What do you do before a trip... to make it easier when you get back..

[Luv Bunnies]

We always try to schedule our arrival home on a Saturday so we have a day before returning to work. I love having a washer/dryer on vacation so we don't come home with piles of laundry. I think the biggest task we have is moving our three rabbits to my sister's house and back. I always leave their pens at home completely clean and ready for them to come back. There's nothing worse than coming home to messy pens that have to be cleaned before I can pick up the buns.

The other thing I can't stand is coming home late at night, waking up the next morning and not having milk for my coffee! I've been know to buy little cartons of milk before leaving the airport. If I can't find any, we have to stop at 7-11 so that Mommy can have her coffee the next morning and not be cranky!

 

[azdisneylover]

We do the same as you all. House is clean, bills are paid, quick to make meals in the freezer. We pick up the dog from the kennel, then go home. We bring in the luggage, etc and then hubby and a couple of the kids go pick up Panda Express while I get vacation laundry started. Everyone puts on their pajamas, and we watch a movie. It's nice to come home from vacations to a clean home and the bills paid in advance.

 

[pigletto]

We always try to schedule our arrival home on a Saturday so we have a day before returning to work. I love having a washer/dryer on vacation so we don't come home with piles of laundry. I think the biggest task we have is moving our three rabbits to my sister's house and back. I always leave their pens at home completely clean and ready for them to come back. There's nothing worse than coming home to messy pens that have to be cleaned before I can pick up the buns.

The other thing I can't stand is coming home late at night, waking up the next morning and not having milk for my coffee! I've been know to buy little cartons of milk before leaving the airport. If I can't find any, we have to stop at 7-11 so that Mommy can have her coffee the next morning and not be cranky!

I too love having laundry done before I come home. When we have an offsite condo it's nothing to throw a few loads in while relaxing in the evening. Then we just unpack the suitcases right back into our drawers and closets.
I also have to have bread and milk when we get home. We usually squeak in all the vacation time that we can and need to go back to work and school in the morning, so I at least need things for breakfast.

 

[jhoannam]

All you do plus fill up the cars.

 

[nancygirl1]

The same as most everyone else...I love to climb into clean sheets when I get home. We also make sure all prescriptions that need filling are filled. However, we have had to fill one or two while we were away...vacuum, laundry done, house cleaned, trash put out, etc., etc. We have security cameras inside and out so we make sure those are all working.

All suitcases are emptied when we get home and laundry started right away. I wash everything even if it wasn't worn. We usually get take-out the night we get home.

 

[Summer2018]

I was talking to a friend the other day, and she was talking about how she hated to come home to all the housework, laundry( not just from the trip), having to go the grocery store right away as there is nothing to eat, and doing all this while trying to go back to work in the next day or so...and extra cash that you put out when you get back...

So I shared with her what I do to get ready for before a trip... so that when we get back its not a chaos and we can enjoy the vacation bubble a little bit longer, and not break the bank...

Please post your tips

Here's my list in short form with my reasoning behind it... my real list is very detail as its curved to our life.

Clean the house - when I was working I would do one task every night so that I could get everything done, and not try to kill myself on the night before we would heading out.

Laundry - all of it needs to be done before we leave...except for the towels for showering the day we leave... and they are hung up to dry... When my kids were at home, and I worked outside of the house, I would do laundry every night a week or so before we would be leaving.
*** Go through the house room by room looking for stray laundry... towels hanging out by the pool, in the guest bathroom, the pile in the teenagers room who said everything is clean( this will help with another point)

Change the sheets the night before we leave so that clean sheets are on the bed when you return... I make the bed the morning we leave.... there is just something about coming home to all the beds being made that just makes you feel good...

Drop off and pick up any dry cleaning... so that you don't have to when you return.

Clothing....A couple of months/weeks before figure out what you are taking... go through the kids clothing, checking out what fits, everything is working order all the buttons, zippers that zip....even when they are teenagers... really especially if they are teenager... our youngest ( she was 13) once thought 9 shirts and 1 pair of shorts was enough for the whole trip... and asked her why only 1 pair of shorts she said those were the only one that still fit her...her mom had not bought her any shorts yet...and her Dad and I had repeated asked her and her mom if there was anything that she might need... so I was at Wal-mart at midnight buying some shorts...Thank goodness she's wasn't as picky as oldest DD... This will save you a lot of aggravation and late night trips to the store, and extra cost that you weren't expecting and you haven't even left the house yet...

