How are you saving for Disney?

[DisneyHardin]

The main thing I do is buy a $25 Disney gift card every week at Kroger when I buy our groceries. I don't really notice the $25 out of our budget and then we have all our spending money tucked nicely away for our trip.

 

[Moramoon]

The credit cards I have are pretty bad for rewards. When we started paying down our debt I saw credit cards as evil, but now that we've been paying our debt down I really need to look into something with better rewards.

 

[Marionnette]

The credit cards I have are pretty bad for rewards. When we started paying down our debt I saw credit cards as evil, but now that we've been paying our debt down I really need to look into something with better rewards.

I would stay away from rewards credit cards unless you are in a position to always pay them off in full every month. Rewards CC tend to have higher APRs which pretty much means that even one month of carrying a balance can wipe out any earning that you made from rewards.

 

[crazymomof4]

oooohh..... have to go start dinner right now but posting so I can follow.
Can't wait to read through this thread later, when my day finally slows down!

 

[Moramoon]

I would stay away from rewards credit cards unless you are in a position to always pay them off in full every month. Rewards CC tend to have higher APRs which pretty much means that even one month of carrying a balance can wipe out any earning that you made from rewards.

After getting our debt paid down i definitely don't want to get into that mess again. Right now i only use our cards for our normal expenses (cell phone bill, Internet, groceries, gas, basically anything that we would have paid for from our paychecks anyway). I figure this way the rewards would just be extra income.

 

[cassie58]

With churning seeming to be on its last leg I thought it might be a good idea to start a post about how others are saving/getting the funds for their trips. I know I’ve seen a few things mentioned in other posts, but I thought it might be a good idea for others to share about ways they’re saving that others may not have known about. I know there’s a few that I’ve been doing way before we even thought about taking a Disney vacation so they don’t have to apply to just Disney.

Ibotta – I used to earn around $20.00 a month from this though lately I’ve been slacking. For those who don’t know about it it’s an app that will give you offers for certain items at different stores. When you purchase them you scan the bar code along with your receipt and can earn cash back. You can cash out at $20.00 for paypal or venmo, but they also offer a $25.00 Sam’s Club gc as well.

Checkout 51 – It’s similar to Ibotta. You can cash out at $20.00, but they will send you the funds in the form of a check in the mail.

Saving Star – Another app for grocery purchases. The nice thing about this one is there’s no minimum for cashing out. The funds can be set to go to your paypal, bank account, upromise account, or they also have gift cards currently for itunes, Starbucks, or AMC Theaters.

Mobisave – Another grocery app. You’re supposed to select your offers before you make your purchases (there’s been times I’ll forget to select and do them the same day and still receive credit). They stay selected for a week before being removed where you’ll have to reselect the offer if it’s still available. Once your purchase is approved they will automatically send the funds to your paypal.

Shrink – Another grocery app, though I can’t say that I use it that often because I don’t typically buy the things they have offers for. It’s nice though if you tend to buy green/organic products as they seem to be what most of their offers are for.

Find&Save – This one’s nice in that it’s not limited to just grocery stores (they’ll normally have offers for restaurants and retail stores), but I’ve found that recently they changed and offers aren’t open for as long as they used to be so it’s something you have to keep an eye on. You also have to watch because sometimes an eligible offer with be for you to spend a certain amount along with buying a certain item (for example Spend $10.00 including a purchase of fries). This one will pay out in the form of a check within a day or 2 of reaching $25.
I know there’s other ways to save out there, but these are the ones I personally use. I’d be interested in hearing what everyone else uses to help save.

Thanks for posting these! I have been interested in trying some of these grocery apps, so it is good to see which ones might work well, and ones that I can get paypal like I do from Swagbucks. I also save up Ebates checks, found change, and yard sale money. I use the target "buy 2, get $5 GC" to save up for Disney GC in store. I haven't had a problem, although have bought other things along with GC, but saw new $5/10 promo cards say "GC can not be used to purchase other GC " on back, whereas my old ones just mentioned no buying prepaid cards like Visa, Amex. Even if I use the GC to buy groceries for free and then purchase GC it still works, as another PP mentioned.

