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Quote: Originally posted by blueexpo97 on 24/9/2014

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Ollie found a picture of you in your younger? days crowd surfing to the bar.

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Go for it!  As someone said above, if you can go for the end of the hols then you will save some money.  There's loads of good sites in France.  The vast majority have a pool. Costs vary - this year we paid between 20 euros and 55 euros - for the same pitch on one site!!  the price fell to ACSI rates on 20th August.  You will save money on pitch fees by doing the following:

1. Not going to the sites that a lot of people discuss on here and book in October.  These are the large commercial sites with massive advertising budgets to pay for.

2. Not going to the coast - or if you do not staying beach side. 

3. Going mid-late August.

Taking a trailer's not a big deal, although it will cost a little more on the ferry.  There's no lower speed limit for unbraked trailers in France either, so you can zip down the autoroute at 75-80 mph with everyone else!  We're not fans of the Vendee, but we really like the Loire and Ile d'oleron, or if you think you can manage an overnight try a bit further south.  There's no need to book so you can decide based on the weather when you get there. 

I could have typed a similar thing, but then I don't think we are typical and we haven't yet added up all our spending!  We can go out of season, taking advantage of all the special offers.  We've had nine weeks away in total, five in May/June and four in August/September.  Our return ferry crossing cost just 33 euros!

Eight of our nights cost nothing - five were some free Camping Cheques which someone gave me, three were seven for six offers.  Our fuel all came from supermarkets, and the cheapest was at Forqualqiuer where they were offering 122.6 a litre as a special offer for a week, so we filled right up at the beginning and the end of our week there. That was the cheapest fuel, most expensive was 127.9. 

As far as food goes, I still think it's possible to eat cheaply and well in France if you're careful.  You don't have to buy packs of meat and barbecue, you can make meals and the same amount of meat will stretch much further.  We had three meals out - none cost a lot - and otherwise had things like Lidl chickens - normal price 3.49 - but with 30% or 50% off, as 'sell buy ends' they were just 2.45€  (same with pork fillet, pork chops, and fish as most supermarkets now seem to be doing the same thing).  We had loads of salads, and fresh fruit, usually bought from someone's gardens - like the fresh figs in St Quentin La Poterie at 2 euros for two kilos.  We bought vegetables from some small markets and several lots of Lidl 'Ratatouille' kits which made a bucketful.  Potatoes were very cheap, as was soft fruit like peaches, apricots and plums, and French grape tomatoes were from 70 cents to 99 cents a kilo!!!   We had farm eggs from one place which were just 10 cents each!   We used up left over bread to make garlic bread or bruschetta (fresh tomatoes, garlic, salt and pepper and some wild thyme), so absolutely nothing is wasted.  Wine probably cost an average of 2 euros a bottle (we bring more expensive stuff home) and we didn't even drink a lot of that this time.   We did splash out on some lavender honey from a farm in Provence, but you need so little on your bread that it will last a long time!

We spent just 3.10€ on tolls - and were only charged Classe 1 so I didn't press the button to let them know, and we paid a small amount to have a look around the Tours de Merle and the Chateau at Montresor.

Otherwise we walked a lot, swam a lot (sea, pools and rivers),  sat and read a lot of books, and used our canoe wherever we could.  Our sight-seeing usually cost nothing, no parking fees, no entry fees, just wandering around small towns and villages where you see the sort of things normally charged for by the National Trust.  The weather was super for the whole holiday - just two episodes of rain - one for a morning, with short showers in the afternoon, and another heavy storm which rolled over, poured down, and rolled away again over the course of a couple of hours.