In the past couple of years, people have been concocting innovative techniques in order to save money while enjoying their vacations. This has led to the rise in popularity of staycations, local trips, and more emphasis on the quality of time spent rather than the city with great things like road trips, family picnics, and nature journeys.

However, there are still great places to vacation at a fraction of the cost. In this article, I will include some national and international vacation spots that will offer you the most luxurious and enjoyable vacation memories without leaving you with a hole in your pocket. To help you further,

1. Atlanta, Georgia

Home of large cultural institutions and affordable hotels, Atlanta was given the highest ranking on the Travel Value Index. It is full of entertainment and discounts and should be considered for any vacation.

Destinations:

• The World of Coca-Cola Tour (Free to $15)
• CNN Studio Tour, a tour of the news service ($8 to $12)
• Centennial Olympic Park, a magnificent park where the 1996 Olympic Games were held (Free)

2. Huntington Beach, CA

Located just minutes from Laguna Beach, Newport Beach, downtown LA, and the Sunset Strip, Huntington Beach is one of the most popular surfer destinations in California and boasts affordable hotel rates.

Destinations:

• Museums
• Main Street Shopping
• Boat and Kayak in Huntington Harbor

3. Halifax, Nova Scotia

An outdoor escape, Halifax is an affordable destination because most of the tourist spots are natural outdoor areas. Only a 90 minute plane trip from Eastern United States, Halifax has become one of the popular American destination spots in recent years.

Destinations:

• Peggy Cove’s Lighthouse (Most photographed in the world)
• Saturday Brewery Market with arts and crafts.
• Point Pleasant Park (Free forest adventure)

4. Solomon’s Island, Maryland

Solomons Island is a beautiful Gardens of Eden tucked away next to Maryland. People enjoy the peaceful wilderness in the islands, including lush and dense forests. Tourists enjoy numerous outdoor activities, including kayaking and swimming.

Destinations:

• Calvert’s Art Museum ($7)
• St. Mary’s City
• Calvert Cliffs State Park

5. Riga, Latvia

A historic city in Eastern Europe, this former Soviet Union country has modernized its historic centers but kept its beautiful folk traditions. The country has lowered the value of its currency in hopes of joining the Euro. Rated one of the best values for traveling in Europe.

Destinations:

• Majori or Dzintari sea side escapes
• Architecture of Independence
• Jugenstil

6. Buenos Aires, Argentina

Considered the most European of the South American travel destinations, Buenos Aires is a crown jewel for tourists. It has beautiful cultural events, with large Italian, German, Jewish and Armenian populations, a flourishing night life, and the exciting outdoor excursions.

Destinations:

• Tens of inexpensive museums in different parts of town.
• Japanese Gardens
• Buenos Aires Fisheries

7. Panama City, Panama

Panama City is a very affordable travel spot that is getting more attention as drug wars in Mexico scare away tourists. With an economy very much used to American dollars and American tourists, more and more people are visiting during their Spring and Summer holidays.  Airfare is under $100 from some cities in the country, which already saves thousands for a small family.

Destinations:

• Old Town – Mi Puebliti
• Metropolitan National Park – protected rain forest.
• Colonial Panama Cultural Sites

There are many other great spots for vacationing. Everyone should take some time and do some research – there will always be a beautiful spot to fit your budget.

Personal finances can be very hard to manage without the use of spreadsheets for simplification, organization, and error reduction. However, designing a spreadsheet takes a lot of time and often requires the expert hand of an accountant. This is true especially for business spreadsheets, which take into account lots of expenses and income.

I have selected the finest spreadsheets from around the Internet for your use. Enjoy!

1) 401K Planner

Take into account all the variables of your 401k saving to see your retirement amount. Change the amount saved per check or the age of retirement and even the expected annual return. Comes with a cool graph to visualize your earnings.

2) Personal Monthly Budget Planner

Includes incomes and a wide variety of expenses – including financial obligations such as loan repayments, subscriptions, entertainment, groceries, and more. A wonderful spreadsheet!

3) General & Administrative Expense Budget

A G+A Budget planner for your business. It includes all the major categories any business will spend money on per month, with a designated budget, and calculates the difference from the actual designated number.

4) Business Expense Report

The business expense report is a great spreadsheet for people spending money out of their own pocket knowing that they will be reimbursed by their business. It has a beautiful mileage based expense calculator, room for lodging, food, other expenses and more. Very useful.

