When it comes to family trips, globetrotting, well-deserved vacations and/or going to see new places we have never been before, the reality of cost and budgeting is always in the back of our minds.

Planning and spending our family travel dollar wisely is a priority for most families. Curbing spending and costs, while still enjoying your vacation to its fullest, is the key to guaranteed success and fiscal responsibility. Your pocketbook and family will thank you!

The reasoning behind saving money while traveling is simple: Even if your personal budget is extremely tight, you can still take a break and enjoy life! Simply put, life is just too short to never step out of the door or leave the homestead!

Also remembering that while traveling, whether on a budget or not, even the smallest of things can all add op to a large vacation or travel bill!

For example, all those hotel extra’s, cab-fares, tips, restaurants, car rentals, gas for your own vehicle if on a road trip, tickets for special attractions or events, beach-and-pool-side drinks and more, adds on and piles up!

This brings us to the some of the rhyme and reason behind budgeting for family travel and planning well. This also applies monetarily, to ensure your trip is a success, enjoyable and memorable. Your outlook could be a balance between replenishing your resources and not breaking the bank in the process!

Download "travel cheap" FREE e-book: here

The reason most people never reach their goals is that they don't define them, learn about them, or ever seriously consider them as believable or achievable."

Like anything else in life, family travel needs to be planned for somewhat. It is almost like setting a short-time ‘SMART’ goal for leisure and vacationing. Marketers of time-share and destination vacations, often refer to this as an argument to invest in a travel solution.

People often suggest that we treat travel or vacationing, like any other planned financial decision in life. This is all irrespective of whether this includes house, car, tuition, health, insurance or other life-expense. Travel and vacation is justified and ‘sold’, as just another important item on the list to think about and budget for.

Setting travel goals is described and accepted as a powerful tool to achieve success and keeps people motivated.Out of the list of dream destinations you just made or have in mind, you cannot possibly achieve reaching all of them, and nor should you perhaps. One can but wish and dream ... Going after these dreams in a planned fashion, will mean a significant investment of time, money, energy, talent, and opportunities. You will need to prioritize.

Prioritizing should include travel items, trips, goals and destinations that you really desire to visit, see, conquer, treasure, explore and would love to achieve in your lifetime.

Realizing of course that these ‘dreams’ though, might not all be achievable immediately, or at all. You need to view this as a wish list, shortlist eventually becoming a checklist! Then, move on to making at least the first goal or location visit on the list happen!

Hands-on work, defining and planning for travel in such a way that it will convey an actual goal or goals, destinations, budgets and periods.

(more…)

A GOAL, in order to be effective in driving you towards it, should have the following characteristics.

SPECIFIC: The travel goal(s) should be specific. Detail is what matters here. Avoid generalizations; get to the point and crux of the matter. Specify your immediate travel needs and means. Then plan to go after it pro-actively.

For example, take that Noosa, dream vacation: I have always wanted to ..... seems a little general when compared to "I will travel to Noosa, with the family on our next vacation"."I am going to book (right here, righ now).

MEASURABLE: The SMART familiy travel goal must be measurable. This goes along with being specific. A goal defined specifically might already be measurable. The abovementioned goal stated intention, involved parties, location, purpose and a timeframe all measurable elements.

A measurable travel goal, like going to Noosa, with a family of four, including two children under the age of five, within the next six months helps you identify, plan, execute and track more efficiently and increase your odds of actually making it there! Considering the logistics in this fashion, makes it that more realistic to enable your family to take the planned trip of a lifetime, as opposed to just dreaming about it!

ACTION-ORIENTED: A SMART goal must also be action oriented. It cannot merely be stated. You must relate the goal to doing something, to indicate what needs to be done. An action verb will indicate what needs to be accomplished. I will travel is a good example of an action statement, stated intent and implies preparation and planning, will and persistence.

REALISTIC: For any goal to be motivational and get you committed to reaching it, it must be realistic. When a goal is not realistic and the person does not really believe it can be reached, then the commitment is lacking and the effort will not be there to permit the goal to be realized.

