wait to reach your destination to get your currency changed, it might cost you more in terms of exchange rate. Do your research into what the services charges will be if you use your credit/debit card abroad and how beneficial traveler’s checks will be.

Buy tickets early: When buying airfare for international travels, it’s often better to buy tickets at least 6 months in advance. The closer to your departure date you buy tickets, the more they will cost. Find out what the off seasons are for your airlines and then buy when the fares are low. If you’re traveling in winter then buy your tickets in the summer or earlier.

If you find the prices have dropped after you’ve purchased your ticket, contact your airline. Most airlines have a policy that returns the balance to you. Don’t forget to research different airlines before buying your ticket.

Nowadays, everyone is trying to cut back and save a little or more likely, save a lot.

While it can seem difficult finding money to save, by carefully scrutinizing your spending habits, you are sure to find some easy dollars you can round up.

Think DIY, or “do it yourself”. Get up and brew your own coffee and grab breakfast at home. Wash your own car, mow your own grass, iron your own shirts. You get the idea.

Visit your public library and check out books, magazines, DVDs, computer games, and CDs all for free.

Wait longer periods of times between appointments for services such as haircuts, manicures or massages. If you normally go every 4 weeks, go every 6 weeks instead. Or better yet, forgo some of this services altogether.

Turn up or turn off the air conditioning when you are not at home. It is easy to cool an average sized house down quickly.

Carpool, bike or walk wherever and whenever possible. Gas is not cheap, so every time you don’t drive, the savings add up fast. Plus, if you ride your bike or walk on foot, you are getting great exercise which can save you more money as you will no longer need that gym membership.

Pack a lunch each day for work instead of eating out. You can easily save an average of $30-40 a week by brown bagging it. Stock up on snacks and keep them at the ready at your desk too. Snacks can be bought in bulk for a fraction of what you fork over to a vending machine. Same goes with sodas and drinks.

Buy store brand instead of name brand for a great amount of savings. Store brands are typically 20-60% cheaper than the equivalent name brand. Buy in bulk from wholesale clubs or shop on sale. Stock up on non-perishable items that you use often when you find them at an extra low price.

These tips are just the beginning. If you follow them and continue to evaluate your spending, discovering even more ways to cut back, you will find yourself with a full piggyback in no time.

In the past, not so many years ago, our Mother’s and Grandmother’s would cook meals totally from scratch. Those were the days before convenience and box foods took over the shelves. Dust off those recipes and start making a list of the items you will need.  

The most commonly used items for scratch cooking will be flour, sugar, eggs, milk, salt and baking powder/soda. Stock up on these relatively cheap staples and you will have an arsenal of ready to make items on hand. If your local grocery store has these items on sale, buy in bulk to have them on hand whenever a recipe calls for it.  

The next step is to find time to prepare the meals. Cooking from scratch will take some time, so chose a day like a weekend to do all of your cooking. If you have an idea of certain meals, make them all on the same day. You can proportion the meals out into single servings and then freeze them for the week.  

The meals you can make are endless. Do a search online for some old-fashioned recipes from scratch. You will find everything from homemade pancakes, to spaghetti sauce. Another benefit from cooking from scratch is how well your family will eat and how good you will feel knowing exactly what is in the food you have prepared.  

Many people turn to convenience foods, well because of the time factor. Time is precious and trying to cook a meal from scratch every night of the week is impossible for most people. If you set aside your one day to cook all of the meals for the week and freeze them, all you will have to do is grab them from the freezer and re-heat.