How do you "earmark" the $ you save for Disney?

[Sydnoahmom]

After losing my job this year, I am now new to budgeting and saving. Fortunately DH still has a great job, but all of our "extra" money is gone. Our trip for June is paid for, but I would like to start planning and saving for the next as soon as we get back.

Do you have separate accounts at the bank that you deposit vacation money? If cable/phone/utilities, etc are lower than budget do you transfer to that account? Same for groceries?

All ideas welcome and appreciated!

 

[bigbabyblues]

It goes in a separate account.

 

[kiramay]

I have multiple separate accounts on auto savings. We use Capital one 360 (formerly ing direct).

 

[worm761]

DH and I have not been married long, only a year and a half. When we married we both had separate savings accounts. His we use for emergency savings/long term goals. Mine we use for short term goals like a vacation. He gives me what we can afford to put away and I put that in my Capital One 360 account.

I haven't worked in 5 years now. It was an adjustment but we worked it out. You will find what works for you. I like having my vacation money separate from household money. I can raid it if I have to like during furloughs and the government shutdown but otherwise it is separate and not really touched or thought about. I shovel everything I can into it. Not much but my pennies add up. I do Swagbucks and shovel that money into my savings on top of what DH gives me.

 

[DetroitDisney]

The best thing I can say is to open a new account and set up a direct deposit. Even if it's something tiny like $50-100 per pay period (thinking bi-weekly pay days), you will find an extra 1300-2600 in that account at the end of the year.

You won't even notice the money not being in your checking account, and you won't have to go through the physical and mental hurdle of "SAVING" manually throughout the year.

Set it and forget it.

 

[4luv2cdisney]

A large part of our last trip (about half) was funded by credit card rewards. So, those are easily kept "earmarked".

As for the cash portion, lately I just keep most of our savings in one main account, but break it down in a spreadsheet. So, in my account I'll see the lump sum, but refer to my spreadsheet to see how much I have allocated for vacation and/or whatever other savings goals I have going on at the time.

In the past, I have done everything from multiple accounts to cash envelopes to gift cards to coin jars. I'm liking the spreadsheet for now. I don't have to do that much actual money moving when I find my priorities change or something unexpected comes up.

 

[chris31997]

Spreadsheet: some accounts have multiple things in them. So we break down the money going into that account by % and it is allotted on the spreadsheet.

 

[hsmamato2]

keep a separate account at the same bank,earmarked what it is for,deposit a certain amount from regular budget into it weekly.

 

[ZiPaD3doDAH]

I have a savings account for disney/anything travel related.

That way it's easier to see how much you have left to go to reach your goal or whatnot.

I do an automatic deposit of $100 on the 1st of every month from my checking. It's not much but it's just me who I am funding for and I'm a college student with a part-time job

 

[Shelly F - Ohio]

Direct deposit is the way to go. that way you never see the money. We also have a change jar which we usually end up with close to $250 a year for our Disney trip.

We have a Chase Freedom card that awards us points to be exchanged for gift cards. Different quarters of the year the rewards are 5% more for example next month all gas purchases are 5% per dollar. This past quarter it was Amazon purchases.

 

[tinkmom2]

I've always just paid as I could. I go directly to the Disney site and pay a little here and there. The bulk of it I pay off with taxes. Our next trip is probably about 2 years out but I try to pay at least $20-40 every two weeks.

 

[pixiemama91]

We have 4 different savings accts. Each serves a different purpose, long term/emergency fund, vacation fund, savings for my daughter, and miscellaneous savings acct. Each of these are automatically funded on a weekly basis.

Our vacation account, we transfer $10/week, plus any found money which could be overtime pay, bonus, tax refund etc. I just deposited a refund check for a medical bill that I over payed. Instead of putting it back in our checking I put it in the vacation account.

We also have a change jar that we can usually get $200 for our trip. I also try and not spend any single bills and put them in a jar.

 

[maslex]

I opened a savings club (similar to a Christmas club) at my bank. I get paid every 2 weeks and I have $$$ directly deposited into it. So I don't even miss it out of my paycheck. Technically, I use this to help pay my bills during the summer (I drive school bus, so I only work minimal hours during the summer and this money goes towards what I would normally bring in during the year).

But at my bank we also have "vacation clubs" as well as "Christmas clubs" that work the same way. I think we get the money out of the vacation club somewhere around April/May.

But for the most part, our vacations are paid from our income tax return.

 

[crazelion]

I have a vacation account and savings account. I fund the vacation account from the money i make online and reward programs. All the deposit goes into the vacation account.

 

[mommadeb]

The bulk of our vacations are paid from my annual profit sharing. Of course, some years are better than others so I save during the year, too. I've been putting $50/payday into my CapitalOne 360 savings specifically for vacation.

I also don't ever spend $5 bills. Every time I get one in change, it goes into a jar. That becomes our spending money.

 

[crisi]

I have more accounts than you can shake a stick at - but I don't have a vacation account - we have a savings account that has all our "short term and emergency" savings in it. When that gets too big, it moves over to the money market account attached to our brokerage account.

 

[Jannephotog]

I'm buying gift cards at Target every so often and when I get extra money (like when I got some Christmas money & got paid for babysitting). I'm also going to re tweak my budget and get atleast $100 a month til my trip (probably more) and just change pretty much all of it over to gift cards.

 

[pocomom]

Typically we start saving once we have decided to do something and I scale the trip based on what we are able to swing at the time. I recently decided to do an automatic vacation savings account. I just started it with $25 every two weeks, and my bank had the option of adding $1 for every purchase/payment I make with my checking account and debit. It is not much for now, but I plan on upping the amount soon. I love that with online banking I can change amounts, transfer extra out of my checking to the account or I guess even in a pinch transfer money out . No risk, easy savings!
We also use change jars as another painless savings. I throw dollars, fives and an occasional $20 in as well. Always surprised how much it adds up to!

 

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

We have a high-interest savings account at our bank, which we drop surplus money into when DH works a few overtime shifts. We also have a USD account so we can dollar-cost-average our currency conversion and take advantage of when the Canadian dollar is strong.

Then there's a change jar here at the house . Everything from change up to $10's can be tossed in when groceries or normal weekly expenses are less than normal on any particular week.

 

[vdoucet78]

I have a separate savings account for vacation through CapitalOne 360 and a set amount that goes into it along with any extra we can contribute from time to time. But since I recently learned about buying gift cards at Target, I will go that route instead and buy a set amount each time I go grocery shopping.