Status

What do we have so far?

We have train tickets, a place stay (with friends!), and the letter sent asking to see the White House.

What money have we spent?

We have spent $676 on train tickets.
We have spent $0 on travel guides. We ordered Fordor's Guide to Washington, D.C. from the library.
We will be spending $0 for a place to stay.
Most of the places we are going to see don't cost anything to get in.
We have a Zoo membership. We hope that it will work at the National Zoo. We have to go to their web page and find out.
We aren't going to have to pay for a house sitter, because Dad will do that.

What money are we going to have to spend?

We will need food. We will not need food on the train. The meals are part of the ticket, and we can bring some snacks with us. It depends on how much space we have in the luggage.
We will need transportation in the city. We aren't bringing our car, so that means we will be using the bus, subway, and commuter train. We need to get how much that will cost too.
We will also need money for cool things that we can buy.

So how will we figure out what money we will need?

We know we can look at the transportation web pages and find out how much using them costs.

We can make a budget for food. Most of the food we can get at a grocery store and carry it with us. We can plan on eating out only at special places. We have a friend that recommended that we eat out at the Native Americans Museum. So we can plan on that.

With the money left over, we can plan on how much spending money we can use.

What do we need to do next?

Save money for the trip.
Look at the transportation web pages, and figure those out.
We can go to the National Zoo web page, and see if our Cincinnati Zoo membership will work.