The ski trip costs that aren't on the lift ticket

Quick answer: Budget lodging, food, rentals and the drive first. Buy the lift tickets last, and as early as the resort allows. The ticket is the cost you can see, so it's the one that does the least damage.

Say a day ticket runs $150. Four of you, three days, that's $1,800. It feels like the whole trip. It isn't even close.

Run the rest with round numbers. These are made up, so swap in your own. Three nights of lodging at $350 is $1,050. Food at $200 a day for the family is $600. Rentals at $50 a head per day is $600. Parking at $30 a day is $90, and gas is another $120. The total is $4,260, and the lift tickets are 42 percent of it.

That's before anyone loses a glove.

Lodging: do the distance math

The cheap place thirty minutes down the valley looks smart on the booking page. Then you count the cost.

Gas and parking come first. Then the morning: boots on, kids fed, everybody in the car, a half-hour drive, a lot that's already filling up. Skiers with a lift an easy walk away are on the hill when it opens. You're still looking for a parking space.

And the day ends the same way. The tired child who'd have walked back to the condo and napped is now a tired child in a car seat for thirty minutes, and you're not going back up for the last two runs.

Here's the test. Price the close place and the far place, then add to the far one:

• Gas and parking for every day you'll drive
• A realistic cost for the hour you'll lose each morning
• Anything you'd have eaten at the condo at lunch

If the far place still wins, take it. Sometimes it does, especially for a group of grown men who'll be on the first chair no matter what. But for a family with small kids, the close place usually earns its premium.

A kitchen is worth real money. Breakfast and dinner at home are the biggest lever you've got on the food bill. A condo with a full kitchen beats a hotel room with a mini-fridge unless you really want to eat out every night. And split a place with another family or a few friends when you can. Just settle the money up front. How four friends share a car for a week without falling out covers the same ground and applies to a condo almost word for word.

Food: the lodge is a toll booth

On-mountain food is priced like it's the only food for miles, because it is. You can't fight that with willpower at 12:30 when everyone's cold and hungry. You fight it with a plan.

• Breakfast at the condo. Eat a real one. It carries you to lunch and keeps the 10 a.m. snack bar stop off the list.
• Pack the lunch. Sandwiches, fruit and a few bars in a small pack. Stash it in a locker or the car, or carry it. Many resorts have a spot to eat your own food, so check before you go.
• Buy lunch once. Pick one day for the lodge, hot chocolate included. Kids remember it, and it costs a fraction of doing it daily.
• Shop on the way in. Grocery stores in the resort town cost more than the one you passed an hour back. Stock up on the drive.
• Cook one big dinner. Chili, pasta, tacos. Feed everybody at the table for the price of one restaurant appetizer.

Eat out one night. You're on a trip, not a work detail. Just decide which night in advance so it's a treat and not a leak.

Gear: rent, borrow, or buy, in that order

Nobody sensible buys skis for a once-a-year trip. Rent. But rental has its own traps.

Resort rental shops are convenient and priced that way. Shops in the town below the mountain, or ones that offer reservations online, often cost less and put you on the hill faster. Book ahead if you can, because walking up cold on a holiday weekend means a line and fewer sizes.

Kids change the math. A child outgrows boots in a season. Check local swap groups, a consignment shop, or a neighbor whose kids are older. Take what's offered, and when you're done, pass it down. Return a borrowed set of skis tuned and with the bindings checked, and you'll be asked again.

Now the things people forget. They always seem to be things you can't buy at home for a fair price once you've landed.

• Helmets. Rent if you must, but own one for a kid who'll ski again. Fit matters more than the logo.
• Goggles. Cheap ones fog. Pack a spare lens or a second pair if you've got one.
• Wool socks. One good pair per day, and only one pair per foot. Two pairs stacked make boots tighter and feet colder.
• Hand and toe warmers. A box costs less before the trip than a single packet does at the base lodge.
• A neck gaiter and spare gloves. Wet gloves end a day. A dry second pair doesn't.
• A small pack. Lunch, water, spare layer, lip balm.
• Tire chains or traction tires, if the pass requires them. Some do, some days. Know before you leave, because the shop at the bottom knows you need them.

The packing list in One bag, one week, and nothing you don't use is a good filter. Ski trips tempt you to bring everything. Bring layers instead.

Sunscreen at altitude

Skiers get burned, and it surprises them because it's cold. Altitude and snow glare put sun on you from two directions, so your chin, nose and the underside of your jaw take it.

The first rule: any broad-spectrum SPF 30 or higher, every day, beats skipping it. Reapply every two hours and after sweating. Add a lip balm with SPF.

If you're buying fresh, choose a mineral sunscreen with zinc oxide or titanium dioxide. Those are the only two filters the FDA proposed as generally recognized as safe and effective in 2019, and it asked makers for more safety data on the others. The trade-off is a white cast on some formulas. A tinted one fixes that, and it's easy to wear under goggles. EltaMD UV Physical SPF 41 (tinted), Blue Lizard Sensitive Mineral SPF 30 and Neutrogena Sheer Zinc SPF 50 are all worth a look.

The costs you only meet at the edge

A few more lines that don't live on any booking page:

• Lessons. A beginner who skips a lesson usually costs the group an afternoon. Pay for one morning and the whole trip gets better.
• Day-of ticket pricing. Walk-up prices tend to be the highest. Buy ahead online.
• Parking. Some lots charge, and the free ones fill early.
• Tips. Rental techs, instructors and condo cleaning staff all work hard in a short season. Budget for it.
• The cushion. Set aside 10 percent for the thing you didn't think of. Somebody will break a pole or leave a jacket in a lodge.

If you're taking your wife, build the trip with her instead of around her. How to plan a trip your wife actually wants to be on will save you a bad second day.

Leave the place better

Run the dishwasher before you check out. Strip the beds if the owner asks. Take the trash to the bin and wipe the counters. Pay your share of the shared costs before anyone brings it up.

The ticket is the cost you were always going to pay. How you treat the condo, the staff and the people you came with is the part that decides whether you get invited back.