This picture cost me $2505.81 - a Maine vacation budget

I took this picture while on vacation. I think it's beautiful. I played with the color values a little in the photo editor, but I didn't make any real changes. The original is at the bottom of this post. Anyway, I spent $2,505.81 on 8 days, 7 nights in Maine with my wife and toddler. Curious how that breaks down and what that gets you? Here you go:

We booked a cabin through VRBO for 8 days. $150 a day, cleaning fee included. It was really more of a house - power, water, TV, internet, full kitchen and appliances, washer and dryer, all included. It was also on a lake and came with a private beach we could use as part of their property, along with 2 kayaks. All in all, a fantastic value in my opinion, and the most cost efficient way to do a trip like this (vs camping, RV, motel, resort, etc.). VRBO does some voodoo math and takes their cut. So the lodging was $1321 for a week - not bad at all for what we got, considering the nicer hotels in the area were around $200 and didn't come with nearly the amount of freedom and amenities we enjoyed.

Transportation costs came to a hair over $200. Not bad for a 6 hour car ride and trips all over Maine the entire time. We did get our brakes serviced before we left, but I didn't count that. Still though, we probably put well over 1,000 miles on the family car, so I probably should take something into consideration since most people spend their vacation in a rental car or an Uber. But oh well.

Food was a huge expense. I told myself I was not going to be stingy on this trip, and we would eat whenever and wherever we wanted. Cheapest meal was $10.52 for McDonald's breakfast on the drive up. Most expensive was $91.82 for dinner at an Irish pub that included drinks and an appetizer. Fortunately, it was one of the best meals I've ever had. This also includes a couple pizzas, some ice cream, and a couple adult beverages. The food cost is thrown off a little by the Walmart trip. I figure we bought about $100 of food and booze on that trip, so let's just round up and say the food budget was $700. A little under $100 a day for eating out at least once a day? Not too bad in the grand scheme of things if you ask me.

We stopped at a kids museum one afternoon - $15 well spent. We went to a few different city parks for free - Google Maps was invaluable at looking these up. Just flip through the photos and see if you spot a playground, then press go. Cheapest thing we did all trip!

We were out in the middle of nowhere, but we were still only about an hour away from Acadia National Park. We actually went to the park on 3 different days. It costs $25 for a pass that gets you unlimited entries for a week.

We bought my wife a fishing license to keep it legal. To my utter shock and disappointment, the cheapest out of state license was $45! She caught three fish over the course of maybe 2 hours of fishing. The math is too depressing to actually do - $45 not well spent.

Keepsakes were a tiny amount, but factor in too.

That just leaves our Wal-mart trip. Yes, unfortunately, that ugly number happened in a single trip. Now, even though the house we rented was very nicely equipped, there are still plenty of things you realize you need when you unload a car full of clothes and outdoor gear but lacking in domestic supplies. So in addition to the hundred bucks or so we spent on food and drinks, we bough some first aid stuff, laundry detergent, and a few items we were missing from our gear. A lot of the stuff we were actually able to take home with us and add to our personal belongings, like the UV mosquito lamp, the multi-tool, and the toddler-sized life jacket. I can't say it was really all that much to spend when I look at the amount of stuff we brought back with us. It was mostly all things we needed anyhow up there (at least in order to better enjoy the vacation) so I included the whole receipt.

Anyway, that's all we spent by my accounting. Just over $2500 is not too bad for what we did, in my opinion. Sure I could have done it a lot cheaper, but I wanted a certain degree of comfort and convenience. I certainly could have done it a lot more expensively.

Just for grins, I quickly jammed through some details into the Disney World trip estimator - a 6 night stay with the three of us in September is coming in with a $4,342.80 quote. We'll save that one for, well, maybe never.

Original unedited version of the photo at the top. Credit: me!