Another Way to Save on Travel (Janssen)

We have no travel planned for the next few months and even then it's just to go visit family for Christmas (did I say "just" about my family? There's nowhere I'd rather vacation than in my old high school bedroom or in my in-laws basement).

Either way, travel - imaginary or not - has been on my mind as well as additional ways to save money without ruining your entire vacation by spending it at a crummy hotel eating off the dollar menu at McDonald's.

Have you heard of Groupon? Virtually every major city in the USA participates - you choose your city of choice and then you get a daily email with some deal for that city. Some are for hotel rooms, some are for tourist attractions, some are event tickets, many are for restaurants, and some are for shopping.

Each daily email offers some sort of deal (buy a $50 gift card for a restaurant for $25, or stay in a swanky hotel room for $99 a night, or go skydiving for 40% of the regular cost). As long as a set number of people buy into the deal, everyone who purchased the deal, gets the coupon (if not enough people buy, no one is charged and no one gets the deal - I've never seen a deal not go through, though).

Next time we go on vacation to a major city, I plan to sign up for the Groupon emails for that city several months in advance and start collecting gift certificates for places to visit, eat, and stay, all for a fraction of the original cost. Plus, nearly every place that participates in Groupon is going to be local and interesting, rather than a national chain you could visit at home.

Not to mention the fact that you could pay for your vacation a little at a time over the course of many months instead of coming home to a large credit card bill (that always takes the shine off a vacation for me pretty fast!).