How old were you when you became a mom?

Do you have any other tips on traveling cheap? Do you guys camp or stay in hotels? I am always looking to make it cheaper so we can afford to go more places. Do you do travel hacking? Points and miles and stuff? How long was the European train trip? For us we just started traveling a year ago. But now I have been bitten and I want to just go to as may places as possible before they grow up. But traveling with 5 isn't cheap. We are headed to Canada for the first out of country trip this summer Arizona California Nevada Wisconsin IL We have been to some national parks Grand Canyon Painted Dessert Petrified Forest Death Valley Sequoia Kings Canyon Joshua Tree Cabrillo National Monument

Wow. you guys have traveled so much! Amazing. How did you fit in so much in 9 years? Do you do a few countries a year? When did you start taking them places? They are so lucky.

Thank you for all reporting in. I think that that next year it will be more concrete on trying it, if all my old enough kids get in. 4 kids times the grade money is hard to turn down. I am so happy that you are able to have such freedom. I am hoping that this one runs the same way.

Great idea about talking to other families. The only thing is that I heard about this from another family at our coop that doesn't meet until fall. It was the last day of the meeting and I don't have the person's contact info. I would love to talk to them about it.

Wow I never knew that you could win money for music competitions. I didn't grow up playing anything. Did you teach your kids to play?

Where have your kids traveled to?

are you going to the trials?

Thanks for this. I need to get mine working. My oldest is 10, so it seems like there are a lot of things I could do to get them earning money.

So exciting. You have your plans already, now just save up for them.

That sounds so fun to just pick a place and go.

Great timing on the London trip. Maybe you can land a awesome deal. Fun idea about the homeschooling celebration trip. HMMM maybe have to add that to my plans.

Wow free flights! that would be awesome. I meant if you have the flights covered and then could use your reward points for paying for the hotels. Then you would only have maybe a rental car if you needed one in the destination. OHHH if nobody would miss the fun money, cut cut cut.

Do you have links to these studies? I never know if we are done or not so I think it might be a good idea to take stuff like that just in case. I am getting close to 40.

Wow. I will give that a try next week. We had a bit of success last night. We tried dressing in pants and sweaters (even though it was 80 degrees) no air on the trip over or right before. Putting the cap on and doing the running in the sweater and pants and cap.

Where have you traveled? What was your favorite place? What is the farthest you have been away from home?

Where do you want to travel to? Now? Bucket list?

Do your kids earn money? How old are they? How do they earn it?

Great idea. When you go to the store you spend. I never go. I live in a small town with just a Walmart. So I don't do all that fun shopping like stopping by a target and coming out with 200 bucks worth of stuff. How about selling some stuff you already have?

I think it is great. Really. Kids these days need to work for things they want. And wow for having a 12 year old who has all these ways to earn money. Awesome. I would be proud of her and not feel guilty about it. Most likely that would be something I would have to do with having 5 kids. But it is something that I am going to do no matter what. I have told the kids we will not be buying you a car ever. If you want one then you can get a job and start saving for it. You are doing awesome if you have instilled the work ethic already in your kid.

Fingers crossed for your dh. Ok so you have the flights figured out. I am not military, so I don't really know what that means. But I bet it is better than buying regular priced tickets. Can you use the travel credit card for hotels? Maybe a trip wouldn't be so expensive with those 2 things taken away. What is the fun money used for? Classes, eating out, movies? Would it be hard to cut it in half? Would the family be on board if the money cut in half was linked to them? Would having a goal of a trip to France in 4 months be helpful to keep everyone on board? Yes travel is so rewarding. I love thinking and planning our vacations too. It is my hobby.

Thanks for that. Honestly that would be the only reason I would do it. The $$. I love our life now. I love that we can take off 2 weeks a month and travel. Whenever something comes up or a place we want to go has a deal we can jump on. I love that when our life gets crazy, mom has a baby or the kids are sick we can take off as much time as we need to. We just school all year round so it isn't hard to get things done under a time line. This year if they did the school we would miss the first 2 weeks because we will be out of the country. Do you feel that is hard to make up? What do you do skype meetings about? Honestly when I am on vacation, I am on vacation. We don't do school. I think the experience itself is learning enough. Our budget isn't tight, but the extra money would be nice. For what is worth only 1 of my 3 kids that is old enough got in since I applied at the last second. Really the last second. If they all would have gotten in the $$ would be hard to turn down. Or we go the amounts others have said they get. It would of course save us lots of money or allow us to do even more things. Today I am leaning no, and that I will apply early next year and try to get my 4 oldest in. I still want my freedom honestly.

So smart about the towels in the cooler bag. How long did they stay warm?? I am wondering if I could do that.

Ohh I hadn't thought of that. what vitamin? Thank you ladies for the ideas. I am going to try them. This kid isn't a little, but the level they are on is swim a length and wait a bit. repeat. It is indoor swimming and even with the 85 degrees outside the kid is shivering all the time. This kid has no body fat whatsoever and I know that probably doesn't help. That is just their body though, besides eating more than I do.

How much would you have to cut down spending to take the 1-2 vacations? What would you have to cut? Do you home school? Do you work? Could you bring in more money some other way? Could you make the vacations cheaper? Camp? Get deals on hotels? VRBO. Rent condos? Do you travel hack? Fly on miles? Stay at hotels for points? You sound like me with your desire to travel more. I have gotten bitten hard and I just want to travel as much as possible now.