Is it possible to ski affordably?
After I mentioned being at Lake Tahoe, a reader left this comment:
Skiing is so so so expensive, but I love it so much. I’m very interested in a budget breakdown of your ski trip. What you wore, and how much you think it cost (gloves, coat/ski pants, balaclava, base layer), etc. Where did you rent skis or do you own? Lift tickets?? Did you eat ANYTHING from the lodge or just survive off beef jerky and fruit leather for days?
I always have to buy incentive hot chocolate/waffle/hot dog/chips/gatorade etc. for kiddos when they get whiney. But I stuff my pockets with as much as I can! Is there a cheaper/better way to do this? My husband’s family is about 3 hours from Lake Tahoe, and I want to try sneaking in a ski trip with a visit to them.
When I go on a trip, I do not usually add up everything I spent. I don't exactly throw caution to the wind while traveling, but at the same time, I don't find the process of expenditure tallying to be particularly joy-inducing.
I'd rather just sort of ignore it. Ha.
This is in stark contrast to the way I live the rest of my life, I know. But in my everyday life, I generally make a habit of spending almost nothing extra. So when I travel, I have the space to let go a little, with zero budget worries.
That said, I'm gonna do my best to answer these questions because it might be helpful for all of you. But keep in mind that this is not my usual frugal behavior, so lower your expectations accordingly. 😉
What I Wear
I don't currently own skis, boots, or poles, so I rent those at Lake Tahoe.
This is not the most affordable option, but it is extremely convenient. I don't have to store the equipment, maintain it, or fly with it!
It is also very low-commitment. To make a skis/boots/poles purchase worth it, you need to use them regularly, and I haven't been able to ski at all for the last few years because of nursing school.
For clothing, I wear:
- ski pants from Costco, with regular leggings/sweats underneath
- a Bolle helmet from Costco (because we do NOT ski without helmets, please and thank you)
- goggles from Costco (are we sensing a theme??)
- a turtle fur neck gaiter that I have had since childhood (ha)
- long-sleeve t-shirts from my regular drawer of clothes
- a hoodie from my everyday set of hoodies
- North Face mittens that I bought on clearance back in 2022
So, the actual clothing part of my gear is pretty cheap.
Lift Tickets
There is no particularly cheap way to buy lift tickets, and I am not interested in traipsing up a steep mountain with my gear in high altitude air. 😉
So, I bought a 7-day pass for $567, which averages out to $81/day.
I chose an Epic Pass, which gives you access to multiple resorts. There are many different Epic Pass combos you can buy, depending on where you live, which dates you want to ski, and so on. So, you can customize it to best fit your needs.
A similar option is the Ikon pass, and I saw that they offer a nurse's discount. Soooo, I might look into that in the future.
Food
Breakfast
We always eat a big breakfast at the condo before hitting the slopes: eggs, oatmeal, toast, fruit, and coffee.
Lunch
For lunch, we pack food with us in our pockets/backpacks. That way we can avoid paying the wild prices at the ski lodges!
Some people in my family make sandwiches, but I just stuff my pockets with calorie-dense foods like nuts, Rx bars, beef jerky, and peanut butter crackers.
Soo, I did indeed spend $0 at the lodge. 🙂
Dinner
As I mentioned in my menu post, we always cook dinner at the condo except for one night of the week.
We buy groceries when we fly into Reno, and then we fill in as needed with groceries from the stores in Lake Tahoe.
We do bring some small ingredients from home; for instance, I put the dried parsley and oregano (for my stuffed shells) into a small container and packed it in my bag. There's no sense in buying whole bottles of herbs just for one recipe!
We went to a Mexican restaurant for our night out this time around, and I spent $28 on my meal (a big bowl of pozole and three taquitos), plus the tip. Restaurants are not exactly cheap in Lake Tahoe. 😉
And grocery stores are a little expensive too, but always way more affordable than eating out!
Lodging
Typically, we have stayed in a condo through my parents' long-held timeshare program, so that was super cheap.
But since our group was pretty big this year, we rented a condo through VRBO and divided the cost per person (my niece's three-month-old baby was excluded from the count because she didn't require her own bed.)
My share was $446 for the week.
Car Rental
My brothers and my parents all rented trucks/SUVs, so I just rode along and contributed towards the cost of renting one of the cars.
Flying
This is the easiest one for me: I use my Southwest Rapid Rewards points for a free flight.
I have the Rapid Rewards credit card, and I use it for most of my regular purchases (except for groceries, which I put on my Citi card because I get 5% back that way.) So, when I want to book an occasional flight, I generally have enough points to pay for the whole flight.
