kristenrice
NOT just an ambulance driver
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2006
- Messages
- 7,382
I just thought I would share this with my fellow Budget Boarders
...
A little backstory...
I started taking fall trips for F&W and my birthday in October 2009. Although I haven't made it every year, it's been pretty close. I do not take money out of the "family" budget (neither the daily budget nor the special vacation budget) to take these trips, unless we make it our annual family trip. Instead, I use money I earn from donating plasma and participating in various rewards and rebate sites, mostly SwagBucks and Perk. I also, if needed, will tap into my annual longevity bonus that I receive from my employer every April.
Here's the details of my trip next week
...
My friend and I are leaving on Saturday night and staying at the Hyatt in the airport before heading to AKV for 5 nights in a value studio. I (we) own a DVC contract so I am using less than half of our annual points for this stay. We already took our family trip to HHI this spring (using our HHI points) so I was able to use half of our AKV points and bank the other half for next year.
So here it is...the final budget breakdown
...
The "cash" expenses consisted of my airfare ($302.45), 5-day park-hopper ($250), and my cash that I will bring with me ($200). The airfare was the cost of purchasing "top-off" points with SWA and EBCI both ways. The park-hopper was bought by my friend, using her military status to get the military salute ticket
. I kicked in a bit extra for the shipping cost. My total cash budget came to $752.45. About $600 of that was earned by donating plasma. It would have been all of it, but I had a mishap and I was unable to donate for 8 weeks
.
Now I'll get to the good stuff...the gift card budget
. ALL of this was earned using SwagBucks and other reward sites (but about 90% of it was SwagBucks) and ALL of it has been accumulated since April 2017...6 months ago!
First, I spent $189.58 for 2 tickets to MNSSHP. This included my friend's ticket, but in return, she is paying for our night at the Hyatt ($181.24). Since the tickets were bought with FREE money, I am technically covering my ticket and my half of the hotel bill. Then, I paid for a Mix It, Make It seminar at F&W ($52.19). After all of that, I still have $510 on a gift card that I am bringing with me to cover my dining expenses. My total gift card budget came to $751.77...and I did not spend one, single cent to get those funds
.
In the end, I get a pretty extravagant 6-night vacation for about $1500...but I only "paid" about $750 since the rest was "free" money
.
...A little backstory...
I started taking fall trips for F&W and my birthday in October 2009. Although I haven't made it every year, it's been pretty close. I do not take money out of the "family" budget (neither the daily budget nor the special vacation budget) to take these trips, unless we make it our annual family trip. Instead, I use money I earn from donating plasma and participating in various rewards and rebate sites, mostly SwagBucks and Perk. I also, if needed, will tap into my annual longevity bonus that I receive from my employer every April.
Here's the details of my trip next week
...My friend and I are leaving on Saturday night and staying at the Hyatt in the airport before heading to AKV for 5 nights in a value studio. I (we) own a DVC contract so I am using less than half of our annual points for this stay. We already took our family trip to HHI this spring (using our HHI points) so I was able to use half of our AKV points and bank the other half for next year.
So here it is...the final budget breakdown
...The "cash" expenses consisted of my airfare ($302.45), 5-day park-hopper ($250), and my cash that I will bring with me ($200). The airfare was the cost of purchasing "top-off" points with SWA and EBCI both ways. The park-hopper was bought by my friend, using her military status to get the military salute ticket
. I kicked in a bit extra for the shipping cost. My total cash budget came to $752.45. About $600 of that was earned by donating plasma. It would have been all of it, but I had a mishap and I was unable to donate for 8 weeks.Now I'll get to the good stuff...the gift card budget
. ALL of this was earned using SwagBucks and other reward sites (but about 90% of it was SwagBucks) and ALL of it has been accumulated since April 2017...6 months ago!First, I spent $189.58 for 2 tickets to MNSSHP. This included my friend's ticket, but in return, she is paying for our night at the Hyatt ($181.24). Since the tickets were bought with FREE money, I am technically covering my ticket and my half of the hotel bill. Then, I paid for a Mix It, Make It seminar at F&W ($52.19). After all of that, I still have $510 on a gift card that I am bringing with me to cover my dining expenses. My total gift card budget came to $751.77...and I did not spend one, single cent to get those funds
.In the end, I get a pretty extravagant 6-night vacation for about $1500...but I only "paid" about $750 since the rest was "free" money
.
) There's always another Disney trip on the horizon and it is so "rewarding" to use sites like SwagBucks to pay for large portions of the trip
.
