5 Smart Tips for a Budget-Friendly Family Vacation with Crystal Paine

Summer's not that far off and the kids are already thinking vacation.

Will you be ready for it? Hi, I'm Rob West. How can you make great family memories without breaking the budget?

That's always the challenge. But Crystal Payne joins us today with some great tips for a budget friendly family vacation. And then it's on to your calls and questions at 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. This is Faith and Finance, biblical wisdom for your financial journey. Well, our friend Crystal Payne is our guest today. She's a sister in Christ, the creator of the very popular website, moneysavingmom.com and a frequent contributor here at Faith and Finance. And we're delighted to have you back, Crystal.

Thank you so much for having me back. All right, Crystal, today we're talking all about having a great family vacation while sticking to a spending limit. And I know you've got some tips for us. So let's dive in.

What's first? So the first step is always planning ahead. Start early to maximize your options. Consider traveling to an area that's not on the beaten path for fewer crowds. And if you're flying, I love to use the Google flight search. You can choose your dates of when you want to go. And then you can choose to fly anywhere to see the lowest options available around the country during those dates. So it's just really helpful to figure out where would be the best place to go for the best price. And then also to set a clear budget for your entire trip and decide what's important for you and what's not.

So maybe staying at the beach is a priority, but you're happy to bring food instead of going out to eat. Yeah. For your household, do the kids get in that conversation when you're picking the where? Absolutely.

Yes, they do. I just took my daughter on a spring break trip recently, used the Google flight search, and she said, I don't care where we go. I just want to go to a beach. I love it. That's so good.

All right. Well, obviously not having a plan can be very expensive. So I love that first tip. What's tip number two? So this is going to really save you money, and that's to take advantage of free activities. So these can be the hidden gems of any vacation. You can search online for your destination, plus the words best free things to do or something similar like that. And you usually find a lot of great ideas. I do this often. And you can look into hiking options, self-guided walking tours, local parks, some even museums are free or art exhibits or even free festivals or concerts.

Hmm. Crystal, are you using AI tools to build itineraries or are you just still doing an internet search and then kind of building it yourself? I haven't used AI yet, but I use AI a lot for my business. And I keep hearing from so many of my friends who are using it for planning trips.

So I want to try it. Yeah, I love it. Well, I think the free options are often overlooked. And it's a great reminder that there's some great things that'll be really memorable that we don't need to miss. All right, what's next? So get the family involved in planning would be tip number three. We talked a little bit about letting our kids choose where they want to go. But maybe that's just allowing them to choose an activity.

You're not going to be able to do everything where you go. And you can't always know what your family members would love to do. So ask them what's important to them. Let them help with the planning. And also a fun thing to do is give everyone a set budget. Let them plan a few hours of the vacation with that budget. That's a great way for kids to learn practical skills. And they can also appreciate how much things cost.

Totally. That's a great idea. So practical, and it allows everyone to have a piece of the vacation that their interests are going to be reflected. So that's really good.

All right, what about tip number four? So that's to be strategic about your meals, food can cost a lot if you let it. So really paying attention to that we like to stay in a hotel that offers a free breakfast and then bring snacks and food from home for at least one meal a day. That way we usually only eat out once a day and that saves a lot of money. Another thing that we've done a lot, especially if you're flying and you can't bring as much food with you, go to the grocery store when you get into town and pick up stuff for sandwiches. For instance, buying a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter and jelly, some chips, carrots, fruit, it's usually going to be a lot less expensive than if you were to go and eat out. Yeah, and part of traveling is just having fun, splurging with a nice meal. But let's be strategic about which meals those are. And I think picking up some things at the grocery store for lunch is a great way to do that.

All right, we've got time for just one more about 30 seconds. What is it? Okay, back to the budget. Set a daily spending limit at the beginning of the trip. Make sure you know what your daily spending limit is viewed as a sort of family game. See how far you can stretch this amount every day and stay under budget. This is a really fun way to get your kids involved to help them think intentionally about purchases and to make budgeting a fun family affair. I love it. Well, and the best vacation is the one you come home to that doesn't have any debt involved.

No credit cards that you're still paying on. Crystal, this has been so helpful as always. Thanks for stopping by today.

Thank you so much for having me. That's family finances expert Crystal Payne. Learn more at moneysavingmom.com. That's moneysavingmom.com.

