That's because for years our family "vacations" were known by another term- PCS move- that's Permanent Change of Station, or transfer, for you civvies out there. My husband was in the military for 20 years- he was in boot camp on our first anniversary. During his career, we combined our new orders with a road trip and a few visits to sites of historical or personal interest. He saved up his leave for these trips. This is how our family managed to live frugal and still visit places like Yellowstone, Mt. Rushmore, Lliard Hot Springs in Canada, the natural history museum in Regina Canada, campgrounds in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and the Northwest Territory of Canada, as well as all along the Al-Can highway, many a natural history museum, Little Big Horn, Chimney Rock, the Grand Canyon, the Painted Dessert, art museums in California, Nebraska, a cowboy museum in Texas, the Olympic Peninsula and so much more. We were moving, and we took a little detour here and a little detour there.

The military pays families who are transferring a per Diem rate for food. That is supposed to be enough to cover eating out a restaurant, but we never found that it was quite enough for our family- our daughters are surprisingly healthy eaters. It was, however, more than enough to cover picnics, and if we did those right we might even have enough left over for part of the museum entrance fee.=)

My husband retired from the Air Force six years ago, and we no longer get a per Diem travel rate, nor do we do as much traveling. (On the plus side, we do make a little more money in the civilian sector, and he doesn't go overseas without us for two months out of every year). Still, what we learned during our military travels still works for us. Here are some of the things we do while traveling with family.

Foods that travel well:
dried fruits and vegetables. Some of us love snacking on sun dried tomatoes (look for sales, or learn to dry your own), some munch on raisins, my husband's dried fruit of choice is prunes.
Granola- make your own.
Nuts
boiled eggs if you have a good ice-chest
summer sausage
jerky
oranges- they come in their own wrapping and don't get squished like bananas. On the other hand, they can be messy.
Cabbage- seriously, my husband loves to munch on wedges of raw cabbage.
Pretzels
bread and muffins- especially if you freeze it first, pack in single layers in a tupperware container, and store in the ice-chest. We're going to be trying these 'main dish' muffins later this month- they are really miniature quiches you can hold and eat one-handed. We know they work for short car trips as we've been doing that for a few weeks now.
snack mixes- like chex mix- made from scratch, of course.=)
bagels

Sometimes I like to pack meals that we can easily eat in the car, and then we use the time we would have ordinarily spent eating visiting a park or a museum.

We might bring brown paper lunch bags and fill up the bags with our snack items- things like carrot sticks, fruit, chopped wedges of cabbage, popcorn, celery sticks, crackers, cheese, slices of sausage, nuts, raisins, home-made cookies, dried tomatoes, and cherry tomatoes. The Headmaster likes to eat raw green onions. You can usually pick up dried prunes quite inexpensively at the local dollar store or discount grocery.

We like sandwiches in pita or pocket bread best, because the filling isn't so likely to fall out. One of our favorite fillings is this Chinese Pork, either on its own, or mixed with cream cheese. You can make up a batch of this, put it in pocket bread sandwiches and freeze them. Then pack them frozen and eat in a day or two when they defrost.

Sometimes I make sandwiches at home and freeze them in advance. Other times I just pack the fixings. A favorite lunch to have at a picnic table somewhere is miniature shish-ka-bobs. I set out olives, pickles, cherry tomatoes, cubes of cheese or sausage, mushrooms, and canned pineapple chunks (don't forget your can opener!). We supply toothpicks or pretzel sticks and napkins. Each person makes their own miniature shish-ka-bobs on the toothpicks or pretzel sticks (the pretzel sticks tend to break unless you poke holes in the food first).

We find that breakfast is usually the cheapest meal to eat at a restaurant, so if we are going to eat out, that's the time we choose. If we don't want to eat at a restaurant at all, I pack yogurt and homemade granola, and we eat granola and yogurt while driving. Yogurt keeps better than milk while living from an ice-chest.

The harder cheeses keep better than soft ones.

peanut butter, of course, unless you have allergies. Have the peanut butter in sandwiches, in celery, or mixed with powdered milk and a dab of honey for peanut butter 'play dough cookies' (we roll them into balls and eat them)

"Melba" toast- one of our kids favorite snacks when young was home-made whole wheat bread sliced and toasted at a very low heat in the oven for a long enough time that it was dried all the way through. This kept well while traveling (just store it so it can't be crushed to crumbs) and is delicious with a mixture of cream cheese and grated cheese.

For a couple of trips where we weren't sure of hitting a grocery store, I grew sprouts while we traveled. I soaked a jar of sprouts overnight before we left, topping it off with a square cut off from an old nylon stocking and a rubber band. Three times a day when we stopped somewhere I rinsed and drained them. I prefer drinking fountains and pumps at parks to gas station restrooms.;-) That way we had a fresh vegetable just about the time our other fresh produce was running out.

