Fancy But Frugal

Ciao, bella! Just a quick blog to summarize a cheap, easy, and fun trip Italy! There are a few things you need to get started: quick fingers, $400, and a spontaneous spirit! ✈💼 Where did we go? We visited Milan and Lake Como, Italy over 4 days. How did we get there? Call it luck, website error, or whatever you want. While searching for a Memorial Day trip on a third-party website (initially looking at the Caribbean or Puerto Rico), I stumbled upon a $400 direct, round-trip flight to Milan, Italy with perfect flight times. Pretty sure that it was a mistake, I yell across the room to Jon “I don’t know if this is legit, but let’s try it!”.  Boom . Booked. Fast forward to a couple hours later the airline when the airline tries to cancel our ticket, because it was indeed a mistake. In comes my husband’s charm. “But sir, we received a confirmation and have already booked accommodation, tours, everything. I assume you will be refunding us the full cost of this trip?”...

Strict Budget, two toddlers, and 6 months pregnant .... sounds like the perfect time for a Disney trip! Believe me, I never considered going to Disney World with my family until the kids were older and until we had plenty of extra cash. But, my 3-year-old daughter is captivated by Disney princesses, and my 2-year-old is in love with Mickey & friends. I wanted them to enjoy the magic of Disney World before they realized the magic wasn't...well...100% true. Plus, my youngest was finally potty-trained, and 2-year-olds and under get in free at Disney Parks… but with only one household income and long days in the theme parks, I knew this trip would require a lot of planning. First, I had to pick the perfect time to go. I researched and found this awesome tool called Disney World Crowd Calendar ( link ).  I've heard that September, October, and February were the least busiest months to go.  February was out of the question for us because our baby is due in January, ...

Hola! Welcome to our Costa Rican honeymoon adventure. I can't believe its been over a year ago already! ❤ A little background (and budget trick): Jon and I got married right after moving back to the US from Singapore. We traveled across the world, bought a house, 2 cars, some furniture, etc. It was a crazy-exciting time in our lives, but what we really needed to fully enjoy this time was funds! So, instead of traditional gift registries, we did a Honeyfund ( link ). It was on Shark Tank ( link ) and basically is an online registry that allows people to pay for specific things on your honeymoon. It can help pay for anything you want: flights, excursions, meals, hotels, activities, etc! The Honeyfund is more personal than just giving cash, and it allows others to be excited and involved (from afar) in your honeymoon! It was the best idea ever and covered the majority of our costs.  💰💰💰   We are still so grateful! The trip : We flew United Airlines to Liberia, the s...

For Christmas 2016, we decided we needed a warm , relaxing, and affordable vacation, so we chose Cancun. This trip surprised me in many ways. I was totally off my game that week and we forgot our GoPro, so we don’t have many pictures. 🙁 I like to think we were just living in the moment and enjoying ourselves. I don't come empty-handed though; I have a ton of tips about cheap accommodation, tours, and food! The first decision to make was “ Should we stay at an all-inclusive ”? All-inclusives are tricky. I know people who swear by them and stay at them for every vacation. I think there’s a time and place for all-inclusives, and you just have to decide what kind of trip you want. If you want to veg out with friends or you are on your honeymoon and don’t plan to leave the resort at all, then yes by all means, an all-inclusive is the way to go. Food, drinks, and bed all in one place. No judgment here. BUT , me and my husband usually aren’t that type of vacatio...