Are you ready to hear how much I saved at Pigeon Forge using my own tips?!
Last month, I wrote a post on “How to save money at Pigeon Forge”. This is a follow up post using my own tips! If you have not read my original post, you may wish to head over there then come back once you have read (or at least read afterwards) to fully understand.
Exactly how much did I save at Pigeon Forge using my own tips?
First of all, I want to say that everyone budgets for vacation in a different way. With that in mind, a set amount that I “saved” may or may not look like a lot to you. This is why it’s important to note a few important details of our vacation first, to give you the most accurate idea of our savings.
Please keep this in mind as I try to give the clearest idea possible on how much I saved at Pigeon Forge using my own tips.
You will need to carefully consider the details of our vacation that I include to comprehend the savings.
Some details to note here
- We were on a 5 day/ 6 night trip
- We are a family of 4. Two being young children
- We had previous plans to be attend an event for 2 of the 5 days. We still ate as on vacation but we did not have time for extra activities during these 2 days that would otherwise possibly cost money.
- We used many of the tips in my previous post to save money, including planning out our stay although we left some flexibility for spontaneity.
- We own an RV. Therefore, we had the option to stay in a RV park. Staying in a RV park, still cost a nightly rate like a hotel but can have its advantages. (in Pigeon Forge this nightly rate is often just as much as a hotel)
- Due to staying at a RV park, we did not have breakfast provided. We chose to eat breakfast from our normal groceries or skip and do a early lunch instead. Therefore, our vacation was based on 2 meals a day.
On to our savings!
I’m going to break down how much we saved at Pigeon Forge into categories to relay a better understanding. The categories will be…
- Lodging
- Dining
- Family fun activities
- Other digital savings (cash apps etc)
How much I saved at Pigeon Forge on lodging?
I was just about to click the check button for a 5 night stay at our RV park when I decided to Google promos for that specific park. What do you know? There was a HUGE discount! I got a whopping 20% off our entire stay which added up to being about a $100 savings!
With just those 2 tips utilized, I saved a total of $250 on lodging at Pigeon Forge.
We also saved money in lodging by price matching. By doing this, I know for a fact that we chose a cheaper option RV park, and yes, it was nice! No, it didn’t have all the bells and whistles as some, but it reached our expectations and was a great option for our trip. There may come a time we want to try out a higher end RV park and that’s fine too. 😊 One nearby campground we considered staying at would have cost us about $150 more for our stay!
How much did I save on dining at Pigeon Forge?
Dining and vacation is a big deal to us. My husband’s favorite part of the week is eating at the many different restaurants lol. So, this is an area we “plan” to splurge on. (All within the budget of course) 😜. It is also a area I look for some serious savings on!
1. We ended up eating 4 very “nice” dining meals
2. Five fast food meals
3. Had one “cook out”
We saved money at Pigeon Forge in this area by…
- Using Coupons (about $5 worth)
- Paying attention to prices before ordering (no exact amount that I can list)
- Taking advantage of certain day specials at some restaurants (about $10 worth)
- Drinking water at times instead of soda (at least $10 worth) note-this is a opportunity to save a lot more than that!
- Having a cook out (about $30)
- Focusing and budgeting for one “nice meal” per day. Then eating one less expensive meal as our second. (This saved us about $20 a day in the budget for total saving of about $100)
- Eating breakfast at the RV (or hotel) (since most people probably do this, I will not include an amount)
This adds up to a total of $155 of savings on just the actual amounts that can be figured. This is NOT counting the savings from tips that I couldn’t really add in such as setting a vacation budget in general and planning.
How much money I saved on the “family fun category”
We saved money in this area by…
- Using coupons ($8)
- Planning within our budget (I can’t list an amount but this saved us more than the amounts I can list!
- Choosing a select amount of “expensive” fun things to do. (We chose 3 things that involved pricey “tickets”. The rest we filled in with visiting, sight seeing, and less expensive things to do.)
- Adding in FREE or cheap fun things (we spent a entire evening at Cades Cove and even seen a bear! It cost us nothing but the gas to get there. This evening filled with anything in town could have easily cost us around $75 or more and wouldn’t have lasted near as long.)
- Checking and comparing online ticket prices (I can’t remember my savings here)
- Using homeschool discounts ($19)
We saved well over $100 on family fun activities by using the tips listed above
How much I saved with extra cash back apps etc.
- Fetch & upside ($3)
- Credit card cash back (about $23)
I saved more then $25 in this category
Now for a total on how much I saved at Pigeon Forge!
The truth is, the top savers of my tips can’t be shown in numbers. Budgeting & planning will save you tons! Not to mention other tips I didn’t utilize well or forgot to mention.
With that said, just the numbers shown above that can be added, I saved a total of $530!
If you are interested in how to save money at Pigeon Forge, or any vacation, check out my post linked here on “Saving Money At Pigeon Forge On Vacation”
I’d also love to here how you save money on vacation. Please leave in the comments below if you have any tips!
Leave a Reply