We have also put snacks in ice cube trays. This is fun, but a bit messy at times. I like the tupperware ice-cube trays that have lids. The fun part about this is that small children like having this smorgasbord of snacks to choose from all divided up into little containers, but they are not overwhelmed by the amounts.

We each get a bottle of water that we refill as needed. I like to put a sprig of mint in mine, and I like to wrap other mint springs in a wet paper towel so I can have more when my first sprig is ready to be tossed (or eaten). The FYG has her water rationed because, while we are not unreasonable about bathroom stops, we do think every hour is a bit much.

Where to Stop
Whenever possible I like to take our driving breaks at museums or sites of historical interest, but it's also good to stop at places where the children can run off their pent up energy.

When the children were younger we would stop at rest stops and have foot races, climb trees, ask the children race to the next tree by hopping on one foot, jumping, hopping backward, skipping, and somersaulting- we could ask them to do these things under a watchful eye while we were getting out the picnic stuff. I pack sidewalk chalk and a jump-rope. We can sketch out a hopscotch pattern on the sidewalk in a moment, and the jump-rope can be used in a covered picnic area or in a ground floor hotel room on a rainy day.

Things to pack:
can opener
tablecloth for rest area picnic tables. I also like a quilt to spread out on the ground
paper towels and home-made wipes
water bottles
plates- this is up to you- you can pack one dessert plate for each person, use foods that won't be too messy, and rinse them off after each meal stop, or you can pack paper plates. Or plan foods that don't need plates, and use napkins- cloth can be rinsed, rung out, and set to dry in a sunny window or on top of the ice-chest, or just relax and use the disposable ones. Consider how frugally green you are being by NOT eating at a restaurant=)
ice chest
cheese slicer
vegetable peeler
paring knife and small cutting board (I have one that is only about 18 square inches, it fits nicely inside a ziplock bag with the paring knife and in the side of our ice-chest.
salt and pepper
Ziplock bags or other food storage containers

Other tips:
Plan regular grocery store stops along the way to replenish a few fresh vegetables, fruits, cheeses, and yogurts. I would buy a package of cream cheese and one of grated cheese and mix them in a ziplock bag, kneading until well combined, for a cheese spread for crackers.
Cottage cheese, dill and garlic make a favorite dip for vegetables.
If you long for a hot meal, go through the drive through of a fast food place and order one hot thing from the dollar menu, supplement with your own fruits and vegetables.
Learn to drink water, make sure your kids are fine with water. You will save SO much money this way.

Do some advance planning and prep- cut up turkey ham and freeze it in cubes, bake and freeze muffins and cookies, mix up some snack mix (we like oyster crackers, peanuts, mixed with dill, garlic powder and buttermilk powder and tossed with a bit of oil), make and freeze sandwiches (spreading them with butter will keep them from getting soggy when defrosted), dehydrate some cherry tomatoes or other products, make granola...

What are some of your favorite meals while traveling? How do you save money on food during road trips?

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• Those who bought will be hurt. Can you say "repo"?  People who wouldn't otherwise have bought a car are now strapped with a payment they really didn't need and probably can't afford.  Oops.
• Those who didn't buy will be hurt. Because all of the "clunkers" were destroyed, used cars will be in short supply and prices will rise.  This will hurt those of us who need or choose to drive used cars.
• Dealers who participated will be hurt. First they had to front the cost of the program to customers.  Now some are having trouble getting reimbursed, while they continue to float an enormous amount of money.
• Dealers who didn't participate were hurt. I'm guessing this would be smaller dealers who couldn't float the rebates for their customers, so they were unable to compete.  This had to severely impact their business.
• American car manufacturers will be hurt. Who thinks sales will plummet now that the program is over?  More to the point, who thinks they won't?
• Junkyards and used parts suppliers may be hurt, too. With so many new cars on the road and so many used cars gone, there will likely be less demand for used parts in the near future.  There will also be less old cars being parted out to provide used parts for the cars still on the road.
• Charities will be hurt. Many cars that would have been donated were traded in and destroyed instead.
• The environment will be hurt. Save the environment.  Drive a clunker. Do you really think that you're saving the environment by ditching the old car to buy a brand new one?  Do you have any idea how much gas you'll have to save to offset the energy and resources it took to manufacture your brand new car?  Hey, the more you drive the more you save, right?
• All of us will be hurt. Where exactly did we expect the government to get the billions of dollars to fund the program?  Eventually it all comes out of our own pockets - whether by higher taxes or inflation.  The government cannot give anyone anything that the government doesn't first take from somebody else.

So who benefited from the program?  Most of the cars purchased were imports. So much for stimulating the economy.  Maybe we should have been more specific about which economy.  Let's just call it "Cash for Asia."

Can you add to the list of injuries?  Do you disagree with any?

Did you buy a car during the C4C program?  If so, do you have any regrets?

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© KimC for Frugal Hacks, 2009. | Permalink | 30 comments | Add to del.icio.us