I’ve always loved telling people about how I got a deal or how much I spent on something. It’s an odd quirk but talking about coupons and money saving apps and sales is one of my favorite things. That’s part of why I made this video sharing how much we spent on our Alaska cruise vacation back in June.

I did have a lot of people ask about the cost and say things about how they wished they could afford to go to Alaska. To be honest, when I first started planning the trip I wasn’t sure if we could afford to go so I wanted to share real numbers about what it cost for anyone who might be interested.

You can see specifically what we spent in the video above. It breaks it down into the main categories like airfare, lodging, and the actual cruise costs. It wasn’t a “cheap” trip but it was worth it to us.

We ended up spending about $3,000 on our trip and have $2,000 covered with various things like credit card point redemptions, coupons, special deals, gifts. Not having to pay that extra $2,000 really made it much more affordable for us but also allowed us to have a stress free trip where we didn’t have to worry too much. We did pretty much everything we wanted to do while on the trip and it was truly a fantastic experience.

Here’s a few of the ways we saved money on the trip:

• Redeemed credit card points for multiple free flights and travel costs.
• Signed up for excursion deals in a larger group to receive discounts.
• Found coupons to popular excursions to cut the cost of attendance.
• Split a house and hotel suite with family to cut lodging costs.
• Researched and planned excursions months in advance for savings.
• Got a 50% off deal when booking the cruise.

That’s a few of the ways we saved money on this trip. We probably could have done more but I’m pretty happy with our savings since I know we paid less than some of the people we traveled with and we saved up and paid for everything when it happened. It’s always best to pay for the trip as you go and not after it happens!

Now that my life goals are all about building up our savings and having a baby, I’m not planning any trips for a change. It’s a strange feeling to not have any trips on the horizon but all the time will definitely give me time to do an even better job of making our next trip cheaper and better!

How do you like to save money on traveling?