Yikes! $20 cookies!

At a tiny bakery in Santa Monica, Paris nearly snatched a snikerdoodle from a box of $20 cookies. I freaked out in front of a bunch of LA types wearing designer jeans and sipping nonfat lattes. "Please, get your hands away from there," I said. "I don't want to pay for those cookies!" The girl behind the counter sneered.

We're on a budget of $250 a day. We really can't afford fancy cookies. On this road trip, $20 easily buys our family of four dinner.


Traveling on $250 a day is tough at times. It's a fair amount but leaves little wiggle room. In Flagstaff, we grabbed lunch from a food vendor at a Fourth of July festival. We ordered two ears of roasted corn at $4 each and an $8 taco plate. The tortillas and meat were swimming in grease and the corn was tough and tasteless. Did we buy something else? No, we didn't have the cash.

Our $250 a day allotment includes lodging, rental car, gas, food, attractions, souvenirs, everything. The first two days of the trip seemed easy and we were under $200 on both days--but then I realized that I forgot to include the rental car, which amounts to $50 a day.

If we spend less one day, we carry over the remaining money. In the Grand Canyon, we were hit with a $200 hotel room and $25 park admission. I also splurged on some Route 66 souvenirs. That day cost nearly $450—ouch! We'll be paying for our Grand Canyon excursion the rest of the trip. Luckily, my parents are meeting us in St. Louis for two nights--so they can treat us to dinner.

In spite of the tight budget, we're certainly not suffering. Every day we go swimming in our hotel pool and every day we're doing something new--building a sand castle at the beach in Santa Monica, hiking around the Grand Canyon, watching the Fourth of July parade in Flagstaff. I'm learning that kids are happy engaging in free activities. I only wish that I could afford to order a glass of wine with dinner.