Clean the kitchen the night before, run the dishwasher, put everything away....using paper products, as the dish washer had been emptied and we are not turning it on again... or you can wash and dry the dishes and put them away....

Meals before you hit the road.... what are you doing for dinner the night before... and breakfast on the day you leave... For us Chinese take out for dinner, and breakfast... a bowl of cereal, finish up the milk, muffins and fruit to finishing up the bananas...coffee, and finish up the juice. - When you return will you need lunch or dinner, the next day, breakfast, lunch, dinner.... Normally we get back home after the dinner hour... I will have some snack stuff, unopened chips & crackers, dip, pop corn.... then I will take out the frozen bagel for breakfast the next day, also take out the frozen red sauce for dinner the next day...put in the frig to thaw and your good to go... make sure to have unopened coffee creamer, cream cheese,

If you are heading back to work and school the next day... lay out your clothes, kids clothes with socks and shoes... backpacks ready to go... I would make the kids clean out their backpacks the night or so before we would leave and repack them, this way if they needed anything we weren't running around at 7:00 am hunting all over for it... Also any kind of sports bag, gym bag...clean them out... I was always surprised by the stuff I would find in them... gross and stinky..... For our kids the school backpack was for school then we had travel backpacks for traveling( cheaper version)... for the just in case, something got left behind or stolen it wasn't the school backpack( the expensive version)

While some of this seems like I can do it when we get back.. Any time you travel you could have a flight delay, miss a connections, someone gets to sick to travel, flat tire, god forbid some type of accident... You just never know.

Please share your tips...

We take the day after our return off. I need a buffer between vacation and work.

 

[KSR0330]

We do the same as you all. House is clean, bills are paid, quick to make meals in the freezer. We pick up the dog from the kennel, then go home. We bring in the luggage, etc and then hubby and a couple of the kids go pick up Panda Express while I get vacation laundry started. Everyone puts on their pajamas, and we watch a movie. It's nice to come home from vacations to a clean home and the bills paid in advance.

I love this! The only thing I do on top of making sure we leave the house clean is to get a few frozen pizzas to have when we get home. Looks like I need to step it up!

 

[azdisneylover]

I love this! The only thing I do on top of making sure we leave the house clean is to get a few frozen pizzas to have when we get home. Looks like I need to step it up!

I hear ya! I do not cook on the travel days at all. I have meals in the freezer that I will pull out when we get home so I can have one thawed for the next day. But, the day we get home, we take it nice and slow. I will do laundry, and that is it! It is nice to unwind as a family the night we are home because the next day, it is back to the daily grind!

 

[hsmamato2]

try to remember to take out the kitchen garbage before we leave...otherwise it's a smelly house when we return! Oh- and I try to make the house a little decent for the dogsitter...

 

[Gigi22]

Also, it pays to call your insurance company and see what their requirements are when you are absent. For example, my insurance company now offers two sets of requirements, one if your home is being checked every two days, and the other if it is being checked on a daily basis.

 

[bigbabyblues]

Not nearly as much as you all do!

We take out the trash, stop the mail, tell two of our neighbors we will be gone (they also have a key to our house), make sure the outbuilding and DH's workshop are locked up, and load and start the dishwasher. MIL comes sometime the evening after we leave or the next day and opens up the dishwasher and gets rid of the milk, if we leave it in the fridge. Another small-towner here, DH calls either the police dispatcher or one of the officers that he knows and lets them know that we will be gone. We are having someone come in and take care of our dogs a few times a day this year for the first time, so I'll try to clean up a little more than normal, but given that we are leaving immediately after my busiest time of year at work, it probably won't be great.

 

[GaSleepingBeautyFan]

I do everything I can cleaning wise the week before we leave. I also make sure we have cat food for when we get back - it's special stuff from the vet so I try not to let that get too low).
I also make sure we've got at least one supper (usually spaghetti) and one breakfast left so I don't have to rush out when we get home. If I'm out of eggs which is my daughters breakfast of choice I pick those up on our way home so I don't have to go out again once we get home. It's just a quick stop at the grocery store - walk back to the eggs and milk - grab those and check out. LOL

I stop the mail and newspaper and if we are having some sort of UPS delivery hire the teens across the street to keep an eye on things and bring in anything that is delivered. And leave our key with them.