We'll be right back. As faithful stewards, we are called to manage our finances wisely. Christian credit counselors can help with a debt management program that allows you to pay off debt up to 80% faster while honoring your commitments with integrity. Don't let debt hold you back from the life God has planned for you. Take the first step toward peace and financial freedom today. Visit christiancreditcounselors.org. That's christiancreditcounselors.org. Great to have you with us today on faith and finance.

Looking forward to taking your questions today. What's on your mind in your financial life? Call right now. The number is available and ready for you at 800-525-7000. Again, that's 800-525-7000. Whether you're thinking about your budget today or paying down some debt, maybe it's giving wisely or investing for the future, which seems to be more challenging than ever, at least in the short term.

Good thing investing should be long term in nature. What is on your mind today? Let's talk about it.

800-525-7000 is the number to call. We'd love to tackle your questions and our team is standing by so you can get through right now. We're going to begin in Virginia today. Hi Donna, go right ahead. Hi, I love your program and I really benefit from it, so thank you so much.

Thank you. I just set up a new account at a brick and mortar bank because I've been using the credit union and I set up a savings and a checking and the person at the bank told me that I should use my debit card that they would issue me for paying my bill. But I've always been paying bill pay with my credit card and I think somehow it's more secure. So what is your advice about using debit card versus credit card when you're doing your monthly bills on bill pay? Yeah, it's a great question Donna and actually as long as you're paying it off at the end of every month in the case of the credit card and you're not carrying a balance, which means you're using it for budgeted items and the money's there, I actually think from the viewpoint of security it's best to use that credit card not the debit card to pay your monthly bills because here's why.

If it's used fraudulently you can only be held responsible for $50 if you report it timely, but even bigger than that is the idea that you know the money with the debit card if it's compromised gets pulled out of your account and then you have to wait for that investigation to play out for them to then put the money back in. But in the case of the credit card it never leaves your account. It's there temporarily noted on the financial account.

You dispute it. You never pay it. You're never out the money. The problem with that debit card is it's coming out of your checking account and until it's put back in there's often all kinds of other ramifications. You may have you know other bill pays that you know go out of your checking account. Maybe a check is issued on a periodic basis or on a recurring basis and now if that money's not there you risk being overdrawn.

So yeah I'm with you. I think from a security standpoint the credit card is the better option for you in terms of just overall safety. Yeah and I thought that too, but I wondered why this man at a nationwide bank would give me that advice.

I mean I'm not a lawyer. I have a son-in-law who's in security and he wanted me to get out of the credit union because he said you know credit unions are not big. It's a local credit union.

You need something with a bigger security team behind them and if I have to help you I'm across the country. I can do it here because they have branches here so you know go ahead and set up a new account. Well I thought this was a good bank to work with and now I'm puzzled by it so I'm just going to get one of their credit cards and I don't know if that matters. I guess I could use the one I had except it's under my husband's the owner of the account. So establishing the credit, all the credit benefit goes to him every time we're using two of the major cards that we use and I'm an account manager but I'm not getting the benefit of paying the bills on time and getting the credit score that he is. So I wanted to get it in my name.

Yeah I think you're exactly right. You want that reported on a timely basis to your credit report and the most recent information impacts you the most but no I'm totally with you. I like the protections you've got here and I think from a fraud protection standpoint credit cards there's no doubt they offer the stronger legal protections under the fair credit billing act. Your liability is no more than fifty dollars. There's a clear dispute process and if you're compromised again that thief with the debit card has instant access to real funds.

With a credit card it's just borrowed money so a big difference there. To Louisiana, hi Tanya go right ahead. Thank you so much for taking my call. Sure. One question that I have, I have a 401k and I want to go deeper into stocks. I do know that the stock market is dropping but I remember when the stock market dropped a whole lot more than it is now.

