How We Saved $100s on Food on Our Hawaiian Vacation

You can travel and enjoy good things in life even on a limited budget! Here’s how we saved $100s on our recent trip to Hawaii so that we could eat well but stay on budget.

Bryan and I love to travel. It’s a shared passion of ours that we are hopefully passing on to our kids.

So far we’ve taken them to France, the UK, and Maui as well as shorter domestic trips up and down California and in the southwest.

This year to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary we went on our first real vacation without kids — since our honeymoon. I told you, we like to travel with kids! We spent a week on Kauai, the Garden Island.

We stayed in a mid-range hotel that provided a refrigerator. This was cheaper than staying at a place with a kitchen.

It was a different thing to travel with two of us, but we still implemented a lot of our budget travel strategies. We knew we didn’t have a lot of money to spend on this trip.

We love living debt-free; that makes it important to live within your means.

And honestly, I’d rather return to Kauai more often than splurge on just one trip. Meals would have cost us upwards of $1300 for the two of us for a week if we’d done the typical tourist meals.

Instead, we implemented some grocery savvy and spent less than $400 for food during our week in Hawaii.

Here’s what we did to save money on food in Kauai:

We made our own tea and coffee.

We like the comfort and consistency of a morning cuppa, but we weren’t interested in spending $10/day for some good stuff. Instead we made our own instead of having the mediocre K-cups hotels provide.

I packed my favorite green tea as well as Bryan’s pour over filter that has made multiple trips to Europe over the years. Bryan ground and bagged his favorite roast in small bags for each day.

Prior to the trip I also invested in a collapsible kettle that was super space-saving and heated water quickly. While on Kauai, we bought a Starbucks souvenir mug which was functional but also fun.

(I love collecting those mugs!)

We made our own breakfasts.

Breakfast on the island, from fast food to restaurant, ranges from $10 to $20/person. We don’t need a lot so it was quite pleasant to enjoy breakfast on the lanai.

I packed and also purchased at the grocery store protein bars, instant oats, fruit, and yogurt. At our first grocery stop, I also picked up a pair of wine glasses for $2 each. I used one each morning for my oats! Perfect double duty.

We had grocery store picnics.

I could eat cheese, meat, crackers, and fruit all day long, so that’s what we did. I had to dial down my shopping to suit two people, but we did okay. Nothing went to waste!

We ate a grocery store picnic at least one meal a day which was convenient, cheap, and easy.

Note: this is something that we do on Vacay Days and whenever we travel. I highly recommend it as a money-saving strategy on vacation or just away from home for the day.

Consider grabbing a copy of my Ultimate Guide to Grocery Store Picnics for more tips!

We bought local produce.

Near our hotel was a regular farmers’ market so I made a point to note the day. While there wasn’t a lot to choose from, we enjoyed local bananas throughout our week.

We avoided bars.

Instead of going for expensive restaurant meals with wine and beer, we bought half bottles and single cans from the wine shop in Princeville that sells craft beer by the can.

We could enjoy these in our hotel room while watching hockey or a movie on the television.

We split local treats.

It’s not a vacation without some treats, right? But, we split orders instead of getting portions too large for one person. The shave ice from JoJo’s was a favorite as were the malasadas from Kauai Bakery.

 We got creative when eating out.

Whether on the mainland or in Hawaii, eating out is just expensive. One night when we were really hungry and too far from the hotel to picnic, we got slices from Hanalei Pizza and supplemented with a bagged salad from the grocery store next door.

I mixed it in the bag! And since we were eating outdoors on picnic tables, no one was bothered.

We found a favorite local joint and stuck with it.

I love trying new foods, especially while traveling, but since we’re on limited funds, I prefer to spend them carefully.

While we did try some new foods at Smiley’s Grinds (the potato mac salad was really good!), we preferred Tiki Tacos. In fact, we ate there three times!

Overall, we had a really great trip. It was more expensive than our honeymoon in 1994, to be sure, but it was lots of fun and we ate really well.

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