Honeymooning on a Budget

Planning your honeymoon? You would love to spend two weeks skiing in Gstaadt, Switzerland, but right now, you have enough money for a weekend at the local Holiday Inn. And you have a wedding to pay for as well.

Putting Together a Budget
When operating on a tight budget, the prospect of going on a honeymoon may seem beyond your reach. But with careful planning and a lot of creative compromising, you can still have a wonderful honeymoon that you will enjoy and remember. The first step is to put together a budget that details your current income, expenses, and money set aside as savings. Next, calculate the money you need to put into the wedding and any other expenses you will have as soon as you return from your wedding. Then, look at all those places where you can cut expenses, including all the luxuries you can do without for a few months. For example, how about replacing your costly fast food and restaurant budget with old-fashioned home cooking, or cutting back on the dry-cleaning for a while, or turning down the heat or turning up the air-conditioning, and so forth? Each dollar you save should go into your honeymoon savings account. With this budget in hand, you now have an idea of the money you will have for your trip.

Building a Dream and Scaling it Down
The next step is to come up with your dream honeymoon. Where would it take you? What would you do there? If your dream vacation is a week on the beaches of Waikiki, what is it about that honeymoon that appeals to you the most? Sunning on the beach? Getting far away from home? Just having a place to relax and be alone together? Now take that dream honeymoon, use the elements that mean the most to you, and scale it down. Instead of a room over the ocean, why not a room in the same resort that overlooks the back lawn?

Instead of a week, how about five days at your favorite location? You would be surprised what a difference scaling down can make in stretching your budget to include the trip you want. Where else could you find a beach that would be within your budget? You don’t need to go to Hawaii to find a beautiful beach. There are beautiful beaches on the East and West coasts you can drive to, where you can rent a house for a week, save the airfare, and have a wonderful time.

Shopping for Bargains
If you start planning soon enough and put your budget together, you can begin shopping for special travel deals online, in the newspaper, or through a travel agent. The important thing is to stay flexible. You may never have considered a trip to Costa Rica or Cuba or the Canary Islands, but they all have beautiful beaches. You can find yourself on your way to an exotic honeymoon on a budget, if you are ready to make your plans without a great deal of notice, if you are willing to be flexible, if you have carefully budgeted so you have the money in hand, and if your passports are current.