Right. And furthermore I'm very confident about our economy more so confident in God and I believe that he will give us the victory and then not only that but if we all if we think or swim we all do it together as a world economy. So I would like to go into stocks about maybe 30 percent a 30-70 split right now but I'm wondering if I'm getting in too soon or should I allow a little bit more time for them to go lower? Yeah you know it's a great question Tanya and first of all I really appreciate you acknowledging that you know God is ultimately our provider and you know I think ultimately long term there's a lot of good reason to continue to be an investor in the U.S. and in this economy and I think a lot of the things that are happening now even though we may have some short-term pain will result in a stronger economy over the long haul. You know I wish I was smart enough to say whether this is the moment to go in. As soon as I tell you that it's going to be down more tomorrow or next month or next quarter and as soon as you wait it might go straight up from here and the reality is nobody knows and that's why I would encourage you Tanya to be systematic in your investments and so this idea of dollar cost averaging is a really powerful tool and it basically says okay whatever the amount is you can put in over a 12-month basis let's take 1-12th of that and then just go into the market you know every month and you're going to buy when the market's down you're going to buy more shares with the same amount of money when the market's up you're going to buy less shares but the idea is that none of us are smart enough to pick the bottom or the top or the right entry point but what we can say is that we know the long-term trajectory is going to be up it always has been despite the financial crisis despite the dot-com bubble burst despite the housing crisis despite the oil embargoes I mean you name it we've had it the great depression the market has always recovered and gone to new highs and so I think you being a systematic investor not trying to pick the you know the jump in here and jump out there because none of us know when that point is but I think you being consistent over time even right now to make a contribution for this month even though we know it might go lower I think is still wise as long as we have the long-term perspective in mind and by long term I mean decades not quarters or years does that make sense it makes a lot of sense it makes total sense and I just had to figure out what my strategy was going to be so thank you so much that helps a lot all right thank you all for all you do and again I'd just like to say we walk by faith and not by sight absolutely lord bless you thanks for being on the program today hey stay on the line Tanya I want to send you a gift we're going to send you a copy of our most recent magazine Faithful Steward issue one that I think will be a real encouragement to you as you just immerse yourself in God's word around your role as a steward let's see we're gonna take another break here in just a moment we also have other lines open today in our final segment we'd love to tackle your question or hear your testimony maybe God's been at work in your financial life you'd like to share that with our listeners as an encouragement today the way to do that just head to the phones and call us right now at 800-525-7000 that's 800-525-7000 by the way if you'd like to connect with an advisor you know we talk often here about investment advisors often we talk about financial planning issues so many of these issues require a trusted financial professional and I would go a step beyond that to say a competent financial professional who shares your values as a Christ follower well that's the CKA designation certified kingdom advisor and you can find a CKA in your city when you go to faithfi.com and click find a professional that's faithfi.com we'll be right back what if managing your money could actually draw you closer to God what would happen if we began to see God as our ultimate treasure the faith by app helps you do more than budget it helps you integrate your faith and financial decisions for the glory of God with easy to use envelope futures top biblical financial content and a supportive in-app community you'll learn to steward God's resources wisely and grow in generosity download the faith by app today from your app store or visit faithfi.com and click app faith and finance is grateful for support from sound mind investing if you have money in an investment account you know sometimes the stock market can seem like a roller coaster but it's possible to enjoy both profit and peace of mind as a do-it-yourself investor no matter what's happening in the market a short video webinar about that is available at soundmindinvesting.org financial wisdom for living well soundmindinvesting.org thanks for joining us today on faith and finance looking forward to taking your calls and questions here in our final segment we've got room for you actually some lines open right now so if you have a financial question today this would be a great time to call 800-525-7000 again that number is 800-525-7000 I may be able to get to as many more as three additional phone calls when you call right now 800-525-7000 with your financial questions to Florida hi Phyllis how can I help hi there thank you so much for taking my call sure I hope you can hear me okay I sure can um I just got a question about annuities it's funny because every time I come home from work I listen to you constantly and thank you so much for being on the air and uh you know you're always saying annuities annuities and I come home and I tell my husband he's like no no no no no so we talked to somebody yesterday and they talked to us about an annuity boy if I I don't know if I'm going to say this right but uh it's locked into some kind of I guess it's called Athena and it's locked into some kind of care that if you need it for long-term care type insurance type thing we sounded really interested in that I just didn't know a whole lot about it and I just wondered you know being in our early 60s is it too late and um maybe is it a good idea is it not a good idea help me out yeah very good well let me just back up and clarify a little bit I mean we do talk about annuities a lot here mainly because we get a lot of questions about them but I'm pretty consistent in saying although I'm not someone who says avoid annuities at all costs I'm also quick to say they're really not my favorite tool and I generally don't recommend them for most people because even