August 03, 2016
5 Ways to Save Money on a Road trip + Fruit Salsa Recipe
This Easy Fruit Salsa with lime dressing takes 5 minutes to make, is the perfect healthy snack for a road trip and is completely customizable!
I have been enjoying writing about travel here on the blog. Road trips require a lot of planning and always include packing a bunch of food and stuff for my daughter so it often makes me stressed out. Another aspect of travel that can be stressful is that it can be expensive. Therefore, I like doing different things to save money on travel such as packing my own food, saving on fuel at Kroger and more!
Today, I want to share my tips with you on how to save money on a road trip. Here are my favorites for saving money on vacation:
1. Bring your own food
I have enjoyed writing about packing food for traveling lately and in fact, my food to pack for a road trip post is my second most popular post ever! I love having fresh fruits and vegetables, snacks, breakfasts, beef jerky, pretzels, pouches for my daughter and more ready to go. Gas stations often have expensive and unhealthy options. But, by bringing your food ahead of time, you can save a lot of money.
I love shopping at Kroger for my food where they have tons of great options and everything that you could possibly want. Their produce is really fresh too and it travels well. I like getting apples, oranges and slightly unripe bananas (so they do not get bruised as easily). Also, we pack chopped vegetables and guacamole or salsa. Sometimes, we bring along homemade breakfast burritos with corn tortillas, eggs, salsa and cheese.
**See my fruit salsa recipe below which travels well on a road trip.
2. Save money on gas for your trip
We are so lucky right now because gas is not expensive compared to the $4 it was some summers ago. This is the perfect time for a road trip because you can drive somewhere for about half of the price you used to be able to. Tip: Try to get gas during the week because gas prices seem to spike during the weekend.
To save money on gas, I go to Kroger to get gas because of their great fuel program. I shop there for my groceries and earn fuel points to use on my gas just by purchasing what I was already going to anyways. I shop there about once a week and am often able to get a discount on my gas. This has been so helpful for our trips this summer! Plus, I have one right by my work.
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| Let's go Mom!! |
When I go to the Kroger gas station, I just enter my Kroger number and it will ask if I want to use my fuel point savings.I love when I have a discount to apply to my purchase! Spending $1 gives you 1 fuel point. You get double fuel points for things like gift cards and prepaid phone cards. You also earn points when you get your prescriptions filled. Sign up for your Kroger shopper card here.
To track your points is easy - just use the “My Account” feature on Kroger.com and you can keep a close eye on those points as they accumulate by using the Kroger app! Fuel points earned in a given month are available for use through the end of the following calendar month.
To redeem fuel points you can choose how much of your discount you want to use (10¢, 20¢, 30¢ … up to $1 OFF) per gallon! What’s great is that not only can you redeem fuel points at Kroger Fuel Centers but also at most Shell stations too! So you have a lot of great options to redeem the points!
Fuel points do not combine across months. When filling up at a Kroger Fuel Center, you’ll always be offered the biggest discount available, based on each month’s fuel point totals available in your account. For example, if you have 200 unredeemed fuel points from March and 300 fuel points in April, the 30¢ per gallon of fuel discount from April will be offered on your next fill-up. The 20¢ per gallon discount from March will be available through the end of April.
3. Shop for travel deals early
Especially when traveling in Michigan during the summer, it pays to book your travel ahead of time. As the dates get closer, everything often gets more expensive. It can also get booked up where there are not any more hotel rooms available.
4. Travel on off dates
When looking at hotel deals, you will notice that the weekends are the most expensive time to travel. If you are able to get off of work during the week, you will save money most likely on your hotel stay. Traveling during peak seasons such as the summer, holidays or spring break can be very expensive as well. When searching on travel sites, look up different dates to see which is the most affordable.
5. Look up local deals
Different discount sites may have travel deals for the area that you are staying. Make sure to check them out to save money on local attractions. For example, when we went to Niagara Falls, there were lots of discounted tickets, restaurants and more on deal sites which helped us to save money but still get to experience the fun, local attractions.
We love bringing this easy fruit salsa along on a road trip for healthy yet fun snacks. It takes just 5 minutes to make and serves well with pretzels, cinnamon pita chips or even on top of yogurt. We keep it in a cooler until we get to our destination and then eat it for a snack. Feel free to use whatever fruit you have on hand. Since Adalyn loves fruit and salsa so much, I knew that she would love this dish- and she did!
I picked up all of the ingredients at Kroger- many of which were on sale! I was able to earn more fuel points by purchasing these ingredients for a trip and then getting gas afterwards to save money! Yay!
Easy Fruit Salsa
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Serves: 4
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup blackberries
- 1/4 cup raspberries
- 1 kiwi, finely diced
- 1 chopped peach, finely diced
- 1 chopped plum, finely diced
- 1 chopped apricot, finely diced
- Juice from 1 lime
- 1/2 teaspoon lime zest
Instructions
Combine all fruit and lime juice and mix well. Top with lime zest. Serve with pretzels or cinnamon pita chips.
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Love it. We always hit the local grocery store before we go to the hotel. We too like veggies and fruits
ReplyDeleteLove it. We always hit the local grocery store before we go to the hotel. We too like veggies and fruits
ReplyDeleteYUM such a great idea! Love all the fruits in this simple yet perfect dessert salsa!
ReplyDelete