Living it up in LA on a Rock Bottom Budget.

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Look out Hollywood, here we come! Our family vacation this year is super cheap. Who am I kidding? All our vacations are super cheap...but this one is more so. We are flying cross country, spending eight days in Los Angeles and I won't spend more than $1750. As always, I'll blog about what I spend, and where I spend it, to give readers ideas for their own budget vacations.

Our first budget decision was airfare. We didn't decide to go to LA until after we saw how low we could get the plane tickets. We thought we'd possibly be driving to Orlando. So, keeping that decision flexible helped us to do this vacation cheaply.

Starting in January, I began following plane prices daily (or every other day) at www.airfarewatchdog.com. I watched prices out of my home airport and got a feel for what was a good deal. By the third week of May (three months before our trip), I found a fare for $178/rt. I bit the bullet and bought tickets for my family of five which came to $1102 after taxes.

Our next budget decision was to choose to stay with my husband's sister in West Hollywood rather than rent a hotel or vacation home. And because we're working with a rock-bottom budget, we also chose to forgo the car rental this time around. We're borrowing my sister in law's car while we're here (she offered). She bikes to work everyday and could go without it for the week. This won't save any of you money in LA, but it certainly came in handy for us!

Since I'm a maniacal over planner, I booked backup car reservations anyway. We haven't used them, but the cheapest I could find was a rate of $177 (after taxes) for an 8 day compact rental out of LAX with Dollar. I found that rate by checking www.carrentals.com at least twice a day starting from the day I bought my airfare.

We flew Airtran and instead of checking luggage for $15/per bag (each way) the five of us brought carry-ons and backpacks. We made quite a procession through the airport, but it worked out. I didn't pay $6/per person (each way) to pick seats in advance either. If you book Airtran through Kayak, you can save yourself the seat fee. But I didn't learn that tidbit until after I booked. Instead, I checked in online 24hours before my flight. At that time you're able to change your seats without paying a fee if you'd like. I noticed that Airtran assigned our seats close together anyway, so no changing was needed in my case.

We're here now and on day two of our vacation. I'll be updating the blog again soon so keep reading!

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