though they have their place they tend to have high fees they limit your liquidity meaning once you commit the money it's hard to get it out early which just limits your options they're complex so they're you know lots of fine print and you know they they are tied to what are called sub accounts that fluctuate depending on the type of annuity and you know the fine print is often you know not understood fully by the annuitant and you know there's a loss of control there's even inflation risk because the annuity may not keep up with the rising costs over time now where they have a place is for somebody who says I just want to transfer the risk away from the market the stock market to an insurance company I'm risk averse these certainly do fit that bill and you can get some tax deferred growth and then ultimately some guaranteed income but again these are not my first choice now what you're talking about essentially is a combination of an annuity that has long-term care features and I think long-term care is something to think about where you know you are able to consider that your biggest risk in this season of life is just the dramatic rising costs of long-term care and we know that 70 percent of Americans 65 and older will need long-term care for some amount of time usually two to three years and it can run ten thousand a month if you need nursing care and that's today's prices it's only going up from here and so essentially an annuity product with a rider for long-term care would kick in if you need long-term care and you can't perform what they call the daily you know activities daily living activities or you suffer a cognitive issue and then that rider could take the normal income that the annuity was providing and double your income payments or provide a higher withdrawal amount I don't know about that particular one you mentioned but if you were interested in the various options for long-term care I would visit with a certified kingdom advisor there in Florida to look at all of your options because you may be better off buying a straight long-term care insurance policy you could look at a whole life policy with a long-term care option or you could look at an annuity with a long-term care option and depending on your situation one may be better than another so I know that's a lot of information Phyllis but is that helpful at all yeah yeah it is I would like to kind of research that a little bit more I mean both of us are really healthy you know his mom is 87 and she's in an independent living so um and she's got the money to be able to pay for that herself but I don't think that could ever happen for us and you know it just we you never know so um I just want to be prepared so yeah no I certainly get that and I think that's wise to be thinking that way Phyllis and to your point I mean you've got longevity on your side you're in good health you know you may decide you want to essentially self-insure but you know obviously the extent to which you want to offset that risk and you've got the cash flow to do it you know it may be worth looking at a long-term care insurance policy they are expensive and you know you've got to be able to not only absorb the premium today but you've got to be able to absorb the future premium increases which has been a consistent theme with these policies so I think that's why you need to do this in the context of some really well thought out comprehensive financial planning and then perhaps that financial planner could bring in a long-term care insurance agent who really specializes in that area so here's what I'd recommend go to our website faithfi.com click find a professional connect with a certified kingdom advisor there in Florida and just ask about um you know some planning around how you will pay for long-term care insurance should you need it down the road and be sure to check back with us if you have further questions may the lord bless you we're going to finish out the broadcast today in Ohio Brian you've been waiting patiently sir go ahead hey yeah Rob I just got a quick question here about where to put our emergency fund we have a money market account with a decent amount of money in my wife's paycheck goes into that and then we also pay our mortgage out of that but I wondered if that was a safe place for it or if there's a better option for you know holding our emergency fund yeah it's a great question first of all kudos to you for having an emergency fund second I love that one of the paychecks is going straight into savings that's always a good practice and a pretty good sign that y'all are managing things well uh yeah I mean I think you want two things safety and you want uh return right you want yield so as to the safety piece money market mutual funds if that's what it is are fairly safe I mean they're the whole idea is that they're pegged to a dollar and so they never you know uh lose value they never go up or down above or below a dollar they every now and then will quote break the buck it doesn't happen often but it can if one of these fails and so you potentially have some risk there although it's very low what would be more safe would be a money market account which carries the FDIC insurance or just a high yield savings account so I would say as to safety if you could find something that has the FDIC insurance or the NCUA insurance for a credit union that would be better as to the yield I would just make sure you know you're getting something that's competitive and you could you know check bankrate.com just to see what the prevailing yields are and what you would find is if you went there today you know you would find that the very best rates that are out there right now are around four and a half percent and so if you're in the neighborhood of four and a quarter to four and a half you're right there so then it's just a matter of safety and I'd be looking for that FDIC insurance so but other than that keep up the good work my friend we appreciate your call today god bless you folks thanks for being along with us today so thankful that we got to address so many of your questions today really digging into god's word and really thinking about how we can be that wise and faithful stewart big thanks to my team today I certainly couldn't do this without him on behalf of Devin Patrick my producer Sandy Dickinson who manages our phones so well and Mr. Jim Henry is serving me with great research and direction and everybody here at faith by may god bless you have a wonderful weekend we'll see you next week bye-bye faith and finance is provided by faith by and listeners like you