I try to pick a flight that's not the most expensive but also, I am unwilling to choose a red-eye type of flight just to save money. There's a balance to be had. 😉
I typically am able to make it out to Tahoe without buying airport food (I can pack good food from home!), but on the way back, I often end up needing to buy a coffee and a meal.
It's stupid expensive, of course, but there are not a lot of other options available, and I try not to think about it too hard.
What We Don't Do
You could make your trip more expensive than we do, of course!
We don't:
- go shopping (I did buy a clearance Tahoe t-shirt back in 2019, and I bought some Smartwool socks this trip).
- eat out (except for one restaurant dinner and our post-flight Costco hot dogs!)
- stay at a fancy resort
- go out at night at all (no drinking, gambling, going to shows, etc.) Our bodies are all on EST anyway, and I struggle to make it even until 9 pm most nights. Ha.
We go there to be on the mountain, so that's what we spend most of our time doing!
Quite Expensive
Ok! I think that pretty much covers all the aspects of a ski trip for me. To sum it up, I'd say that there's no way to make skiing/snowboarding cheap; it's all varying levels of Quite Expensive.
But it is possible to end up on the lower levels of Quite Expensive if you make careful choices. 🙂
When our kids were teenagers, we would go on ski trips. The first trip was a celebration of DH recovering from a health scare. We drove 5 hours in our 4-wheel drive vehicle, stayed in a condo, ate mostly in that condo except for buying hot chocolate at the bottom of the mountain, and going out for pizza. Soon after that, we bought a small condo (one furnished room with 2 big murphy beds and a kitchenette, and one bathroom) for about 30K. (this was over 20 years ago!) I can't remember how we could afford that as two public school educators, but we did. We stayed there and ate all of our meals there except for going out for pizza (it was baked in a stone oven and SO good) and the hot chocolate between ski runs. We tried renting the condo out to others, but the tenants always left it a mess, so we stopped renting it out. We bought our secondhand gear at a really good discount at an annual sale where customers turned in old gear for new gear. One year we "trialed" gear at the ski resort, sort of like renting, but its brand new. I bought my ski bib at a thrift store. One summer, DH volunteered for events at the resort and earned season ski lift tickets for us. When the kids were grown, we sold the condo and recouped the original cost plus a little more. We sold it at the exact time that we needed the cash, the timing was perfect. I sold all of our ski gear on FB Marketplace. Our kids still talk about those ski trips.
I'm so glad you were able to go on this trip (and without any guilt or baggage).
You may be able to get ski items through ski swaps. I know they are common in New England.
Some financial advice people advocate spending on what really matters to you while being frugal in other areas of life. I think time with family, and travel, are good places to deploy your "it doesn't have to be frugal funds" if you can afford it. We are generally frugal but not when it comes to those categories.
Your share of the VRBO was very reasonable. Last spring our share of an AirBnB was $1200 (for two people) in Breckenridge CO and that was for four nights and off season.
I haven't been skiing (I haven't had the opportunity plus I'm nervous due to clumsiness!) but in terms of a trip in general, my parents would always rent a place with a kitchen when we were children and we would usually eat out only once a twice (there was a takeaway van which came once a week with the fantastic name Catch a Snack). For short trips (usually during the halfterm breaks at school) we would go to hostels and rent a family room for a few days (I think I remember there being a shared kitchen).
I don't know how practical this is for going up a mountain but it could be helpful to bring a thermos of coffee/tea/hot chocolate, and your own bottle of water. This wasn't for skiing, but I bought some special hiking socks once, and although I was scoffed at these socks have lasted for years because they were well-made, all of which to say I would advise spending extra on winter clothes once, as they tend to last longer than cheaper stuff which will need replacing.
I also spend a lot more on vacations than I do at home!
I wish I liked skiing, haha! I tried it as an adult, even took a lesson, but it's under activities I don't enjoy (which includes bouldering, rock wall climbing, ice skating, & roller skating). I'm not really an adrenaline junkie, more of a melatonin Junkie 😉 I like reading in the lodge with a good view! And I might like snow tubing, I enjoy boat tubing.
Love this post and here are a few ideas!
- Check out smaller hills. These often have a lower lift fee! For example, in Quebec there are DOZENS of little, local hills that tend to have great conditions and relatively low day rates.
- If you live close to a hill, buy a season's pass. Check out early bird specials. I live 30 minutes from a small ski hill and a season's pass purchased in March is valid for that year (i.e. March 2026) PLUS, the following ski year (November 2026-March 2027).
