It’s never too early to start planning for your summer vacation. Summer vacations can be expensive, so you need to plan early for two reasons:
First, the sooner you start saving for your vacation, the more you will be able to save. It is a very bad idea to borrow money to go on a vacation. Borrowing to buy a house may be a good idea, because your house will hopefully increase in value. Your vacation is gone once it’s finished; it won’t increase in value over time, so borrowing money to go on vacation is a bad idea.
Decide now how much you plan to spend on your summer vacation. If you will be spending $1,200 this year, and you have three months until you leave, you need to save $400 per month, or $100 per week, to pay for your vacation. Of course if you have six months to save, your $100 per week savings would buy you a $2,400 vacation, so the earlier you start saving, the better.
The second reason for planning early is to get better deals. If you plan to fly, booking your flight early may save you money. Often buying at the last minute will cost more, unless you are flying standby. So, start looking at flights now, and keep your eye open for deals. If a good deal pops up, take it.
Perhaps the biggest advantage of planning in advance is that you can make a budget and determine what you can afford to spend. Your budget may not allow you to fly; perhaps this year all you can afford is a local vacation, or a driving vacation. That’s fine: the point is that you planned it in advance, so you only spend what you can afford.