I will buy discounted GC at BJ's, but it sounds like Sam's might be cheaper, so have to see if any friends have a membership so I can check it out. I also ask for Disney GC from my parents and brothers for Christmas/Bday, and save those up for next trip. For the kids, I have kept reloading a GC at the Disney store for $5/ month as a trip approaches for their spending money. Disney Visa is my primary CC for shopping, even though I know there are better reward cards, I know the points are going to Disney, and not elsewhere like our Discover Cash
Back(which just went to new grill for DH).

DH also has the SW CC to save up for airfare, which we used to fly all 4 of us free RT to WDW when we got it with the bonus pts., which only required one swipe at that time instead of the new minimum. We don't use the card that much, and it does have the annual fee, but we have gotten a few free one way flights on the last couple trips, so it is still worth it. I may open one now to get bonus pts. for planned trip to CA to visit colleges for DS next summer(and maybe get to DL!)

OP, I do a lot of the same things you are doing. A few others I do:

Field Agent--It's like a secret shopper, but so much easier. No long paper work, etc... Just agree to a job, do it within two hours, get paid. A recent job I did was take a photo of a candy bar display and answer two questions. Paid $4. There can be competition depending on your location.

Speaking of Secret Shopping--I've done this a few times. It pays okay ($14-16) but I don't like to bother with it.

My Coke Rewards--We have mostly given up on soda but my parents buy a lot and give me the codes. Also my husband drinks a lot of Powerade and they have codes. I get Target or WalMart cards with the rewards.

MPlus Places--This has recently gone down considerably in profitability, but I still check-in if I'm near stores. Lots of gift cards to choose.

Bing Rewards (now Microsoft)-- I get Starbucks gift cards with these.

ETA: Kellogg's Rewards--Kellogg's owns a lot more than cereal.

I used to do Secret shopping when my kids were little, but as you mentioned, it was often not worth it with hour long reports to fill out. I like the sound of Field Agent though, so I will look into that. Thanks for mentioning that Bing became Microsoft Rewards - I was wondering why I got an email welcoming me when i hadn't signed up for anything with them! I have not been on them much since they stopped offering Swagbucks as rewards.

 

[pigletto]

I get anywhere from $50 to $75 a month through Swagbucks. I started in June and just hit $300 in my Paypal account.

Checkout51.. I just cashed out for a $50 check. I'd say that takes me about 4 or 5 months.

Change Jar.. When we are closing in on a trip I throw bills in there too. I will have about $125 in there for our trip next month. Not too bad considering I emptied it in May for Disney.

The biggest one for me is Airmiles (it's a Canadian program). By shopping promos carefully and following along with my fellow airmiles collectors in the Canadian forum I get a lot out of this program. I've already collected enough points to cash in for two 5 day Disney tickets, and one two day park to park Universal ticket this year. We used one of the Disney tickets in May. My goal for the year will be 4 five day Disney tickets for next years trip.
It's like a game to get the most we can out of that program and we have it down to a science.

 

[jevs]

Direct debit a set amount into a high interest account every week, and we throw all loose change into a change jar.

I do this even if we don't have a planned trip, so it's just automatic now.

 

[GPC0321]

After getting our debt paid down i definitely don't want to get into that mess again. Right now i only use our cards for our normal expenses (cell phone bill, Internet, groceries, gas, basically anything that we would have paid for from our paychecks anyway). I figure this way the rewards would just be extra income.

I've recently jumped on the rewards card train. I had to do something a little controversial though. I've had my Chase Freedom card forever, like, even before it was technically a "Freedom" and was just a Chase Visa. It was my first cc, compliments of my parents for me to use when I went to college. Well, since they were payingg the bill, I didn't understand the consequences of my spending. Not that I spent outrageously, just that I was spending more (gas, food, books) than they were paying each month, and the balance grew (so did the limit). As a young adult, out of college, I continued using the card (making payments myself now), and racked up even more of a balance. I couldn't see a way out of the vicious cycle. Eventually, a couple of years ago, I just stopped using the thing completely and paid at least the minimum, but always tried to pay more and threw as much extra money at it as I could. This led to a lowered balance, but I was still nowhere near paying it off. It seemed like a time would come along when I'd need it (living paycheck to paycheck, no emergency fund), and there my balance went again...up, up, up.
So, earlier this month, I went to tmy credit union and got a personal loan to pay off the card. Sure, it's just moving the debet around, but the interest rate was half of the interest rate on the card, and my monthly payment is less than the minimum on my card. I can pay it off early with no penalty, so I figure I'm in about the same boat with the added benefit of being able to now use that card again (much more responsibly) for daily expenses that I'd usually pay out of my checking account. I can earn rewards once again, and therefore I'm somewhat better off than before when I was paying on a high-interest card that I couldn't use.
I've added the Southwest and Disney cards to my purse and use those for their sign-up bonuses, and will return to the Freedom card once those are met. And my credit score, despite the loan and the iquiries, has risen slightly from the high 700's to just over 800. So overall, I think I made a god choice.
Credit cards, especially rewards cards, are fantastic if you're disciplined. Now that I'm all grown up (LOL) I understand how to use them and make them earn me money instead of costing me money.

