Guest Post: Mr. Sense Loves AirBNB
The Sense family just returned from a wonderful trip to England. Our church choir had an opportunity to sing at Wells Cathedral, and Kid Sense and I were so blessed by that experience. Kid traveled with the church group, but my (very handsome and smart) husband did all of the travel planning for the two of us. I’m so excited to present this guest post from Mr. Sense!
The Sense family recently went on our big vacation for 2024, finally cracking open that last untouched spending category in our budget. The AirBNB vs. hotel cost analysis article is well worn territory at this point, with Nerdwallet and Skift doing some solid research.
It boils down to AirBNBs usually being cheaper for longer stays and larger groups, while hotels are better for shorter stays and smaller groups. This is largely due to AirBNBs often having discounts for 7+ day stays, an average of a 32% savings according to Nerdwallet, and the one-time cleaning fee averaging out much better over the course of more days. Your mileage may vary.
Tucked away nearly at the end of one article, Nerdwallet acknowledges that one way AirBNBs can save some cash is by letting you skip dining out in favor of home cooked food (assuming your AirBNB has kitchen access). A mere two sentences dedicated to this supreme golden nugget of money saving gold. Skift neglects the subject entirely.
Obviously this point strikes a chord with me. Even if your hotel provides a complimentary breakfast, usually some store-bought bagels and cereal, they’re still leaving you high and dry for two meals a day.
According to Numbeo, a fast food combo meal or equivalent averages $11 in the US, an “inexpensive restaurant” runs an average of $20 per person, and a mid-range restaurant jumps to $37.50 per person. So assuming you eat that continental hotel breakfast, stick to fast food for lunch, and go somewhere “inexpensive” for dinner, you’re still looking at paying out $66 per day for food for just two people.
That’s the best case scenario. Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure that “inexpensive” option is restaurants in the Chili’s range of quality. If you’re lucky.
Our grocery budget is $525 a month, though we generally come in lower. The budget averages to about $125 per week, just under two days of the aforementioned “best case scenario” spending on eating out. In this scenario, sure, we’d have to cover breakfast too. Somehow I think we can manage.
I’m not saying you should skip eating out entirely on vacation. Often, checking out the local food is half the fun of being on vacation. But just by cooking, say, half of your meals in your AirBNB instead of eating out, you’re saving quite a lot.
Admittedly, cooking at an AirBNB can be intimidating. You’re not going to have access to everything you’re used to and you’re certainly not buying an entire stock of spices for such a short time. Luckily, most of the really good AirBNBs I’ve been to have accumulated dried goods from past visitors, left behind for us savvy cooks.
This is a great opportunity to flex your cooking creativity! Let it be fun and don't be afraid to keep it simple. I mentioned bechamel back in my Churched Up Boxed Mac and Cheese guest post last year and I really recommend making sure you’ve got that one in your cooking arsenal. It’s a simple base and you can take in any one of a thousand directions. I don’t know that there’s a strictly correct proportion of ingredients (I’m sure the French would say there is), but this is pretty close to what I do.
On our vacation, beyond the avocado toast topping blend I already had, I found four spices in the cabinet: salt, pepper, turmeric, and something called asafetida. I’d never heard of this stuff, but some quick Googling told me that if you bloom it in some oil, you get a savory garlic/onion-ish flavor. What a great opportunity to take a complete shot in the dark!
Pasta is cheap and easy, so I cooked up some of that, whipped up my bechamel base, flavored it with my spicy avocado toast blend, and voila! I had a decent creamy sauce for the pasta. Then I bloomed the asefetida with some turmeric and salt, lathered it over some prawns I got at the local farmer’s market, and fried them up to add some protein to the dish. The whole family loved it!
Like I said, eating out can be an important part of experiencing a new place for a vacation. I would never disparage people for doing it; we shelled out for several evening meals ourselves. But budgetary savings aside, having a home cooked meal can be comforting on trips longer than a few days. After three or four days, many of our friends who were also on the trip (but staying at hotels) were pining for exactly that.
We love restaurants, but the Sense family always feels closer when we’re sitting around the dining room table. Perhaps it’s even more special when we’re thousands of miles away from home.