5) Personal Wealth Analysis

This spreadsheet is very useful in helping you calculate your net worth. You can include your assets, debts and financial obligations, liabilities, and even your net worth as a goal. If you have a goal you would like to achieve, this is the best thing you can do.

6) Retirement Budget Calculator

Want to know how much money you need at retirement based on your expenses? This excellent retirement budget calculator spreadsheet is for you. Includes housing, living expenses, medical expenses and personal income.

7) Debt Reduction Spreadsheet

Are you stuck in a lot of debt? Want to calculate how you can reduce your debts and get your finances back in track? This free spreadsheet is for you.

Las Vegas is one of the largest tourist destinations in the world – attracting over 40 million tourists a year from every country. Each tourist spends, on average, about $1000 dollars each visit, a whopping sum that contributes to the many high rise casino hotels in the city. Las Vegas is a capitalist bastion. Around every corner, large advertisements beckon and people try selling you things you don’t need.

When traveling to Vegas, it often feels like money is wasted left and right. However, if you plan ahead of time, have a well – defined itinerary, and follow some of these steps, you can save a lot of money.

How to Save in Vegas

1 ) Pick a Hotel at Least 3 Weeks Ahead of Time

Save money before setting foot in Vegas by shopping for hotels ahead of time. Popular websites such as i4vegas, vegas.com, and other third party reservation sites have great volume discounts and can save you a load of dough. Commonly, a few of the well known casinos, such as Luxor, Mandalay Bay, and Tropicana offer great deals, some as low as $50 a night for a 4 star hotel. You can get the 5 star, 4 diamond Mandalay Bay for no more than $100 a night on special discounts. The key is to book ahead of time.

2 ) Take a few drinks and snacks.

You will be surprised at how often you will get thirsty in the dry environment of Las Vegas. You’re going to be chugging a few liters a day and still feel dehydrated. A bottle of water can cost almost $3 at any Fast Food store or in-hotel mart. Taking some drinks will save you a considerable amount of money. This also holds for snacks and fruits.

3 ) All day buffet passes can save you tons of eating costs.

Most of the major casinos offer all you can eat buffet whole day passes for a fraction of the cost more than the single time price. Let me be honest with you, if you’re eating at buffets, you won’t get hungry more than twice a day, but you will still save a lot of money. Luxor and MGM have all day buffets for $30 and Excalibur’s is $25. I wouldn’t recommend eating anywhere cheaper because the food quality drops rather fast. Don’t forget to tip the servers a few bucks, because they try their best to do a good job for you.

4 ) Purchase show tickets online or with a hotel package.

If you’re going to see a show, prepare to spend over $100 a ticket and close to$200 for a decent seat. Luckily for you, you can purchase show tickets online for up to 70% off using online show vendors. It would be even better if you can get your show tickets for cheaper or free with a hotel package. Hotel packages usually discount shows in the same hotel by up to 50% or give you buy one get one free deals.

5 ) Going to gamble? Leave the plastic at the hotel room, take only cash.

I urge you to follow this rule religiously and fanatically. If you take your credit or debit card with you to play, you’re going to lose a lot of money, very fast. Taking cash allows you to budget your losses. Play for entertainment, not to win, and you’ll actually enjoy ‘gambling.’ Set a daily limit and follow it. Don’t spend all your time in the casinos- there’s so much more to Vegas than gambling.

6 ) Do not shop for clothes, even at the city outlets.

Vegas is really expensive. Unless money is not an issue, don’t buy anything except souvenirs because you will definitely be getting ripped off. As great as those Dior sunglasses look, they will look even better when you find it for 75% off back home. The Vegas outlets are pretty pricey too, so unless you’re visiting the Tangier Outlets around Barstow, don’t even bother looking.

Remember, those beautiful casinos are built with loser’s money.

You can spend much less than you imagined and still have a wonderful time in Vegas. There’s great night life (as if I needed to tell you this), dining, and sight seeing. Don’t get bogged down shopping and gambling. Remember, plan everything before you visit and you will be rewarded.

If you have been to Vegas or are planning to visit, tell me how you try to spend less money. I visit the city three or four times a year and could surely use some advice. How much is your gambling budget?

In this blog, I will analyze the statistics behind budget inequality and its ramifications. I promise you will find this amusing.

