I've been asked to address this question.

It's a matter of personal priority. We both enjoy cycling. There's no competition for recreational money as we both like the same activity. That's huge. We are empty nesters. All of our money is spent on us.

We are both school bus drivers. We make a modest living, but work 149 days a year. The rest of the year we can play.

On a modest income, how do we manage an all motel/all restaurant trip?

We have no extra debt, beyond a mortgage. No car payments. We pay our credit cards and all other bills monthly. We drive older vehicle and shop around for insurance. The sort of stuff cheap people do.

Although we eat out nightly on tour, we seldom eat out at home. We try to be frugal with purchases. Our big indulgence is bicycling. Those items we do splurge on.

When choosing lodging on tour, I generally pick a lower priced option. I factor in reviews, how close to food, how close to the route. Yesterday in Bluff, UT our choices were a $50. cabin (we stayed there last year, it was pretty rough). $100. for a basic motel. Or $230. for the Desert Rose. The photos looked inviting. We went with the $100. option.

Food - I generally eat oatmeal in the room. I might stop by Subway or a taco shop as I get to town for lunch. If we are in a big enough town to have a grocery deli, we sometimes have a deli chicken and sides for dinner. We prefer eating at a restaurant, as that's our evening activity. COVID has limited the availability of food.

We've done this enough years that saving up for motel trips throughout the school year is automatic.

I also have my bills on auto pay. The first year we did a long summer tour, I got home and we didn't have near the mail I expected. Things were busy and I never thought about my credit card bill at the time I was close to the check book. Several weeks later the mail lady delivered a giant pile of mail. It must have been stacked up in some corner. Sh**. In there was my credit card bill. I was charged a late payment and hefty interest because it was a big bill from the traveling. Now I have all of my bills on autopay. I definitely monitor my credit card on a daily basis to make sure we are being charged correctly as we travel. The year we did the Sierra Cascades trip, I was still getting a paper bill. I went through line by line on our lodging and discovered over $400. in errors. Most of it was from a lodge that we canceled our reservation, but they charged us anyway. Luckily I had written down the date, time, and person I had spoken with and they refunded our money. But there were several other errors that I had to have corrected.

In short, bicycle touring is where we like to spend our money and we save all year long to splurge on our summer fun!