As a family, how do you save for you trip?

[Canooknic]

For previous trips we've done most of above - change jars, couponing etc - but this time I have been lucky enough to be a EA sub at my boy's school so everything I've earnt this school year went straight into the Disney account.
We still have the saving jar (we did the Week 1 - $1, Week 2 - $2 etc) and have just under $1000 so far which will be used as spending money

 

[kcp1377]

We also budget every week for our vacation fund. It started off small ($25 every week) and then as we got raises we put more into it. We also use our rewards points from cards to pay for part of the trip. There's usually enough points on our Disney card to pay for a good chunk of the campground site.

 

[Hikergirl]

I buy discounted Disney GC's and do Swagbucks for Target GCs to convert to Disney GCs.
We save our change as well.

 

[AshleeH]

Depends on our trip. We have four trips planned over the next year and a half - unheard of for us - and each one requires different planning.

For our DCL Alaskan Cruise last year, we paid every cent with Disney Gift Cards. I bought one a week for five years "just because" for some undetermined vacation. When I actually tallied the amount we had saved, it was incredible. It paid for my family of 5 to go to Alaska and not a cent of the actual vacation was paid for out of pocket.

For our upcoming trip in October: DVC points (we joined on the cruise).

For my "Princess Trip" with my daughter in February: A combination of Disney gift cards and my own savings (I babysit a friend's daughter and any money I make in consignment sales has gone toward this trip, so I don't have to use our checking account for any of it).

For our Disney Cruise in July 2017: Tax returns.

For our "Happily Ever After" vacation for just my husband and me in November 2017: Paying it off a little at a time, every week. By my estimate, it should be paid off a few months in advance without needing to dip into savings.

For whatever our 2018 vacation will be: DVC points.

 

[Neotericisis]

Both my husband and I use the Digit app. For swipe happy people like us, $3 here, and $5 there add up. Basically Digit takes several "little" amounts from your account, and before long you realize that they add up. For instance, it took $1.72 yesterday and $5.62 two days ago. The amounts vary based on expected bills and the balance of your account. You can tell Digit to stop for a period if you need to (I made Digit stop for a week until my checks for camp cleared, I didn't want Digit seeing a huge balance and not anticipating any bills so I let it know to hold off for a week). After a few months we both have several hundred dollars in our digit accounts to use for spending money, and we didn't even feel it. Digit gets use to the type of spending you do, the bills you pay etc. and guarantees no over draft fees. The interest rate sucks, but it is better than saving it in a coffee tin (both interest wise and it reduces the chances of me dipping into it). I get alerts everyday on my checking balance, but my husband doesn't get them as frequent as he changed his settings. To withdraw the money, all you have to do is text "withdraw" and within 2 days you have the money you saved. We now have about $1K with us to pay for character meals, travel expenses (we are driving) and whatever else for our family of 4.

 

[DLM22]

We do a change jar, like others have mentioned, and get the kids excited about an upcoming trip so that they'll put any money they get from Grandma in there, too. We also signed up for the Disney Rewards card, and though it's not the BEST rewards card out there, we did get $250 off the bat when we signed up, plus just from basic spending we've gotten $100 on our rewards card that we'll use on this upcoming trip.

One thing about change jars, though - take the time to roll your coins if your bank doesn't have a free coin machine! I think the Coinstar machine in our area charges 10.9%, and that's just insane. My daughter helped me with the coins and we saved over $20 by taking them to the bank instead of using Coinstar.

 

[SheriBerry]

We have 2 cash back credit cards that we use for EVERYTHING. The cash back we receive each year helps pay for our trip. Also, DH has a certain amount in our budget each month that goes directly into a separate savings account for our Disney trips.