New to MSE and saving hard 23 August 2009 at 6:19AM edited 30 November -1 at 1:00AM in How much have you saved? 6 replies 1.4K views

no.1swimmum

I am new here but joined for lots of tips and ideas as we are saving hard for one last family holiday in Florida before our eldest son goes of to University.
So will be trawling for lots of ideas since the begining of the month I have started planning meals and mostly doing a weekly shop with just the odd bread milk and veg in between, I certainly feel that I have spent less money. Selling on ebay and whilst we have been of work we have de-cluttered the house from the loft down and now have a nice collection of items for a table top sale being held at the boys school in September - so all profits will go to the holiday fund. After the bills one of our biggest outlays is DS swimming he is of a very high standard and we travel all over the country for him to swim so we have the added expenses there try to stay in travelodges but if we all travel then not possible as our son at 17 is 6'7" and just can't sleep on the pull out bed thing, so do our best to trawl the net for bargain hotels. I will try to update my signature on a regular basis I am hoping to save about £450 a month so gonna be economising like mad

Ken68

Holidays aint MSE. Swapping homes with someone in Florida if you can find very cheap flights might work. Otherwise stay at home. watch CSI:Miami.

paper_plane

Keep saving and using the helpful advice on this site (matched betting is a great one to do) your holiday will soon come round

getting the best value for your holiday is definatly money saving

January20

Ken68 wrote: »

Holidays aint MSE. Swapping homes with someone in Florida if you can find very cheap flights might work. Otherwise stay at home. watch CSI:Miami.

Actually, I always thought that Martin's philosophy was not to do without but to make sure you got the best deal for everything you needed/ wanted? And if a person hasn't got any debt, why not?

To the OP, good luck with your savings quest

Ken68

You right January, sorry Swimmin, sounds like a working holiday helping your son to improve swimming.
Warmer climate and all that. Why our athletes go to Spain and Portugal for training.

January20

Ken68 wrote: »

You right January, sorry Swimmin, sounds like a working holiday helping your son to improve swimming.
Warmer climate and all that. Why our athletes go to Spain and Portugal for training.

Mind you holidays with my teenage daughter wouldn't be MSE so you could right too

Gers

no.1swimmum wrote: »

After the bills one of our biggest outlays is DS swimming he is of a very high standard and we travel all over the country for him to swim so we have the added expenses there try to stay in travelodges but if we all travel then not possible as our son at 17 is 6'7" and just can't sleep on the pull out bed thing, so do our best to trawl the net for bargain hotels. I will try to update my signature on a regular basis I am hoping to save about £450 a month so gonna be economising like mad

Have a look at the British Swimming website for details of the AASE programme:

http://www.britishswimming.org/vsite/vfile/page/fileurl/0,11040,5157-195671-212894-148621-0-file,00.pdf

Try the ASA East Region's website for details of any available funding:
http://www.eastswimming.org/

And try Sport Aid's website for their funding info: http://www.sportsaid.org.uk/

Your son's club should be helping too, especially if he's achieveing national times (as recorded at Sheffield last month).

Good luck in this.