20 Frugal Travel Preps

We are getting ready to head up to the Pacific Northwest soon and as I went through my usual list of travel preps.  I realized that many of them are things that (like everything we do) pretty frugal!

1. Call the utilities (garbage, cable  etc) and put our services on vacation hold.  This way we won't get charged for using services when we aren't here.
2. Put other things on hold (magazines, newspapers, housekeeper, etc).  We actually haven't been using any of these services in a few years but this is still on my list.  Again, you don't want to pay for services you don't use.
3. Unplug everything right before we leave (his saves on electricity usage).
4. Lower the temperature on the hot water tank (this saves gas usage).
5. Put our mail on hold (super easy to do online).
6. Borrow ebooks from the library and download them to the Kindle app on my phone and/or computer (a great, free way to fill up the Kindle with lots of great books).
7. Video everything in our home (a great way to keep a home inventory for insurance purposes).
8. Back up all of my computer files.
9. Clean the house, do all the laundry, clean our the fridge, take out the garbage (this allows us to come home to a nice, clean house).
10. Check in for our flight online and print out our boarding passes (saves hassle at the airport).
11. Pack (we each take one carry on only so packing well is important; this saves the cost of checking baggage).
12. Arrange with the cousin for a ride to the airport (we do this for her, she does this for us; it saves both of us money).
13. Arrange for a housesitter/fishsitter.  The cousin will drop in occasionally to check on the house and feed the fish when we are gone so we cooked her up a bunch of food as a thank you (we do the same for her when she is out of town).
14. Arrange for bill payment while we are gone (super easy because we pay all of our bills online and I keep the monthly due dates on my Google calendar).
15. Get cash from the bank (we always travel with some cash but keep the majority of our travel money in the bank which is accessible by debit card).
16. Charge everything before we leave (cell phones, laptops, digital cameras, etc).
17. Go to the dollar store and buy some snacks for the trip (which is way cheaper than buying food on the airplane).
18. Get haircuts and get beautiful (besides paying to get a haircut, I do all of my other "get beautiful" things at home such as hair color, nails, waxing, etc).
19. Hide our valuables.  We don't really have that many valuables but the few things we leave behind get hidden, some in the gun safe, some in other places.
20. Email our itinerary to a few friends (so people we are staying with will know when to expect us and others will know where to find us if necessary).