How We Plan a Weekend Trip on a Fixed Budget

Our trip fund gets 120 a month, split between us. That works out to about 360 every three months, which is what we spend on one weekend away for two, including travel, a room for two nights, food and a little left over for something we did not plan. We have done eleven of these trips in three years. Some were wonderful, two were disappointing, and all of them stayed inside the budget.

The budget does most of the planning for us, which is the main reason it works. Here is the process I use, step by step.

Start with the number, then pick the place

Most people choose a destination and then find out what it costs. We work the other way round. The trip fund decides the budget, and the budget decides how far we can go.

Roughly, our 360 splits like this:

If travel costs more than about 110 return for two, the place is too far for this budget, however beautiful it is. That rule rules out most flights and most long train journeys at peak times, and leaves a surprisingly long list of towns within three hours of home.

Travel: book early, travel off-peak

Travel is the cost that moves most with timing. Train tickets booked six to eight weeks ahead are often half the price of the same seats bought the week before. Off-peak trains on Friday afternoon cost much less than the 5:30 p.m. rush hour departure.

Our routine: once a quarter, I pick two or three possible weekends, check fares as soon as they are released, and book whichever is cheapest. We take Friday afternoon off work when we can, using half a day of leave each, which also means we arrive before dark.

We almost never drive. Fuel, parking and tolls for a weekend usually cost more than two advance train tickets, and on the train we can read, sleep or play a handheld game together.

Accommodation: location beats comfort

Our biggest early mistake was booking cheap rooms far from the centre. We saved 30 on the room and spent 25 on taxis, plus an hour each day getting in and out. Now we pay a little more to stay within walking distance of where we want to be, and accept a smaller room.

A few things that consistently keep costs down:

• Sunday night instead of Friday night. Many small hotels charge much less for Sunday. A Saturday to Monday trip with Monday off work is often cheaper than Friday to Sunday.
• A room with a kettle and a fridge. It means breakfast can be fruit, yoghurt and coffee from a shop rather than 15 each at a hotel buffet.
• Book directly. Small guesthouses often match or beat booking site prices if you email them.

Food: one good meal a day

Odalys is a former cook and will not travel somewhere without eating well. Our compromise is one good meal per day, usually lunch, because many restaurants offer set lunch menus at a fraction of their dinner prices. Breakfast is simple, dinner is a bakery picnic, a market stall or something cheap and local.

On our trip to a fishing town on the coast last spring, we ate a two-course set lunch with wine for 38 for both of us, at a restaurant where dinner would have cost twice that. Dinner both nights was fish and chips on the harbour wall, which was arguably the better meal.

Plan less, not more

Most budget travel advice says to plan every hour so you do not waste time or money. I think that is wrong for short trips. Over-planned weekends feel like work, and when something goes wrong, the whole schedule collapses.

We plan exactly three things: the travel, the room and one activity we really want to do. Everything else is wandering. Free things fill the gaps: walks, parks, markets, museums with free entry, beaches, churches, viewpoints. The spare 35 covers whatever we stumble on. On most trips we come home with some of it unspent, and it goes back into the fund.

When we cannot travel at all, we sometimes take a stay-at-home trip inside a game world instead. We wrote about that in our piece on online game worlds built for a weekend escape.

How we keep the money separate

The trip fund is a named pot in a separate savings account, and we never touch it for anything else. That separation matters more than the amount. When the money is mixed with everyday spending, it disappears into groceries and bills. When it has a name and a purpose, it grows.

During the trip, we pay everything from one card linked to the pot, and I note every expense in my phone. When we get home, Bastian adds it to his spreadsheet. We do not do this to be strict. It helps us see where the money actually went, which makes the next trip easier to plan. If you want the full picture of how we handle shared money, it is in our article on budgeting like a small household.

Two trips that went wrong

To be fair, not every trip worked. One November weekend in a seaside town turned out to be the week everything closed for the season. We had a cheap room and nothing to do. Another time we picked a city because the train was cheap, without checking that a large football match was on. Every restaurant was full and the streets were loud until 2 a.m.

Both mistakes came from choosing by price alone. Now, before booking, I spend ten minutes checking what is on that weekend and whether things will be open. It is the cheapest planning step there is. More of our trips, good and bad, are collected in Weekend Trips.