Does buying a 2nd hand car count ?
I bought a Bimmer with only 20K miles for $25K and looks almost brand new. The brand new price was $46K, so I saved $21K.
Our last trip to Lake Como in Italy, I went with my cousin, who is an airline employee, so DW and I saved $3,000 using her guest travel pass.
I exchanged our timeshare for a 3 Bedroom Oceanfront Penthouse resort on the highest floor. The exchange cost around $300 for 8 days 7 nights, the room rate was $2800 a night or $19,600 (for 7 nights). So, I guess I saved $19,300.
The beauty of calculating your savings is you determine the rules. Great job on saving !!
Here are my rules and how I calculate savings using your examples.
On the car I would not calculate any savings at all unless I negotiated the price down to 25k. For example, I bought a used Camry last year. It was listed for 12.3k out the door and I negotiated down to 11.8k out the door generating $500 in savings. Although the savings would be significant if I bought a new Camry I do not count that.
On your trip to Italy I would count the $3,000 as savings. Great job !!
On the Penthouse I would not count the entire $2,800 per night unless you would have paid this anyway. For example, I'm looking at booking a resort in CA right now that is $2,000 a night. I would NEVER pay that much to stay one night anywhere. My maximum amount I would pay anywhere is $500 a night and that is pushing it. So since I plan on using rewards points to pay for the 6 nights and I only would pay a maximum of $500 a night, my savings calculation would be 6 nights x $500 = $3,000.
Thanks for the reply.