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It's traveling season again! Time to make lifelong memories with our children. Whether it is for a month or a weekend, these 3 tips will help you and your kids have a more enjoyable time.

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Vacay Bucks

Vacay bucks are a way children can earn money for souvenirs, treats, or whatever else they want to spend their money on while on vacation. It's a great way to stay within budget while on vacation as well as give your children more responsibility. You no longer have to be the one that says no to a souvenir because they are in control of their money. Set a max amount they can earn so it stays within your budget as well. Because they are for vacation, I'm more generous in giving them out which makes my kids even more motivated to earn them. How they earn them is up to you. I do it in a few ways:

Print Vacay Bucks

Daily Chore Checklist is completely done- I always appreciate a way to motivate children to do every chore on their checklist...especially in the summer. I give them one buck for every day they do so starting 1 week before we leave.
Extra Earnings Chore List- I want a clean house before we go plus more help getting things ready so this list helps me get things done for the trip and they earn extra money. It's a win-win.
Traveling Opportunities- When you travel for extended periods of time, a little incentive to stay busy always helps. In the activity notebooks I made for my children, I added a few incentive pages. If they do the page plus the bonus activity I added they earn another vacay buck. Travel Bingo is another great opportunity to reward some extra vacay bucks.

Ideally, you want everyone to be able to earn a least a few bucks so some ways to earn are easier but in the end, your children are responsible for how much they can buy while on vacation. Plus they worked for the money so they won't spend as freely as they would spend your money. It's a great life lesson.

Print out my free chicken dollars to use as your Vacay Bucks or try out the Greenlight card. They are a great teaching tool! You can add all your Vacay Bucks chores to the app. When a child does that chore, they can mark it off and the money transfers to their card. Plus, it's easy to check their balance and teach them how to budget. Use my referral code and we'll both get a bonus when you pay for your first month (it's only $5 a month- your bonus is more than that so it's totally worth it).

This is smart- activity bags for the car approval system

Parent Approved Tags

One the fastest ways to make a trip go off on the wrong track is through a messy car (or airplane, etc). It's hard to have a good time when things are lost and a mess. To help prevent this we have always been diligent about approving activity bags for the car. However, in years past some have managed to slip through without approval causing all kinds of problems. Now we have an official tagging system in place so each parent knows for sure which bags have been approved. No one is allowed to bring a bag in the car without it. This helps a ton! We simply use a specific ribbon tied to the top of the bag. It is a great way to allow your children to pack what they want for the car but also give them some direction.

Print Packing List

Packing List

Let your children pack themselves. Give them a super simple packing list, weather guidelines, and how many of each item they need and see what happens. The younger ones can get help from the older ones (it's another great way to earn a vacay buck). They then put their piles of clothes in a designated spot with their packing list and name on top. You can then go through to make sure everything is clean, matches, and doesn't have any holes as you pack the suitcase the smart way.