 

[kathy884]

I'm someone who except for some regular things I charge every month (expenses that are very predictable, reoccurring expenses and gas), pays cash for everything or records charges and has them come out of a fund that will be used to pay for the charge. I've always paid off balances every month, etc. on credit cards and as an experiment decided to for about six months try to charge everything to get more frequent flyer point.

lol -- I hated that and went back to my old system. I did get more Southwest points, but for me and my bean counter personality, I felt like I had lost control of my finances. I found that I was sometimes scrambling and taking money out of funds I didn't intend to, to pay my credit card bills. That was never the case with my old system.

I'm back to my old system now and feel in better control of my financial life, but do pay cash for lots of things that I could be getting CC card points for. It just works and feels better for me, though, to have a good feeling at every moment regarding what I have charged and what fund that money will come out of.

Some people probably have an app or something like that, that works for them and can get the rewards and do a really good job of tracking finances too. I didn't find a system that worked for me, though, and decided that feeling in control of my spending and tracking all non normal credit card charges is a higher priority for me than gaining more frequent flyer points. I didn't want to spend a whole lot of time either trying to come up with a better system, and just went back to a regular weekly trip to the ATM and my spreadsheets, a tried and true method of tracking my finances that I am very comfortable with.

so sad - I don't take full advantage then of freebie points and things offered, but I do have a very predictable vacation fund with monies set aside each pay check to cover any airline ticket I'm planning to purchase.

 

[GPC0321]

I'm someone who except for some regular things I charge every month (expenses that are very predictable, reoccurring expenses and gas), pays cash for everything or records charges and has them come out of a fund that will be used to pay for the charge. I've always paid off balances every month, etc. on credit cards and as an experiment decided to for about six months try to charge everything to get more frequent flyer point.

lol -- I hated that and went back to my old system. I did get more Southwest points, but for me and my bean counter personality, I felt like I had lost control of my finances. I found that I was sometimes scrambling and taking money out of funds I didn't intend to, to pay my credit card bills. That was never the case with my old system.

I'm back to my old system now and feel in better control of my financial life, but do pay cash for lots of things that I could be getting CC card points for. It just works and feels better for me, though, to have a good feeling at every moment regarding what I have charged and what fund that money will come out of.

Some people probably have an app or something like that, that works for them and can get the rewards and do a really good job of tracking finances too. I didn't find a system that worked for me, though, and decided that feeling in control of my spending and tracking all non normal credit card charges is a higher priority for me than gaining more frequent flyer points. I didn't want to spend a whole lot of time either trying to come up with a better system, and just went back to a regular weekly trip to the ATM and my spreadsheets, a tried and true method of tracking my finances that I am very comfortable with.

so sad - I don't take full advantage then of freebie points and things offered, but I do have a very predictable vacation fund with monies set aside each pay check to cover any airline ticket I'm planning to purchase.

