Do you wait and save for the trip you want or make the trip fit your budget at the time?

[Forevermarypoppins]

I wouldn't consider booking unless I had 75% of the probable cost ready for payment.
I usually have more, 75 would be my minimum. It's how I roll!

 

[kathy884]

It's a little bit of both for me. I put aside monies every paycheck for a vacation fund and then the fun part is deciding what to do with that budget. I always want to take at least one vacation a year, so won't plan anything that would be more exotic or expensive that a year's vacation budget. Sometimes the budget can do two full week trips. Other times it's a one week trip and maybe a nice four day extended weekend or two.

I also when planning the vacation if I see a cool tour or dinner or whatever that I'd really like to do that isn't in the budget, I do have discretionary monies that I will put aside for these activities that ups the budget

For Orlando I always stay offsite (I really like the deals I can get renting one of the nice timeshare condos in the area from an owner.). We usually just do three park days on a week long trip (typically SeaWorld and maybe two Disney parks, and we'll throw a day at Universal/IA in there about every six years or so). I do though have relatives in Tampa and Orlando, so really enjoy some non-park time, nature activities too, which actually are quite a bit less expensive than going to the parks. My main vacation each year is typically somewhere other than Orlando (We love the west and go west a lot). It seems though that I do get to Orlando as a secondary full week trip or long weekend about every other year -- I really find the theme parks fun and absolutely love seeing my wonderful relatives who live in the area too.

I have a really good handle on what my budget is and what I can do with that and things that are overly expensive then don't really appeal to me, as they would take too much of my budget.

 

[pigletto]

We try to have everything paid before we go. We didn’t always when we were a younger family. We quickly learned that it was awful spending months paying back a trip you already took. So we try not to do that now.

Disney has increased too much for us to go yearly now. I think it will have to be every two years or more from now on, but we will see. Now that the world is opening back up there is just so much I want to do and see. I’m just not interested in giving all of my limited vacation dollars to Disney anymore.

 

[Cruising Engineer]

DVC here. We purchase DGC all year long when there is a great deal. Once the DVC dues are covered with DGC, we start saving for the DCL cruise. Once the cruise is covered, we save for two to five days at the Parks (tickets/food). Everything is paid before we step foot in WDW and on the ship. Typically, we plan to accumulate about $12,000 worth of DGC and save between 15% and 21%. We also use CC points to pay for the airline tickets to MCO. On the upcoming cruise (DIS Cruise) we saved 48% with DGC and CC points/Cash.

 

[DCLMP]

Is this in regard to Disney or any vacation? If it's Disney then it's whatever is in the budget. I've been to WDW and DL enough times it's no big deal. If it's international travel or a once in a lifetime trip then I save to make it the best trip possible.

 

[FQLover]

I know what you are saying. I save automatically each month, but I also know that I don't want to deplete the Vacations account with one trip. So, I will keep saving until we can do the Disney trip we want and still leave some money in the account for small trips somewhere or a hefty start on saving for the next year.

I know the approximate cost of where we want to stay and what we want to do, food we will buy, pet boarding, flights we need, etc. This summer we don't have time for that trip, but I hope that we can get there next summer, and I will have plenty of savings accrued by that time for that vacation and another one.

So, I would not be someone who looks at the money I have saved and adapts the trip particulars to suit that amount of savings. I am picky about the Disney trips I plan, but I think that either system can work for people. I don't go that often. so that I can afford the trip we like. Others want to go more frequently and don't mind trimming down the length of the stay, or the amenities, etc.

 

[Vitamin D]

We pay for travel as we book the arrangements. It usually fits into our monthly budget and we will adjust our other spending for the month if necessary. I book the different parts as I do the planning and pay as I book. I'll take some cash out before the trip specifically for tipping. During the trip, meals, shopping, uber, anything not pre paid, goes on a credit card. We have a few thousand dollars of discretionary spending in our monthly budget and several credit cards. We can pay the balances off before they accrue interest. We never pay interest on anything!

 

[Sun_soakin]

We adjust our trip to fit our budget. When our oldest kids were little and DH was in grad school, we still took a lot of trips but they were sooo much cheaper… camping, family vacay houses and lots of DL (ah, the old AP prices) but stayed offsite and packed snacks

 

[Vitamin D]

We adjust our trip to fit our budget. When our oldest kids were little and DH was in grad school, we still took a lot of trips but they were sooo much cheaper… camping, family vacay houses and lots of DL (ah, the old AP prices) but stayed offsite and packed snacks

Oh for sure! When our four kids were little and DH and I still had a ton of student loans, we traveled on the cheap. We'd pack into one hotel room. The boys would make a blanket fort on the floor. We all had a blast! We're old and fancy now, but those were good times!

