I'm back from a weeklong vacation to Boston and the coast of Maine and wanted to confess up front: It wasn't cheap.

Some of the big-ticket items: plane fare for three, a rental car, restaurant meals, and hotel stays in a big city and a resort area. And that just covers the basics.

Once you're in cool places like Boston and Bar Harbor, you want to see and do, which all costs money.

Enough to send a frugal columnist into a frenzy.

I'm joking, of course. With a lot of planning, we saved a bundle. And what we did spend, we had set aside in advance. (Well worth the coupon clipping.)

Here are some of the more thrifty highlights: