RAC provide driving games ideas for kids

RAC provide driving games ideas for kids.

Speaking of travel games – above is a link to a few new printable ideas for car journeys.

Tags: Car Games, Car trips, travel games

tripso: 10 ways to save when feeding a family on the road

tripso.com | 10 ways to save when feeding a family on the road.

Food for thought here! (Pardon the pun).

This is something we’re thinking about well in advance. Our local supermarkets sell cheap chiller bags for carrying home frozen goods. They’re light and they fold up easily. We intend to take at least one of these. Once we get off the plane at the other end, we’ll be looking for a supermarket to stock up on picnic supplies for our “car kit”. (If we can’t find a large supermarket, we’ll simply keep an eye out for an Ikea).

Our Car Kit List:

• Disposable Plates
• Possibly disposable bowls for breakfasts too
• Disposable knives, forks, spoons
• A cheap but sharp knife (ever tried slicing a tomato with a plastic knife?)
• Ideally a small cheap chopping board (see “tomato” above)
• Hopefully a thermos flask – filling up with hot water before you leave in the mornings can really save on the cost of hot drinks during the day.

Our accommodation will be a combination of one nighters, which will be hotels with no cooking facilities and cabin style for the longer stretches. It will be interesting to see if it is possible to do any baking in the cabins. I haven’t felt very inclined to do so before when on holiday, but whisking up a batch of muffins is a quick and economical way to feed a family snacks.

Something else we are doing ahead of time is thinking about the times when we will need to buy takeaways or fast food. For example, our flight into Manchester (UK) arrives at about 7 pm at night. We don’t know if there will be a meal aboard the plane (I suspect we will be sitting ducks for the snacks trolley). Therefore we’ve checked the airport website. A big thumbs up to Manchester Airport for their website! I’ve been able to see exactly what food outlets they have, when they are open, and a menu even for one of them (go Giraffe). While looking at their website, I also realised it would be a really good idea to stock up on some muffins and cookies and fruit for breakfast for the following morning. All of this saves picking up the rental car, driving out of the airport and going “right, where are we going to eat?” and driving around hopelessly lost when the kids are starving.

And speaking of saving money when feeding families, keptwoman and I are  currently engaged in a battle of the budgets!  We’re aiming to slash quite a few dollars out of our food budgets before we even get on the plane. You can check out our little competition over here at Bring on the Beans!

Tags: Bring on the Beans, Budgeting, Car trips, Food, Saving