Disney savers: How do you save up for Disney?

[readyfordis]

Blackbeltdisney - I would love to chat with you about planning our first trip, I feel behind as we are going in October and you seem to have a ton of great ideas, I dont have quite enough post to PM yet!

[craftymama71]

Glad we could be of service! Our garden has been planted. I didn't think we would get such a large garden planted. I hope you succeed with yours!

Wow, your backyard is a good size! We are holding off planting until July as we are going on a cruise soon and won't be here to look after them. I can't wait to cook food from our garden.

[starbound25]

subbing

I called my cable company to see the best deal I could get and still keep most of my services, I have the exact same deal now but its $25 a month lower

I find anything I can that I think will sell on ebay and I sell it
old iphone, old digital camera, xbox360, old camera lens- off it goes

cant do the change jar since I never carry cash

use the disney rewards card for all gas and groceries and then pay it immediately when I get home this way I earn points to spend on souvenirs on our next trip

second hand store for clothes for my little ones and me too

southwest credit card- I signed up for this to get the points towards a flight, this will save me $400 and I will simply pay off the flight with money I have saved and then cancel the card

I have a small etsy shop that I sell mineral makeup on, I have had it closed for a while but will open it up once or twice to sell some batches of makeup and make a few hundred dollars

bringing food and snacks for our trip to save on eating out

thats all I can think of for now! excited to hear more, not so common ideas!

[pooh2001]

We save for 5 years and then go to WDW.
Maybe too many years between visits - but well worth the wait, and really nice to see our Disney account grow with every penny saved.

And we get to plan and plan and plan before we go !

[Blackbeltdisneygirl]

Originally Posted by readyfordis

Blackbeltdisney - I would love to chat with you about planning our first trip, I feel behind as we are going in October and you seem to have a ton of great ideas, I dont have quite enough post to PM yet!

Thanx for the compliment! I would love to chat! Ask me anything!

Originally Posted by craftymama71

Wow, your backyard is a good size! We are holding off planting until July as we are going on a cruise soon and won't be here to look after them. I can't wait to cook food from our garden.

Thanx! We have about .62 of an acre. The section pictured is only the way back section we weren't using for anything. The parts closer to the house are put into use constantly. On our property we have a two story barn that is lovely and has never been used for animals, so it is very clean. The kids have a play room upstairs, so they love hanging out up there! My hubby also built a huge custom Playground World playset that takes up a large portion of the back yard. He worked there for 2 years, so he just used pieces from sets that people were getting rid of to build it. So...we now have a set that is worth roughly $30,000 that we got for FREE!!!! Sorry! I couldn't resist throwing in one more of our money savers! We also have a clothesline. We like to use our space wisely! We just moved back to this neighborhood after living here 6 years ago. We loved living here. The yards are bigger, so there is more privacy, but we are close to the main parts of the city. We wanted to come back as soon as we sold our old house! Currently our front yard is torn up b/c hubby is installing drainage since our house floods!!! Since it is a ranch, that is a huge bummer. That's why I have been missing from the boards! We got hit with a huge rainstorm that flooded our whole house in minutes! Argh! I still feel very happy and blessed, especially if we can solve this flooding issue!!

I hope your planting works well for you, and you have a wonderful cruise. Hubby and I are considering taking one next year to celebrate 15 years.

Originally Posted by starbound25

subbing

I called my cable company to see the best deal I could get and still keep most of my services, I have the exact same deal now but its $25 a month lower

I find anything I can that I think will sell on ebay and I sell it
old iphone, old digital camera, xbox360, old camera lens- off it goes

cant do the change jar since I never carry cash

use the disney rewards card for all gas and groceries and then pay it immediately when I get home this way I earn points to spend on souvenirs on our next trip

second hand store for clothes for my little ones and me too

southwest credit card- I signed up for this to get the points towards a flight, this will save me $400 and I will simply pay off the flight with money I have saved and then cancel the card

I have a small etsy shop that I sell mineral makeup on, I have had it closed for a while but will open it up once or twice to sell some batches of makeup and make a few hundred dollars

bringing food and snacks for our trip to save on eating out

thats all I can think of for now! excited to hear more, not so common ideas!

All great ideas! Hubby and I are considering selling on ebay as well. I have a bunch of collector Barbies still in their boxes that are just tucked away in boxes up in the barn. I know they won't be worth much in the economy, but there's no point in having them if I am not going to display them. I will not display them b/c that is not my style. I used to love collecting them though. I realize now that they were bad purchases since I don't want them out for others to see. I think the obsession began many years ago when a friend of mine stole my Magic Moves Barbie that I begged for and wanted so much. I think it is time to let go!

