Location, Location, Location

We're heading to Minnesota for Christmas this year for a big family meet-up/holiday fest.  I'm super excited since I've never been to the boyfriend's home state, or Iowa (passing through en route) or Wisconsin (a side trip during our Minnesota time).  One of my goals is to have my son visit all 50 states before he turns 21.  So far he's at 6, which is embarrassingly low, but give us a break - it takes 7 hours just to get the Texas border.  This trip is going to double his count to 12.  And it will (hopefully) also be my very own first White Christmas - I'm a southern girl for sure.

Anyway, the boyfriend's mom is renting a car for the trip, but asked that I find a good deal.  It needed to be either a van or a SUV since there could potentially be 7 people going.  This was my first foray into renting a car, so I did a little research first.  One of the first tips I read was to go ahead and reserve a good price when you see one.  As long as you don't prepay, you can always cancel it and rebook if you see something lower.  So there's a chance this isn't the deal we'll end up with, but since it's about $20 cheaper a day than what I was seeing elsewhere, I went ahead and booked it.

I went through carrentals.com (although I did go to the Hertz website and checked that it wasn't coming up cheaper on their end - same price).  Another tip I read online is vividly illustrated here.  If you can avoid it, look for a rental office other than the airport or downtown because the prices are often cheaper.  Here's the exact same everything from the above deal, only it's located in downtown Austin instead of Oak Hill (about 15 minutes away).

A difference of $445.42 for the entire trip - more than double the cost!  Crazy, right?

P.S. It's the first day back at school for us - the little man's a first grader now and my new preschool class starts today as well.  Anxiety is at an all-time high, but I just keep telling myself it'll all be okay.