Jill Russo Foster

Does your summer vacation plans mean staying local?

Here are some tips that we personally have done in our community for low or no cost. Let me know what you are planning.

Can you travel cheaply?

My answer is always, yes!!!

We have traveled to lots of places and not spent too much. It does take planning, but we find it well worth it.

You need to search for great deals on the places you want to explore. Look for sales, perks and discounts. Research your options. Right now we are researching an upcoming trip. We are looking for a hotel that is centrally located and near transportation hubs.

Last year in Italy, we stayed at a hotel by the airport. We were able to walk to the hotel when we arrived. You might be thinking it’s not convenient. This particular hotel had a fee shuttle to downtown Rome every two hour between 8 am and 11pm. Yeah! No transportation costs.

For places to stay, we look for hotels / timeshares that have kitchen facilities. It’s more cost effective to go to the market and purchase food than to eat our for every meal. Plus, if possible, you can bring things from home. No, you cannot bring meat and vegetables. You can bring items that you only need a few of instead of buying a large quantity (think salt, pepper, steel wool, paper goods and more). This is a photo from a beach vacation and what we packed in our luggage.

What do you do to reduce your travel costs?

Double check to save money

When you make travel reservations, do you stop there?

We have found that periodically checking back with the cruise / hotel / rental car / etc. can save you money. Just this morning, I rechecked an upcoming hotel reservation. I do this by making a new reservation inquiry to see what the price is. This morning the same hotel and same room type was $36 less per night. I made the new reservation and cancelled the old one.

Note – this only works if you have not prepaid for something and if there is no cancellation penalty.

We have done this in the past on a cruise that actually had seven different price changes lower. The savings before the final payment reduced what we owed. The savings after final payment were given to us as an on board credit.

Try this with your next reservation and let me know how much you were able to save.

Our Favorite Travel Spots

Summer is vacation time and we love to travel. Last year, we compiled a list of our favorite vacation spots. see what we like and tell us your favorites.

Did your credit score go up this past weekend?

In the past, you may have reviewed your credit score and found someone else’s information on your report?

With this new change, credit reporting agencies will be using a new three point (name, address, social security or date of birth) check system before adding liens and judgements to someone’s credit report. Hopefully, this will stop some information from appearing on the wring person’s credit report, thus lowering the credit score.

As of July 1, you may see liens and/or judgements that are not yours removed from your credit and therefore your credit score will go up. It’s estimated that 10 to 12 million consumers will see their credit scores rise by 10 to 40 points this past weekend.

Bottomline, you need to stay on top of your credit reports and check them regularly. Do you want to be reminded to check one of your credit report every four months, then sign up for my newsletter Money Choices and you will receive a reminder three times per year to help you stay on top of your credit report. www.JillRussoFoster.com

Christmas Holidays in July!

Save

Christmas Holidays in July! You may think I am going crazy but I have a plan. Now is the time to start to think about the holidays. You are at the mid-point of the year, which means there are 21 weeks to save between now and Black Friday.

This year Black Friday is November 24, Chanukah is December 13 and Christmas is December 25.

To stop the January debt hangover, start to save now and have the money you need by automating this process! Set it up once and then you will be at your goal in no time.

First determine how much you want to save and when you get paid (weekly, every other week, etc.). Calculate the amount you will need to save based on the paydays between now and Black Friday. Set up an automatic transfer from your checking to your savings account for the day after your direct deposit.

Do this now and you won’t be scrambling in November. You will be eating turkey for Thanksgiving knowing that you are all set with the cash for the holidays and won’t have to start January off with your holiday debt.

Save

What are you doing for the holiday weekend?

With 4th of July being a Tuesday, many of us are making this a four day weekend – we are.

If your plans are to stay local, here are some suggestions of free (or nearly free) things to do. Summer to me means outdoors – picnics, the beach, outdoor movies, concerts in the park, explore something new and more. Just pack a meal and/or water and go. You can visit a local attraction – zoo, museum, park and more. Don’t forget to check with your local library for free or discounted passes to local attractions. We have saved anywhere from $5 off to totally free admission for up to 4 at our local zoo to paying no admission to the Audubon center.

Whatever you chose to do, get outside and enjoy your summer!

Money Makes The World Go Round

Today, I am doing a workshop, Money Make The World go Round at Empower Her for kids ages 8 to 11. We are going to discuss budgeting, wants, needs with the help of a fun game!

What do you do to sell your unwanted items?

We are doing a big clean out of our home. We are selling lots of items. Our go to website is www.CraigsList.org and we have had some success. A friend suggested using Facebook Marketplace, so we tried this. Not so much luck here – a lot of interest, but no actual sales. What website / app have you used that works for you?

Getting the best deal on a cruise

Last week we were looking at a destination that we have wanted to travel to. This is how we got the best deal for us.

First we started at the cruise line’s website to come up with the cruise information. If you are first time cruiser, I wouldn’t suggest your try this. We determined the specific cruise / itinerary we wanted. Next, we look at sailing dates – which ones worked with our schedule and had the lowest pricing. Now, we have a base price.

We checked with our airline’s cruise vacation planner. Yes, they offered the cruise. But, they had a processing fee and were a little more than booking with the cruise line directly. We had an email that was saying they were having a great sale, so we called them. There price was higher than the cruise website.

Next, we set up a post to get bids on this specific cruise – cruise line, itinerary, sailing date, cabin category and waited. Several offers came in. We contacted one. They were able to match the cruise website price to the penny and offered us an on-board credit of $250.

In our experience, pricing is very similar among many options. The perks are what is different and they can be a great reason to use one vacation planner versus another.

How do you plan your cruise vacation?