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. 🙂

Do you have any tips to make skiing affordable? (er….less expensive)