Yeah, I can understand. I had to really study up on this and think about it before I committed myself to it. I have coworkers and friends who do everything on credit cards and just pay the balances off, and they swear by it. So far, so good, for me. I am hyper-aware of my spending now, which honestly, is an improvement. It seemed like money in my checking account used to disappear without me realizing where it went (swiping the debit card here and there for little things really added up). Now, every time I purchase something or pay a bill, I contemplate which card to use (depending on what type of reward/bonus I'm chasing), and I check my accounts online daily. For the Southwest and Disney cards, I have a target monthly spend that I will not exceed and that will get me to my minimum spend to activate those sign-up bonuses. For instance, I've reached this month's goal for the SW card, so groceries and gasoline for the rest of the month will go on the Disney card to meet that (much smaller) spending requirement. I use very, very little cash (my farrier gets a check every 6-8 weeks for trimming my horses' feet, that's about it), and once my automated payments for mortgage, vehicle, insurance, etc.) come out of my account, the rest of that money sits untouched until I pay the credit card balances. I just make sure to always have more than enough in my checking to cover the upcoming payment. So, in essence, the credit cards are like debit cards, just with some great perks!

 

[calypso726]

Yeah, I can understand. I had to really study up on this and think about it before I committed myself to it. I have coworkers and friends who do everything on credit cards and just pay the balances off, and they swear by it. So far, so good, for me. I am hyper-aware of my spending now, which honestly, is an improvement. It seemed like money in my checking account used to disappear without me realizing where it went (swiping the debit card here and there for little things really added up). Now, every time I purchase something or pay a bill, I contemplate which card to use (depending on what type of reward/bonus I'm chasing), and I check my accounts online daily. For the Southwest and Disney cards, I have a target monthly spend that I will not exceed and that will get me to my minimum spend to activate those sign-up bonuses. For instance, I've reached this month's goal for the SW card, so groceries and gasoline for the rest of the month will go on the Disney card to meet that (much smaller) spending requirement. I use very, very little cash (my farrier gets a check every 6-8 weeks for trimming my horses' feet, that's about it), and once my automated payments for mortgage, vehicle, insurance, etc.) come out of my account, the rest of that money sits untouched until I pay the credit card balances. I just make sure to always have more than enough in my checking to cover the upcoming payment. So, in essence, the credit cards are like debit cards, just with some great perks!

Credit cards are our method of saving money on the vacation budget too. We pay nothing with cash if we can help it. Of course we also pay balances in full every month. We focus on cards that earn miles and points and try to use those cards to purchase Disney GCs at a discount when possible. For example, we care currently using the Freedom card which is 5x points for wholesale clubs to purchase Disney gift cards at a 5% discount and get the 5x points that we will transfer from the Freedom account to our Chase Sapphire Preferred card and then transfer to an airline partner. We will load the Disney GCs into a DVA and earn a further 2% in Disney gift cards back for every $1,000 we spend out of there. We also apply for credit cards to earn large bonuses and then either cancel or product change them to a no fee card if they don't have value for us long term. Playing this game has allowed us to accumulate and maintain over 2 million points and miles between us and take some pretty amazing vacations for less out of pocket since we don't worry about airfare.

Following along in this thread since using apps to save and get cash back is all new to me. Travel hacking with credit cards and exploiting bonus categories for spending I understand. If there is a way to earn cash back on purchases that doesn't impact earning points and miles for me I sure would like to learn.

 

[Narnia_girl]

Credit cards are our method of saving money on the vacation budget too. We pay nothing with cash if we can help it. Of course we also pay balances in full every month. We focus on cards that earn miles and points and try to use those cards to purchase Disney GCs at a discount when possible. For example, we care currently using the Freedom card which is 5x points for wholesale clubs to purchase Disney gift cards at a 5% discount and get the 5x points that we will transfer from the Freedom account to our Chase Sapphire Preferred card and then transfer to an airline partner. We will load the Disney GCs into a DVA and earn a further 2% in Disney gift cards back for every $1,000 we spend out of there. We also apply for credit cards to earn large bonuses and then either cancel or product change them to a no fee card if they don't have value for us long term. Playing this game has allowed us to accumulate and maintain over 2 million points and miles between us and take some pretty amazing vacations for less out of pocket since we don't worry about airfare.

Following along in this thread since using apps to save and get cash back is all new to me. Travel hacking with credit cards and exploiting bonus categories for spending I understand. If there is a way to earn cash back on purchases that doesn't impact earning points and miles for me I sure would like to learn.

I'm so impressed with your CC knowledge and how you have used them to your advantage. I've been reading/studying the other thread daily trying to learn as much as I can. #cclifegoals

 

[nursejackie]

The main thing I do is buy a $25 Disney gift card every week at Kroger when I buy our groceries. I don't really notice the $25 out of our budget and then we have all our spending money tucked nicely away for our trip.

