Vacation Kitchens: Who's Turn Is It To Cook?

A few weeks before we are due to launch off, we make up our menu. We do take in consideration what, if anything, is in the freezer to cover any meals.

Each person gets to be the cook for a day - they choose what favorite thing they will make ahead for dinner, if possible, what's for lunch, breakfast - are they adventurous, or just cereal?

That's all the cook does for that day - kitchen duty wise. The rest of us set and clean the table and kitchen.

We also occasionally rotate chores - one person cooks that day, one person has all the set up and clean up.

This works out especially well with paper products and premade foods!

Broke From Going Out To Eat On Vacations?

My niece was visiting the other day, and talked about eagerly waiting for her mom to return from her vacation. She'd been given money to eat out but quickly tired of it, yearning for some of her mom's home cooking.

Did you ever figure the costs for a family of 6 to eat out for 7 days, 3 meals a day? OK, free continental, scratch breakfast. Kids eat free, oops, 12 and under. That eliminates 3 of my 4 children. Conservatively figure $5/5 for lunch, $10/5 dinner - that's $425. Ok, add tips, add a few meals out for all 6. It adds up.

I was at Wal-Mart today and an ad over the speaker stated you could save $600 for a week's vacation, though I didn't catch for how many people, if you rented a place with a kitchen, shopped at a discount grocery store, and cooked most, if not all of your meals.

Making meals ahead and freezing them for vacation - is that a job worth saving $600 or even $300?

I'm willing! Save some money and enjoy some home cooked meals!

Vacation Checklists: Kid’s Clothes

I have found that if I don’t make a checklist someone ends up on vacation without a bathing suit or some essential item so I made up a standard clothes packing list which I can vary, if needed, and just print out.

The next time and sanity saver is to hand out the checklist and let each person lay out their things, calling me when they are done.

Our kids like this as it means it’s getting close to vacation time, they get to make decisions on what to wear, with my overrule allowed, and then they pack it all up ready to go. My youngest will sometimes ask for help from myself or one of the older kids, but the rest have been doing it so long I usually don’t need to help.

When they think they are ready to pack, I do go over the list, though, as there are times when something is listed yet forgotten.

And can you believe, sometimes they ask if they can help me pack my cloths, too!