I unplug everything I can the night before I leave and get out the cat carriers since the cats get boarded. That's always challenging to catch the cats in the morning so now we close off every room except the 2 main ones the night before so the cats can't hide from us.

I also let my Mother know we will be gone because if she doesn't see any posts from me on facebook she posts questions and asks if anyone knows where I am because she hasn't seen me post in awhile. Ugh.

 

[shells4]

I do pretty much the same thing. I also try to have a quickie dinner in the freezer--chicken strips, a frozen lasagna, frozen pizza--just so we're not desperate when we walk through the door.

Another thing I do is laundry on vacation. This isn't as hideous as it sounds--we're a family of 6, and usually rent a house or condo that has a washer/dryer in the unit. 2-3 loads throughout the week is easy enough, and it means we're not bringing home piles of dirty clothes. We can pack less, too. And the one resort we go to, every summer, has a nearby laundry that picks up your laundry and cleans it for ~$1.00/pound--about what you'd pay at your local "Fluff and Fold". It's really my only splurge when we visit there--I'd much rather have someone else do the laundry than get a couple of fancy drinks for the same money. You could do something similar, bringing home your dirty laundry and dropping it off locally. It's not exactly budget on a regular basis, but to me, it's a nice vacation extra.

We do this as well. Not always at Disney but we rent a beach house once or twice a year. As we start packing to come home, we throw it in the washer first. The only exception is sheets, because we use those until right before we walk out the door. Also cuts way down on how much we pack so it doesn't take long at all. My laundry is always done before vacation and I love coming home to no dirty laundry!! At Disney we don't always have a washer/dryer and we won't give up park time for laundry! My parents do live close to Disney though and often we do stop there for a couple of days before we come home. I use their washer and dryer then.

 

[grumpy28]

While on vacation I bring different trash bags and mark them "colors, whites", etc. we put our dirty clothes into the appropriate bag. At the end of the vacation I just put the bags into the suitcases. When I get home the laundry is already sorted. I just dump the bag into the washing machine.

I do this too!

 

[Superchikk]

I do many of the same things others have said. I'm so glad I'm not alone in wanting to come home to a clean house. My husband has always thought I was crazy for making sure the house is clean before we leave, but I hate to come home to a mess.

I also have a plan for food after we arrive home. Depending on what time we get home, we may pick something up in a drive thru or order pizza. I build this into our vacation budget. Our last few trips, I've gone ahead and placed an online order for grocery pick-up on our way back into town. We just swing by the store and pick up the groceries on our way home. It's not fun to have one more thing before we roll in, but it's nice to have food!

I always shut off the water to the washing machine before a trip. I've known too many people who have come home to a flooded house from burst washing machine lines.

I have a prep list that I use for every trip, no matter where we're going. It includes items that start up to a week before the trip, all the way up to the day before we leave - cleaning out the car (we usually drive), checking the fluids, fueling, cleaning out the fridge, stopping the mail, having a neighbor watch for packages, etc. I also have a "morning of" checklist for things like running the dishwasher, taking out the trash, and making sure we have those last minute lovey items the kids sleep with and can't do without.

 

[Sagginit]

I rent so the upside is I don't have to worry about a pipe bursting or something going wrong while I'm gone and sitting for days, the landlady is there to attend to it.

I basically do dishes and take out trash. I don't worry too much about clean sheets or laundry. I do laundry like a week ahead of time so we have what we need to pack, but if there are some things in the hamper I don't stress as we don't have machines and will just do it at the laundromat with vaca laundry when back.

I spend more time on making sure the car is ok if we are driving, packing up food (I have allergies and we have a toddler who was on purees up until he hit 13 months so we had a lot to pack for him), confirming reservations etc. I often have worked up until the day before I go on vacation but always come back with a day before going back to work, so I use that day to upack and do chores.

 

[Nebraska_Disney]

We shut off our toilets. One trip we came home and one had leaked and stained the ceiling of the pantry below it. Now we don't have that worry.

I do the laundry the night before we leave. Less clothes in the hamper. Towels will get done if needed too.

I actually turn off the main water line into the house in our basement. Too many stories of water line failures when people are gone that I just do this out of habit anymore. The last person uses the restroom before we head out and I am turning off the water main and heading to the car.

I also leave our dishwasher open to air dry, don't want it getting "musty" over a vacation. I do this as well with our washing machine.