First, I would like to share with you a simplified version of the US Budget:

Budget 2009 Proposed Discretionary 02102009

Yes, thats 58% of the 3.1 TRILLION Federal Budget on Defense.

If a family spent over half its money on defense, it would be starving, illiterate, and without shelter, and broke.
Sound familiar? It should.

In this article we will compare spending on these vital areas: Education, Health, Defense, Social Security, and finally: Natural Resource and Conservation

I. Education
“The whole object of education is…to develop the mind. The mind should be a thing that works” – S. Anderson

Countries with Highest % Of GDP Spent on Education:
1. Cuba – 18.7 % – Literacy Rate: 100% (Unicef) – 1st in the world
2. Yemen – 9.5% Literacy Rate: 67% (UN) Note: Yemen has recently made education its top priority.
3. Mongolia – 9%  Literacy Rate: 97.8% (Unicef)
4. Denmark – 8.5% Literacy Rate: 99.0% (Unicef)
5. Guyana – 8.4%  Literacy Rate: 98.8% (CIA.gov)
37. United States 5.7% – Literacy Rate: 86% – US Department of Education

The United States ranks far behind most developed countries and several second-world countries. Post-Soviet nations such as Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia and Armenia have literacy rates over 99.5%.

II. Health
“It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.” – Gandhi

Life Expectancy VS Spending

1. United States – 16.0% – Life Expectancy: 78 Years
2. France – 11.0 % – Life Expectancy: 81Years
3. Switzerland – 10.8 % – Life Expectancy: 81.7 Years
4. Germany – 10.4 % – Life Expectancy: 79.7 Years
5. Belgium – 10.2 % – Life Expectancy: 80.2  Years

Amazingly, the US Spends 2 trillion dollars in both public and private sectors, but the leading cause of bankruptcy is medical and our spending is far less efficient that countries like Cuba, Singapore, and Japan. In Japan, the life expectancy of 82.6 years is the highest in the world. Yet, most Japanese live in industrialized areas, such as Tokyo.

III. Defense Spending
Army: A body of men assembled to rectify the mistakes of the diplomats. - J. Daniels

WorldWwde Military Spending

1. United States (19.2 %) – 41.5 % of the World Defense Spending. 96th on Global Peace ranking.
2. Oman – 22nd on Global Peace ranking
3. Qatar- 30th on Global Peace ranking
4. Saudi Arabia – 90th on Global Peace ranking
5. Iraq – Last on Global Peace Ranking

With the exception of Oman and Qatar, both peaceful Arabian peninsula states, countries with high defense spending usually are the least peaceful. Least peaceful countries have more deaths due to war, economic instability, and less focus on social services.

IV. Social Security
One of the most urgent orders of business at this time is the enactment of hospital insurance for the aged through Social Security to help older people meet the high costs of illness without jeopardizing their economic independence.” – President Lyndon Johnson

1. Sweden – 20.9 % (7th Happiest country in the world)

Performance of Social Security Portfolios

2. Finland – 20.3 % (5th Happiest country in the world)
3. Netherlands – 20% (15h Happiest country in the world)
4. Denmark – 19.1% (Happiest country in the world)
5. Austria – 18.8 % (3rd happiest country in the world)
13. United States (12.6%)  - 17th happiest in the world.

The correlation cannot be rejected. If one looks at the list of happy countries, most of them stress social services above all forms of government expenditure. Happiness also leads to longer lives (Sweden is third in life expectancy).

V. Environmental Spending
“Your descendants shall gather your fruits.” – Virgil

1 Netherlands: 1.8 % of GDP
2   Austria: 1.7 % of GDP
3   Japan: 1.6 % of GDP
4.   United States: 1.6 % of GDP
5.    Switzerland 1.6% of GDP

Natural resource conservation has been growing all around the world as global warming fears heighten. It is also used as a political tool for both Democrats and Republicans.

Growing Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Budget

The point of this article is one. The current fiscal crisis and federal deficit is going to have to be paid somehow. Already, $250 Billion a year is spent just paying the interest on the national debt and with trillions more being tacked on, where is the funding going to come from? It’s simple: the feds will cut back on vital funding for education, slash social services and health care, and increase taxes. What we need is someone in charge that can manage the debt, and although a surplus looks like a very bleak possibility, and balance the ballooning budget without compromising the necessary expenditures.