Originally Posted by pooh2001

We save for 5 years and then go to WDW.
Maybe too many years between visits - but well worth the wait, and really nice to see our Disney account grow with every penny saved.

And we get to plan and plan and plan before we go !

You are probably much smarter than I am since we try to go every year now. It makes things tighter financially. I realize I could probably buy a new car every year with what I spend on Disney! Yikes!!! I am constantly nervous about saving, and it would probably be better to just space out my trips more. I don't know if I can though!

[starbound25]

Originally Posted by Blackbeltdisneygirl

You are probably much smarter than I am since we try to go every year now. It makes things tighter financially. I realize I could probably buy a new car every year with what I spend on Disney! Yikes!!! I am constantly nervous about saving, and it would probably be better to just space out my trips more. I don't know if I can though!

Ha I totally get this statement We took my girls in April 2011 and then the plan was to go again in 2 years (spring 2013) then I decided I couldn't wait so we moved it to Nov 2012 (so 1 1/2 yrs inbetween) then my tax return didnt work out so we pushed it to Nov 2013 well just recently I decided that was wayyyy too long so I am going crazy budgeting and trying to save all pennies because we are going November this year!!!! haha

I already have it in my head that I want to go every year and a half while the kids are all prime Disney age, so the trip after this year is tentativly for spring 2014 and yes I'm already thinking about it even with still planning the Nov. this year trip!

It is a lot financially and I'm a very low income household but I budget like a madwoman and do what I have to do. It does effect our fun money like going out to eat or buying little things here and there but I know in the long run the memories from Disney will far outweigh how many out to eat trips or little presents from Walmart I could get. So totally worth it to me.

[AJA]

What about a part time job working for the Disney store?

I sell my daughters outgrown clothing twice a year on ebay (summer clothing in February and winter clothing in August).

[WendyWonderland]

We hardly ever use credit cards for anything, we use cash for just about everything. All $1's and change have been going into a jar since we booked our trip in March, and we already have a couple hundred saved.

[Blackbeltdisneygirl]

Originally Posted by starbound25

Ha I totally get this statement We took my girls in April 2011 and then the plan was to go again in 2 years (spring 2013) then I decided I couldn't wait so we moved it to Nov 2012 (so 1 1/2 yrs inbetween) then my tax return didnt work out so we pushed it to Nov 2013 well just recently I decided that was wayyyy too long so I am going crazy budgeting and trying to save all pennies because we are going November this year!!!! haha

I already have it in my head that I want to go every year and a half while the kids are all prime Disney age, so the trip after this year is tentativly for spring 2014 and yes I'm already thinking about it even with still planning the Nov. this year trip!

It is a lot financially and I'm a very low income household but I budget like a madwoman and do what I have to do. It does effect our fun money like going out to eat or buying little things here and there but I know in the long run the memories from Disney will far outweigh how many out to eat trips or little presents from Walmart I could get. So totally worth it to me.

I know! It's hard isn't it? My kids are always asking me to eat out like we used to, or to buy whatever, and I say no. I always say "I can't afford that right now." Which is not true of course, I just would rather spend my money on Disney than something they will forget about by the next week. Instead of saying that, I've recently been saying "Would you prefer to have this or Disney?" They always pick Disney, which shows me that I am making the right choice!

Originally Posted by AJA

What about a part time job working for the Disney store?

I sell my daughters outgrown clothing twice a year on ebay (summer clothing in February and winter clothing in August).

Ooohh! I wish I could do that! I have thought about it. They took our Disney store out of the local mall, so I would have to drive pretty far. That makes it not worth it for me. I have had a lot of health issues, so it is almost impossible for me to hold any kind of job right now other than what I am already doing. I am in the process of seeing a new doctor, and I am really excited that he is changing my medications all around so I am feeling a lot better! I hope to be able to get well enough to one day be able to hold a full time job if I want. I went back to work about 6 years ago full time, and I was sick nearly every day I worked for 10 months. I had to quit. It is frustrating for sure. I think it is a good idea, so thank you for sharing it! I just wish I could do that!!!! Well, maybe not. I do enjoy being home. Even though I do part time work for the karate studio and run my own home-based business, my hours can be very flexible, and we hired another instructor to help out b/c I had to reduce my hours so much when I needed my surgeries. I should just enjoy the time I have with my kids!!!

Originally Posted by WendyWonderland

We hardly ever use credit cards for anything, we use cash for just about everything. All $1's and change have been going into a jar since we booked our trip in March, and we already have a couple hundred saved.

Good deal!!!

[starbound25]

Originally Posted by Blackbeltdisneygirl

I know! It's hard isn't it? My kids are always asking me to eat out like we used to, or to buy whatever, and I say no. I always say "I can't afford that right now." Which is not true of course, I just would rather spend my money on Disney than something they will forget about by the next week. Instead of saying that, I've recently been saying "Would you prefer to have this or Disney?" They always pick Disney, which shows me that I am making the right choice!

