Pinching Pennies in Amish Country

This past weekend my husband and I celebrated 30 years of marriage with a trip to Lancaster, PA, Amish Country.

Just as we did when we went to the Jersey Shore last year, I always find ways to pinch a few pennies.

This is especially important, as, like many, my husband has experienced job changes, and reduction in pay...we are so very thankful he does have a job, and it's my job to support him by finding creative ways to bring in money, keep the home fires burning, and manage our finances.

Here's a few ways we were able to pinch pennies this trip:

1. At Christmas time when shopping online, I was offered a $25 credit if I signed up for a credit card, and by taking advantage of the offer, was able to get a few small gift items that totaled $25 for free. I never did activate the card, and received a notice in the mail a few weeks back stating that if I activated the card, I'd get a $25 credit...so I activated the card, and we used it to pay for $100 of expenses of the trip. So that's $50 given to us by the credit card company, and since I'll pay the card off right way, no finance charges. Not bad. [For those of you who have trouble with your credit ratings, you may want to consider Instant Approval Debit MasterCard to help you build a good credit rating safely.]
   
2. I am paid for blog ads as well as ebay items through my PayPal account. Rather than transfer the money made into our checking account like I usually do, over the past couple weeks I left it in the PayPal account, accumulating enough to pay for some of the things we did on the trip. I have a debit card "attached" to the PayPal account, and each time we used it, we got 1% back on any purchase. So we received a bit back on everything we paid for on the card. Saved quite a few pennies doing that.
3. We didn't do anything very extravagant, just drove the beautiful farmlands enjoying the farm animals and taking many pictures; ate well but at inexpensive restaurants; limited our shopping but bought some of our favorite foods and some antiques to enjoy, then resell on ebay.
   
4. That leads to another thought...depending upon how much of the trip is spent on business...ie searching for things to resell, which is part of my home business, there are some tax write-offs available, may look into that, but really most of the trip was for pleasure, so may let that pass this time.
   

You really don't have to spend a lot of money to have a wonderful time. How have you pinched pennies on your vacations? Feel free to share a comment.