Choosing realistic goals are based on your present status. What jumps to mind right away in our example, is whether and how you can afford it and make it happen!

TIME-CONSTRAINED:In order for a goal to move people towards it, it must be time-constrained. A timeline needs to be associated with it. It will entice people to move towards the goal. The timeline set, will be based on the goal itself and the present status. Six months is stated here as a realistic timeline, leaving enough time to save for, plan, book and take your well-deserved vacation to Noosa (as in our stated example),OR anywhere else YOU have chosen to go!

I’ve become increasingly aware of affiliates, primarily new Affiliate marketers, who risk having their affiliate and Clickbank accounts closed, and worse, their entire sites shut down.

What are these affiliates doing?

Find out. Read today’s article, Will YOUR Site Be Shut Down?

In case you haven’t heard yet, Joel Comm (Author of What Google Never Told You About Making Money with Adsense) has produced a show called the Next Internet Millionaire that features twelve aspiring entrepreneurs battling it out for a $25,000 cash prize and an oppportunity for a large scale joint venture.

The contestants were taught by Internet marketing legends like Mark Joyner, Marlon Sanders, Armand Morin, Rich Schefren, Brad Fallon, Perry Marshall and others. They were tested
in individual and team-based challenges, all the while being followed by cameras that recorded their every move.

The show premiers this Wednesday, August 15th, 2007 and according to insider projections is destined to be a smash hit. I say trade in an hour of TV on Wednesday and check it out… or if you can’t wait, visit the Next Internet Millionaire site now and check out the flashy trailer.

Technorati: Next Internet Millionaire, Joel Comm

Last week I wrote an article about the incredibly valuable life-enhancing concepts discussed and taught in Tim Ferris’ book, The 4-Hour Workweek and today I just received the following notice from Elance:

The 4-Hour Workweek is currently the #1 business book on the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists. Author, Tim Ferriss, shares his secret to success—focusing on what he loves and outsourcing the rest!

Receive a free copy of The 4-Hour Workweek when you complete your next project on Elance. Just post and pay for your next project on Elance by October 31, 2007 and we’ll take care of the rest—mailing a copy of the book to you within 4-6 weeks.

So… Got a script you want installed? An article or ten ghostwritten? This is the time to do it! Post your project on Elance today and get a copy of the The 4-Hour Workweek for free!

Technorati: Elance, 4-Hour Workweek

I just got a report from Jess, an NPT subscriber, that the top portion of the NPT newsletter appears blank until you scroll down the page.

Jess is using Internet Explorer and is displaying a screen resolution of 800 x 600.

Is anyone else having this problem? If so, please do leave a comment and let me know! Thanks!

Above the desk in his home office my dad had a large sign - handwritten all in capital letters - that read ‘Work Smarter, NOT Harder‘.

Those words were etched in my mind as I was deciding what I wanted to do with my life, and early in the game I placed special emphasis on the ‘NOT harder’ portion of the equation.

Not harder meant less work and more time for fun.

That attitude, combined with a serious misinterpretation of my mother’s Clavinistic admonishment ‘you always do exactly as you please’ proved a great recipe for success…

Work less, do what you really want to do.

That’s what I’ve always done, and am still doing.

As a matter of fact, I write this on return from a 2-week vacation during which I spent less than one hour working on my business.

I wish more people would adopt that attitude and have more time to come out and play.

Can you come out and play? If you can’t remember your last vacation, are pining for your next vacation, or are chugging through the daily grind of a 9-5 job only to return home to put in another several hours at your computer building your Internet business, PLEASE do yourself a favor and keep reading Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich.

I’ve just added the ‘Lifestyle’ category to the NetProfitsToday.com blog because if you don’t get your lifestyle right, everything else is wrong.

Stay tuned for some great tips on how to set lifestyle priorities which in turn will help improve your Internet marketing business…

…as well as your life in general.

Technorati: internet marketing, lifetstyle