Yup, when they ask for things I will now say "every dollar saved is a Disney dollar" haha heard that on these boards
my older two are fine with it, the 5 year old is not

[leanne2255]

I use the Christmas Club at my bank to save for our Disney trip. We go late October every year just when the bank disburses the funds, so it's perfect!

[Blackbeltdisneygirl]

Originally Posted by starbound25

Yup, when they ask for things I will now say "every dollar saved is a Disney dollar" haha heard that on these boards
my older two are fine with it, the 5 year old is not

Haha!

Originally Posted by leanne2255

I use the Christmas Club at my bank to save for our Disney trip. We go late October every year just when the bank disburses the funds, so it's perfect!

Well, that works out quite nice for you!

[katiemely]

Originally Posted by Shelly F - Ohio

We use the coin jar method.

Deposit all of our state income tax refund into the vacation savings acct.

Auto deposit $35 per pay check so that would be $70 a month from mine and $70 a month from DH into the vacation acct.
Use our Disney Visa to buy for everything then pay the acct balance if full at the end of the month. So far in 11 months we have almost $270 in Disney reward money. What really helps boost the rewards is that I charge our car insurance and home insurance on the Disney card.

I do Pinecone online surveys and the money gets deposited into Paypal. I have $136 in that acct.

All the money we get for Christmas gets deposited into the vacation acct. Are family knows that we go to Disney a lot so they give us Disney gift cards as presents.

We bought a DVC 8 years ago. That has been a huge savings. Every trip we take I go online and price the exact same trip to see how much we would have spent had we not had the DVC. happy to report we were about to break even a few years ago!!!

I do this too!! I love to see how much the hotel would have cost us without DVC.

I worked at a preschool this past year and we used all that money solely for vacations and just lived off of DH income. Now I am teaching Sign Language at home and using that money for Disney.

Also any yardsale money and ebay money I put in the Disney fund. I just made $60 today selling stuff on ebay we don't want/need anymore.

[jennyjinx3]

Originally Posted by Blackbeltdisneygirl

Thanx for the compliment! I would love to chat! Ask me anything!

Thanx! We have about .62 of an acre. The section pictured is only the way back section we weren't using for anything. The parts closer to the house are put into use constantly. On our property we have a two story barn that is lovely and has never been used for animals, so it is very clean. The kids have a play room upstairs, so they love hanging out up there! My hubby also built a huge custom Playground World playset that takes up a large portion of the back yard. He worked there for 2 years, so he just used pieces from sets that people were getting rid of to build it. So...we now have a set that is worth roughly $30,000 that we got for FREE!!!! Sorry! I couldn't resist throwing in one more of our money savers! We also have a clothesline. We like to use our space wisely! We just moved back to this neighborhood after living here 6 years ago. We loved living here. The yards are bigger, so there is more privacy, but we are close to the main parts of the city. We wanted to come back as soon as we sold our old house! Currently our front yard is torn up b/c hubby is installing drainage since our house floods!!! Since it is a ranch, that is a huge bummer. That's why I have been missing from the boards! We got hit with a huge rainstorm that flooded our whole house in minutes! Argh! I still feel very happy and blessed, especially if we can solve this flooding issue!!

I hope your planting works well for you, and you have a wonderful cruise. Hubby and I are considering taking one next year to celebrate 15 years.


All great ideas! Hubby and I are considering selling on ebay as well. I have a bunch of collector Barbies still in their boxes that are just tucked away in boxes up in the barn. I know they won't be worth much in the economy, but there's no point in having them if I am not going to display them. I will not display them b/c that is not my style. I used to love collecting them though. I realize now that they were bad purchases since I don't want them out for others to see. I think the obsession began many years ago when a friend of mine stole my Magic Moves Barbie that I begged for and wanted so much. I think it is time to let go!


You are probably much smarter than I am since we try to go every year now. It makes things tighter financially. I realize I could probably buy a new car every year with what I spend on Disney! Yikes!!! I am constantly nervous about saving, and it would probably be better to just space out my trips more. I don't know if I can though!

This is me too!! We have been going every year (this is our third) and I feel very blessed to be able to do it. But I am like you...constantly saving....and I feel so happy when money goes into that Vacation account. It is totally worth it.

[Dismom55]

Saving some $$$ here and there during May, I put together $180. and deposited it in my Disney account today, just had to share with some people who I knew would appreciate the gesture. It was just from taking the bills left and putting them aside and not spending them, sure did add up fast. Going to do this again next month or rather this month. Want to see how much I can come up with by the end of June.