As you may have read from my Frugal Living Blogs, we are enjoying some vacation time at the shore. It has been a wonderful experience, and I don’t know quite how we will get back to the regular an normal routine once we return home.
Being on vacation should be a different experience than being at home. You don’t want to take all of the normal home issues with you, but instead you want to take the time to relax and have fun. Still, it is important to maintain a sense of “home,” even while you are away. This will keep you grounded and focused instead of chaotic and all over the place while on vacation. Good planning should also free you up from wasting time on things other than enjoying yourself. Here are some things that have worked for us.
Having a week-long stay with five people can generate a lot of laundry. We didn’t want to spend precious vacation time at the laundry mat. With our family size, it isn’t completely practical to have as many changes of clothes as we might need for the week. They simply wouldn’t fit in the car. Fortunately, there is a way around going to the laundry mat other than having smelly clothes.
I took a little bottle of Woolite along with me. This is a gentle detergent made for hand washing. It has been invaluable. I can catch chocolate ice cream stains practically immediately, wash out delicates, bathing suits, shorts, t-shirts and more. We can hang the items outside in the sun or in the bathroom, and we have fresh clothes the next day. This also reduces the amount of dirty laundry we have to bring home and gives us more dressing options for whatever activities come our way.
Cleaning as we go is important. On vacation, people tend to get a bit sloppy. Clothes can get thrown on the floor or mussed around in a suitcase. Towels might get dropped anywhere there is room. We don’t allow this on vacation. We find it much more relaxing to have some sense of order in the vacation house. Not only is this more calming, but it gives us less to do on the last day. Keeping everything clean and tidy as we go takes only a few minutes at a time, and prevents hours of cleaning later.
Well, we are off on another adventure. Check back again tomorrow, when I’ll share some other ways that we are enjoying a home away from home while on vacation.
Mary Ann Romans writes about everything related to saving money in the Frugal Blog, creating a home in the Home Blog and caring for little ones in the Baby Blog. You can read more of her articles by clicking here.
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