Wow what a great idea, I just wish we could buy gift cards in dollars over here in England too

 

[crazymomof4]

I do Swagbucks and Perk all day long while I'm home. Avg about $4-5/day w/o much effort, more if I have the time to do extra offers/surveys.

I use airline credit card sign-up bonuses to pay for flights. Have done SouthWest and Frontier so far.

If there is a really great sign up offer from another cc I'll do that. Like last year I did the "Thank You" card which gave you a choice of several $500 gift cards as your bonus. One of them was Target, so I used that to by Disney GC.

We use cc rewards to the max. We pay off each month so no interest paid. We put everything we can on them even things like school tuition and utility bills (as long as there is no fee for doing it). Once bought a vehicle using cc's, paid them off and earned the rewards-- free $! Our main card is the Citi Double Cash which earns 2% total when you pay it off each month. That's on every purchase, no limit. I also occasionally sign up for the 5% cashback on quarterly categories from other cards. Like right now Chase Freedom has 5% on Sam's purchases. Every once in a while Discover will toss a promo at me bc I rarely use their card. Once it was $200 cashback for putting X amount of dollars on the card over 4 months. Ok... I'll take that!

Change jar- less than it used to be since I started packing DH's lunches! But that in itself is a savings and better for him too!

Yard sales- Last weekend DH put out some of his power tools and fishing stuff that were "just laying around" (his words) and we made $290 in a few hours.

Based on this thread....I want to look into the grocery apps bc with 6 of us in this household I buy a lot of groceries! Also, the mystery shopper stuff. We have a lot of shopping areas within a short drive.

 

[crazymomof4]

One tip about cc rewards Look into your specific cc rewards details. Some have (but don't make a point of shouting it out) a "tiered reward" system. http://www.creditcardchaser.com/tiered-rewards/ Discover used to do this and is the reason why I stopped using them. They may have changed. Haven't checked recently.

 

[potterfanatic]

1) We pay our kid's chore money into our Disney vacation Minnie Mouse piggy bank. (They asked for us to do it)
2) I work a freelance job and I work an extra hour a week and put that money away for vacations.
3) We take all of our cans and bottles to a beverage redemption center to get our deposit back, all that money goes into the Minnie jar.
4) Walmart Savings Catcher. Once I hit $25 I buy a Disney gift card with it.

 

[BjBaseball12]

Im a longer time user of Swagbucks and earn about $50/month

Mpoints-I earn $10 gift card a week. There are a ton of mpoints app and its super quick/easy

Mercari-I sell all of the stuff we no longer use

And a huge helper this month is referral bonus from my bank. Navy federal gives me $50 (and the new customer $50 also) just for using my access code when opening an account. They are a wonderful credit union so its a win win. I referred 5 when they had the special in June and that $250 hit the week I was at disney in July! that was a huge help

 

[Moramoon]

Thanks for all the tips! I'll look into some of the credit cards that have been mentioned. I need to work on purging some things out of our house too so maybe there's some extra money to be found selling things as well. I know of a few things that have just been sitting in a box that I should be able to make about $300 off of. I'll probably look into buying a small amount into a savings account as well. Since our next trip is a couple years away I know it will add up quick, especially since we won't really notice it at the time.

 

[mich311e]

I use Swagbucks & Perk daily but just have 2 extra phones. So I cash out about $50 a month on Swagbucks. I cash out for a discounted $25 Target gift card and turn that into Disney gift cards at Target. For my one phone on Perk I get maybe $5-$10 a month.

I use Ibotta, Checkout 51, Reciept Pal, Reciept Hog, Shopkick, Checkpoints(although this is a slow earner, I'm going to delete when I cash out). Most of my extra money goes to the Disney Fund.

I use the MyPoints.com site and I earned a $50 Choice privledges gift card there. For shopping portals I either use Swagbucks, MyPoints, or Ebates.

I sell on local "Swip Swap" & garage sale Facebook sites.

I also sell on eBay but I'm using that $$$ for a non-Disney cruise in the spring.

We have a change jar - that's how we paid for our Mickey's Halloween Party tickets!