Vacations can get expensive real quick especially if you decide to go out every day for every meal! On our recent trip to Dallas for my husband’s work training, I was able to stay *mostly* within our grocery budget of about $50/week. How, you may ask?! Well it requires a little planning and a whole lot of hoping your hotel has a kitchenette! Ha.
I started with planning a few meals the week before that I could make in a hotel room. Last time when we went to training in Kansas City, the hotel room we stayed in had a kitchenette which included a sink, dishwasher, microwave, plates, utensils, and full size refrigerator! I was hopeful we would get to stay in a similar hotel room on this trip but I was ready to make it work if not.
Fun fact: our hotel room did not, in fact, have any type of kitchenette but I made it work. Yes, I even used some of the hotel-provided shampoo to wash the dishes!
Here are some of my favorite ways to save money on food while staying in a hotel:
- Stay at a hotel with a free continental breakfast
The free breakfast was great at our Hampton Inn. They had a ton of options for breakfast so you didn’t get tired of the same thing. They also had fruit and yogurt every day so we would take some apples and yogurt for snacks for the kids after lunch. It worked out perfectly! This is also a great opportunity to borrow (permanently) paper plates and utensils if your hotel room ends up not having a full kitchenette like I was hoping it would! I was totally going to go to Aldi and pick up plates if I needed them but fortunately they had huge stacks of plates and napkins at breakfast.
- Pack leftovers or sandwiches for lunch
I made a trip to Aldi before we went on our trip and bought some bread, ham, and everything I needed for sandwiches for lunch. I also bought granola bars which are great, inexpensive snacks for the kids. And of course, they also got the free yogurt and fruit I stole from the hotel breakfast. Haha. Leftovers from previous dinners also make great lunches. I even made sure to pack containers so I could take lunches to the park with us.
- Plan ahead and use a Crockpot
Obviously there aren’t a whole lot of recipes you can make in a hotel microwave but I love my Crockpot and decided to bring it with me and make some easy slow cooker meals. I mean, I guess I could have brought a toaster oven and/or an electric skillet but I was already running out of packing room and that just wasn’t feasible! I found recipes that didn’t need a whole lot of ingredients and didn’t require dragging along a ton of different ingredients. I put most of the recipes together the week before and froze them so all I had to do was empty the ingredients in the Crockpot in the morning and it would be ready for dinner.
P.S. I’m not sure if hotels technically allow slow cookers since there might be some fire safety hazard but I just hid it on the days I didn’t use it when we let them clean our room. Shhhh, don’t tell them.
Here are some of the things I made with my slow cooker:
Tacos– I had leftover tomatoes and lettuce from a family party so I decided I was going to find some way to use them up while on our trip so they didn’t go bad (I’m always thinking about how to not waste food). I found a super easy Crockpot Taco Recipe that was perfect for using up some of my extra tomatoes and onions. It was also perfect since I didn’t have to make any taco seasoning mix since it was all included in the recipe. I only used 1 lb of ground beef since that’s what I had in the freezer and I didn’t want a whole lot of leftovers. I was totally prepared to have tacos for lunch or dinner another day though if we had any leftovers since taco meat keeps pretty well. I brought tortillas, sour cream, and cheese for this meal. Thank goodness we had a refrigerator, although it was small.
BBQ Chicken Sandwiches- For these, I just put a few chicken breasts, Italian dressing, and some barbecue sauce in a freezer bag and froze beforehand. I emptied it into the Crockpot in the morning the next day, put it on warm, and it was done by dinner. I brought a package of hamburger buns and chips for this inexpensive meal!
BBQ Baked Potatoes- So I didn’t actually make this since we ended up having extra food but I was prepared to make these. I was going to use the leftover BBQ from the BBQ Chicken Sandwiches and cook the potatoes in the Crockpot. I make potatoes in the Crockpot all the time and they turn out great. I also had all the topping already from the tacos such as the sour cream and cheese so it would have been a perfect meal with some of the same ingredients.
Other Crockpot Meals: Some other meals that I thought about making that could be easily put together and frozen ahead of time were Sausage Green Beans and Potatoes, Stuffed Shells & Pasta Sauce (meatless), and Italian Chicken with Potatoes and Carrots.
- See if your hotel provides any meals during the week
Our hotel actually provided a dinner one night during the week. They bought pizza and beer for all their guests (obviously beer was only for 21+). That is one of the reasons why I didn’t have to cook one night and actually ended up bringing home extra food. Our hotel also provided some sack lunches for those who had to eat on the run, which included bottled water and snacks. I never took advantage of the sack lunches because I never had enough hands to grab some (thanks kids) but I totally would next time.
- Ask your husband’s company to provide a food allowance. Haha.
Just kidding, but really it’s awesome if companies reimburse part of what you have to spend on food . My husband’s company did provide a food allowance of a meal and 2 drinks per day adding to not more than $250 for him for the week. We were actually able to use that to our advantage and had a meal delivered to our hotel the first night. (P.S. Search for coupon codes before you have meals delivered by Doordash. You can definitely save money that way!) Since I made meals most of the nights we were there, we were able to use the rest of his allowance to eat out twice. That was definitely a treat for us! I was prepared with other meals I could have made if we didn’t have any allowance, but thank goodness I got a little vacation from prepping dinner, even if it was only a few days during the week.
Our trip ended up being super affordable food-wise. We barely spent anything since I planned meals ahead. I actually made a trip to Aldi beforehand which made it even more affordable. I even googled where the nearest Aldi to our hotel was before we left just in case I needed to make a trip while we were there. We ended up not needing to make any trip to a grocery store for the whole week!
Would I do this again? Absolutely! It may have been annoying to lug around a Crockpot and a bag of food but saving all the money was sooooo worth it! I’m not sure how this would work if you had to fly somewhere since I don’t think you can bring a Crockpot on a plane. Haha. I will have to cross that bridge when I come to it and let you know! Honestly, one of the biggest things I hate about traveling is having to spend so much money on food so I’m so glad I was able to save us a lot of money. Now I know it’s totally doable staying under a certain grocery budget with kids!
Do you have any tips for saving money on meals while traveling?