- Buy gear second hand. Or, if you're not going often and have a friend that skis, see about borrowing it. The bindings may need to be adjusted for weight/skill level, but that can usually be done free of charge or inexpensively at the lodge.
- If you can only go for part of a day, look at the different intervals for partial day tickets. The hill I go to, for example, has an evening only ticket that is a fraction of the day rate. I think it's only valid from 6-9 pm, but it could be a great way to get in a few hours of skiing at the end of a day! Also, it's often cheaper to reserve/buy tickets online the day before than purchasing them day-of at the hill.
I wish I liked skiing, haha! I tried it as an adult, even took a lesson, but it's under activities I don't enjoy (which includes bouldering, rock wall climbing, ice skating, & roller skating). I'm not really an adrenaline junkie, more of a melatonin Junkie 😉 I like reading in the lodge with a good view! And I might like snow tubing, I enjoy boat tubing.
Turtle fur?
$81 for a whole day of fun and exercise seems very reasonable to me. You could certainly do worse!
Great thoughts, Kristen!
I'll preface this with the fact that I don't ski, ha! But, my husband really loves skiing... So, I'll share a few random thoughts on ways he tries to make it more reasonable. These really make the most sense for those who know they want to ski often. Advice would be different for a single outing or for someone who's unsure if they like to ski.
-Live near enough to drive to a ski resort that is a member of a season pass program. "Near" is relative, of course, and not always an option. But it does reduce many travel related expenses!
-Get a season pass and use it often to reduce the per outing cost.
-Own gear instead of renting it. Secondhand can work if it's not compromising comfort or safety.
-One additional savings of owning gear (even if traveling by plane for a ski trip) is that on ski days, there's no time spent waiting in rental lines. Less time in rental lines means more time on the slopes.
-Quality warmth layers and equipment lend themselves to the desire to ski more often, and therefore maximizing the ski pass. (I don't own specialized warm / waterproof layers or comfortable ski boots etc. so the very few times I've tried to ski I've been cold with very uncomfortable feet in rental boots. Though, I do have terribly shaped feet!). My husband invested in merino wool layers, ski pants/jacket/etc, and custom fitted boots years ago and says it has been totally worth it.
-Packing food and drinks instead of paying resort prices, as Kristen said! For convenience, lunch and drinks can be left in the car or even strategically buried in the snow on the mountain. And of course stuffing one's pockets with snacks.
-Choosing to go during off-peak times if possible. This could be by the day (not a winter holiday when all the kids are off school and many adults are off work) or even which times of day (early morning is less crowded, and I understand the snow is better when it's fresh). If skiing is the primary goal, then more mountain runs per day technically makes it less expensive per run than going on a really crowded day/time.
-Ask if there are discounts for affiliations like military, teacher, homeschool, first responder, etc.
-Lastly, asking a friend with a season pass if they could let you use a buddy pass could be a good approach. Season pass holders often get a pack buddy passes to bring guests at reduced rates.
Looking forward to reading others people's frugal skiing tips! Though, I have no personal desire to start skiing, lol.
Glad you had such a fun trip, Kristen!!
Whether someone is an absolute newbie to skiing/snowboarding, or a lifelong rider, one of the best (and most frugal) ways to enjoy the sport is to work for a resort. One can choose to work just holidays, weekends, part time, full time, whatever--and receive a FREE ski pass good at all mountains affiliated with that pass. Vail's Epic Pass lets you ski all over the world https://www.epicpass.com/regions.aspx
So broaden your world and give your off-time a lift 🙂 by joining a mountain family. You'll gain friends, physical & mental improvement, and possibly enjoy snow more than you thought you could. If you're already a great skier, you could teach; or if you've never even strapped on boards, you could drive a shuttle bus, work inside a building, help in childcare, etc.
And by all means, if you're a guest and want to be more frugal, take not only all of your food but your beverages, too. When our kids were young, I took large carafes of both coffee and homemade hot chocolate, and everyone had their own refillable water bottle. Also, our kids skied & snowboarded every weekend on free family passes throughout long New England winters. We paid for lessons and TIPPED THE INSTRUCTORS every weekend so lessons and tips cost about $300/kid for the season twenty years ago.
Speaking of tipping, PLEASE DO tip your instructor well (20% of lesson cost). This person is teaching your or your child for hours on the slopes, keeping learning, safety, and enjoyment as top priorities. You tip the person who cuts your hair, why not tip the person teaching you to get down the hill properly with knowledge that might just save your life?