A recent newspaper reported that the average Brit exceeds their holiday budget by an average of around £300 – is that all? We apparently underestimate the costs before we even go on holiday with women more often than not blowing their cash on clothes and beauty products (you don’t say!). So out of interest I thought I’d add up the costs of our holiday so far:-
Clothes for 6: (Ebay, Primark, New Look, Peacocks, Tesco) = £350.00
Ferry: Car plus trailer (P & O Ferries) = £145.00
Campsite Deposit: Camping La Barque = £100.00
Gas bottle re-fill: (Kibworth garden centre) = £ 21.00
New number plate, defectors, GB stickers etc : (K Tee Motors) = £ 38.00
Annual UK &European Car Break Down Recovery: (JS Insurance) = £ 85.00
Total: £739.00
These costs don’t include the food I will buy on Thursday (£100 approx) or filling up with fuel (a staggering £85 to fill up our car at the moment). I make savings wherever I can, for example I will be shopping at Lidl and will mainly buy lots of drinks for the journey, this will save up to 70p per drink compared to buying at a roadside services or cafe, so each round of soft drinks for 6 of us will save around £6.20 x 4 per day travelling = £24.80 per day!! I will fill up with fuel using Tescos current offer of 5p off per litre when you buy tuna and multipacks of coca-cola , I will then combine these to give 10p off per litre and head to Tesco South Wigston where diesel is currently £135.9 per litre.
I made savings on clothes by shopping at the cheaper stores, for example I bought my eldest son an excellent Tee-shirt with a camper van motif from Primark for £3.00, he loves it. I treated myself to a fabulous Maxi dress from Tesco for £20.00 but I have to confess to buying more than just a maxi dress for my holiday.
Other savings I have made include the Ferry booking with P & O Ferries; the trick is to keep searching on their website until you find the cheapest crossing. You do this by entering your details including when you would prefer to sail, then on the next screen it will list the outward crossing you have selected but not any others. If you keep hitting the ‘earlier’ or ‘later’ buttons it will list the times and prices for each crossing. For example the outward crossing is on the busiest day of the year and most of the morning crossings were between £200 – £300, I kept hitting the buttons until I came to the 12.40 crossing at £75.00 – a saving of at least £125.00. I think £145 return crossing for a car and trailer in peak season is a great price but it takes just a little bit of time and searching to find these prices.
European Car Breakdown is another great saving – mine is an annual insurance covering homestart in the UK and I simply used comparethemarket.com to find the best deal. At £85.00 with JS Insurance for the year it compares favourably with the RAC who want £134.00 just for single trip European breakdown.
With only 5 days to go I have loads to do, mostly things I forgot to put on the to-do list like collecting prescriptions, de-fleaing the cat and dog, washing the dogs bed ready to go for his Spa break at my parents etc. The most important thing I have to do is to find the camera and charger and prepare it so that I can post our photos on this blog. Ciao for now.
managed to catch a glimpse of the Eiffel tower just before we crossed the Seine, we all cheered as now we could say we had been to Paris. George dared me to drive up the Champs Elysee and for one brief minute I thought it would be fun, driving Fugly and it’s trailer full of bikes into the center of Paris but the peripherique with it’s ever changing lanes was challenge enough so I decided against it. We eventually found ourselves on the A1 and the home run to Calais. It was still raining and none of us felt like putting the tent up in the rain. We arrived at Calais and, as we boarded the 8.30pm ferry the sun came out and very appropriately set on what had been a great holiday and a big adventure.
Kyla40's Travel Blog 