 

[crazycatstacy]

We typically always know when we will be traveling to Disney and for how long. When I book for the $200 down I book the dream and then also have ideas of extras that I want to add on. As we keep making payments and we get closer often time things change. I will switch resorts or eliminate extras that I had thought I needed. We pay our trip off before we go so it is just a matter of how much we have or what we think is worth it to spend.

 

[Eeyore daily]

It depends. Impromptu trips I try and fit with what we have available to spend, with what we have available and within long term budget. Dream trips take longer time and more money so we save up for those and try to limit the unplanned trips.

 

[disney212]

Travel is a line item in our budget. We are DVC so our dues and annual passes are also line items. All travel is out of that budget. Cruises, weekend trips and non Disney trips. We found it too easy to skip vacation and use those dollars for other things, DVC had made us prioritize vacation. Prior to DVC I would book our trips a year out with a clear plan of it being paid off a few months before the trip. We utilize discounted gift cards, Disney Reward Visa points and a skymiles credit card to same over 20% on each trip. My platinum Skymiles card gives me a companion pass each year and the Visa gives us Disney Rewards dol!ars to use on food in the parks. Our October trip is already paid for!

 

[roflclaw]

It depends on why we're taking the trip! If it's simply "we miss Disneyland" then we plan a trip as cheaply as possible while still taking into account what's important to us -- sit down restaurants and buying artwork. In these cases I have a budget in mind.

Otherwise, we plan the best trip we can and save. With not going until we have enough saved up. In both cases we always have the money to pay for it.. just depends on how many 'extras' we get.

 

[tink89]

We do have a vacation account and I do swag bucks and ibotta and other things throughout the year that also goes into the account.
But we also have "disposable" income we can use when taking a quick trip. One thing I never do is go on vacation with out having the funds to pay for it all.

 

[jennb529]

I have a general idea of where I want to go and how much that will cost, then I start saving. I need a goal!

 

[DebLovesPooh]

We go where and when we can and do what we can afford. Smaller budget, we cook more in the room. Larger budget, more dinner reservations and a day at discovery cove. I would rather scale back a budget and still go than to keep waiting. You can’t do it all in one trip, so go as often as you can and do a few things off the bucket list each time.

 

[lurkernj]

We have a vacation savings account that money gets automatically transferred to each month. We also put in any gifts, ebates checks, bonus money. I plan my trip based on how long and what we plan to do (and what other trips I have planned around that time). Lately it's just a quick 3-4 day weekend for a race. If we are planning a fair amount of down time (like after a half marathon), I want a nicer resort with a good pool. If it's going to be a busy park trip, we'll book a value. It's also about what I'm willing to pay, with the rates what they are these days, I refuse to pay the deluxe rates. We've moved to Swan/Dolphin for our next trip (and our last one), and I'm not opposed to staying at a value (love the skyliner). Honestly, after I use up my current annual pass, I think we will be done for a while.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

I keep a running budget that projects out way into the future. When I plan a trip, I immediately update the budget to reflect the full cost of the trip, but I place the timing of the spend out when the trip is actually going to occur.

For example, if I start planning a trip now for January 2023, I'll go to the January 2023 row of my spreadsheet today and slot in the full cost of the trip.

 

[summerlyangel]

We pay for travel as we book the arrangements. It usually fits into our monthly budget and we will adjust our other spending for the month if necessary. I book the different parts as I do the planning and pay as I book. I'll take some cash out before the trip specifically for tipping. During the trip, meals, shopping, uber, anything not pre paid, goes on a credit card. We have a few thousand dollars of discretionary spending in our monthly budget and several credit cards. We can pay the balances off before they accrue interest. We never pay interest on anything!

This is exactly what we do for the most part. Cash flow as I book and adjust the rest of the discretionary budget to make it work. I do kind of plan ahead, though. I may not be able to come up with 3000 to pay for tickets for 6 with one month's discretionary funding unless it's already been planned out, but if I know it's coming up, I start saving ahead of time. I will say that this is much easier to make happen when just DH and I go vs. when we take the whole family. Much more planning goes into that!

Editing to add that I'm a penny pincher by nature and we typically stay off site or in the values. If I needed to pay for my whole family of 6 to stay in a deluxe with hoppers and dining plan, it would definitely be harder to cash flow and I would for sure have to save up for a few months, then start making reservations when my account is at the level it needs to be to support a 12000 trip, lol

 

[hhisc16]

Owning DVC seems to help with the vacation/Disney budget, since we use every point and budget our DVC dues each month.
Tickets/food seem to fluctuate and use cash/gift cards to help with Disney/vacation budget.