saving for a big vaca

Growing up I traveled a lot and often. Granted most people don't have the opportunity I did being an Army brat but my family took full advantage of our assignments and we traveled all over. Since being out of college I haven't done as much international traveling as I would like. After meeting Dave, my traveling settled down even more, our "trips" now were 8 hour drives to his home town to see family and friends. Dave grew up different than I did, not bad, just different. His family would swap destinations every summer-one year they would be in a cabin in beautiful New Hampshire, and the following year they'd be at a timeshare on a gorgeous beach in Florida. As for me, other than summer visits to our family stateside we never really went back to the same place to vacation. I'm all about new places and seeing different parts of the world while my husband prefers these cherished places and I've really come to enjoy them as well.

{The cabin-two years ago vacation}

So naturally-like any good couple-we've come to a compromise. Every other year we'll do his family vacation with his whole extended family at one of their locations (mostly NH if he gets his way-plus we live in Fl now) and then following year we'll do a big vacation-just us-somewhere new.

We already have a running list of places we want to go the first place I want to take Dave is Venice (my favorite city) and then on a Greek Island cruise. It's going to be an expensive trip and I want to pay for a huge chunk of it since Dave take care of basically everything else in our lives.

This is how I'm going to save the $'s:

Change-I have two change jars and I'm going to continue to put my change in there. It's amazing how it adds up
Eating In-No more eating out for lunch, or multiple times a week.
Groceries-only buying groceries we need AND most importantly using the groceries we buy. If we don't it's like throwing money into the trash. Wasteful.
Being THAT person, what do you want for Christmas? Money. What do you want for your birthday? Money. And putting that cold cash into my change jar and hiding it away not in my wallet for spending at Target.
Picking up shifts, I can work more at LOFT instead of just one night a week. Sure, I'll be a little more tired but with the extra money I'll make sure I transfer all of it into my savings account and don't touch it.

Do you have ways you save for an upcoming trip or wish item?