How Do You Fund Your Trips?

[bjscheel]

We fly on SW points- got the bonuses a few times, do surveys on e-Rewards and put DH's business expenses on the cards. Saves about $1200 airfare each trip.

Other than that, my intention is to put 10% of what I deposit in the bank from my paycheck into a separate online savings account. I have been really bad about not doing that this year, therefore I have very little in it. But they say if you put it away right away, you won't miss it.

 

[LYSE]

Acorns, strategic use of credit cards and the points they earn.

 

[bbak30]

I'm a RN and have a second job. I try to work one extra 12 hour shift a week. It is a lot of money--at least in my world. I'm currently working on paying for 3 vacations next year. I just put down $1100 on our room at The Poly, booked the return portion of our anniversary trip to Las Vegas in May and put down a deposit on our family cruise in July. I figured it out that I only need to work 24 shifts between now and next summer to get it paid for. And that's shifts with no differentials like nights or weekends. Or a bonus, sometimes I get offered $150 or more just for picking up an extra shift. It adds up quickly.
I also put all extra money out of our regular budget to vacations. I don't spend much on clothes, make-up, shoes, etc... So some vacation money does come out of our regular budget from DH's check and my FT check.
This is my FAVORITE thing about being a nurse, lol. I know it sounds silly, but I love having the option to make extra income so quickly and easily. Helps me deal with all the crap I have to put up with on a daily basis.....

 

[wendow]

We are a family of 6 and my dh works for a non-profit. I stay home and I homeschool. Need I say more lol!?! Money is T-I-G-H-T. But we find the money to vacation once a year. That is all we can pull off though. I know plenty of others here post about multiple trips a year. For us, it's one trip. We eat 99% of our meals at home and I make meals that are cheap, like chili, beans & rice, spaghetti, tacos, homemade pizza, burgers & hot dogs, etc. I am extremely budget conscious. I also use credit cards (paid off each month) and use the rewards to offset vacation cost. Without the credit card rewards, there is simply no way we could take a vacation every year.

 

[pjhootch]

Our budget has changed over the years, but the place we consistently tighten up to save for vacations is the food and grocery budget. We very rarely eat out and avoid buying snacks and drinks out of the house. We take coffee thermos or travel mugs to work. We have a patio garden in the summer and eat a ton of home grown vegetables. We rarely eat packaged or prepared type foods, so we do beans from dried bags and tend to buy meat in bulk and use our freezer.

 

[Saimaeve]

I work from home so I don't have expenses for commutes and almost always eat lunch at home. We're a two income family so that helps. We only have one child so our expenses aren't nearly as bad as those with larger families.

We live modestly and try to keep debt low. We travel off season, make use of discounts.

At home, we do not have cable as we don't really watch it. Our internet package is a business account as I depend on it for work, but we don't worry about overages on streaming. We both drive used vehicles, but we combine as much as out driving as possible to cut down on gas expense.

Something that seems extravagant but is actually a huge cost saver is we order our groceries delivered. It's a small surcharge at times, but they often do promo codes for that. This means we don't buy any impulse items, we cut down on having to do maintenance runs as I prepare my list as I'm at home and can add to it before I submit it. This really helps with meal planning.

We eat a lot of fresh vegetables and simple meals; Thai lettuce wraps, vegetable heavy soups, roasted vegetables and chicken. Ingredients that can be used in multiple meals.

Our energy bill is set for peak hour usage. So we get savings on electricity use between 7pm and 12pm, and pay a bit of a premium between 12pm and 7pm. So I make sure to do laundry and dish washing before noon, and we do heavy cooking after 7. (My daughter is in school until 4 so our day is a little later)

We make sure to plan well ahead of time to make it easier to save and adjust expenses as needed.

 

[karen1987]

Like PP's, hard work and overtime and ensuring we save each month for our next holiday, whether Disney or elsewhere.

We've always lived quite frugally, but we're happy living this way, as we prefer to spend our hard earned dollars on experiences such a holiday. Also, cost of living where we live (Rotorua, New Zealand) is quite cheap, but leaving New Zealand and holidaying in the USA is not! But we're happy to spend our money this way and have an awesome experience, which we can remember for years to come

 

[4luv2cdisney]

TBH, I don't think that a Disney vacation is affordable to families that are on tight budgets to begin with. It's expensive to get there (especially if you're coming from Europe) and once here, the cost of tickets, accommodations and dining can be dizzying!

The way that I fund my Disney trips is probably not going to work for you. Everyone's situation is different and what works for one person may not be doable for another.

For example, there was a deal posted today where if you purchase a $150 Best Buy eGC, you got a $15 eGC bonus at a later date. I bought $300 worth of eGCs and I'm contemplating purchasing another $150 to max out the deal. Why Best Buy GCs? Because I can use them to purchase Disney GCs in the store. I can do this because I have the cash available to be able to cover a $450 expense and not think about how I'll pay the electric bill as well. I can't imagine someone who is on a tight budget being able to do this without making huge sacrifices in their daily lives.

I do credit card points and rewards programs to fund most of my Disney fix. It's more of a game (or challenge) to me to see how much of my vacation can be paid for without dipping into our designated vacation savings account. All of our monthly expenses get paid with a rewards credit card. We also own a small business and pay most of our overhead costs with a rewards credit card. We accrue a significant number of points this way. In order to make this worthwhile, every credit card bill gets paid in full each money.

I get anywhere from $75-$100 in cash and GCs each week from online rewards programs that I run while working from home. Some weeks are better than others. Some programs are more consistent than others.

We made our first DVC purchase with cash a few years ago when the real estate market crashed and we made our most recent purchase (again, with cash) this past year before DVC resale prices began to skyrocket. When we have more points available than we think we will use, we rent them out to cover the cost of our annual dues and then some. I use the cash from the rentals to purchase Disney GCs at a discount (like the aforementioned Best Buy deal) and then pay my dues with the GCs.

We buy annual passes. DVC members get a discount and I pay for the APs with Disney GCs that I either got for free using rewards programs or at a discount whenever there's a deal available. We get two or more visits out of an AP and then we (usually) take a year off. It ends up costing less than if we purchased MYW tickets for each visit.

So, quite often when we tally up what we spent on a week-long Disney trip for 2, it comes down to a very small amount of cash from our regular income. 9/11 fees for the airline tickets, which we get for free on points, and a small amount of cash for tipping skycaps, DME drivers, Mousekeeping and bell services are all that we actually pay OOP for. Pretty much everything else is covered with rewards, discounts and our DVC points.

 

[GreatLakes]

My wife and I both work and since our son is not yet school age we travel a few times a year. For Disney I usually have at least one work trip to the area a year so they will come with me most of the time and take advantage of the free hotel. Other than that we usually go down when we know there are deals since we aren't confined to specific times due to kids in school or strict PTO policies at work. If we have an Internet connection either of us could just work from our room when needed and not even take PTO to go.

 

[scrapquitler]

My question to you all is this - how do you fund your Disney lifestyle?

My family income is pretty tight as I am working part time around my children's hours at school. I want to earn more to be able to fund my life/dreams.

So I am curious......how do you do it?

I chain my husband to his laptop and phone 24/7 so he can pay the bills.

I'm kidding about me chaining him there, but he does work very hard, for long hours to provide for us.

 

[agavegirl1]

The main savings is only going every four years. We go other places on the cheap other years.

DHs job requires him to contribute a certain amount per hour, usually around $50 per paycheck to a vacation fund that we have control over because they get no vacation pay when they take time off. I work part time (full time during tax season for 3+ months), I use my Disney Visa for almost everything and pay it off monthly. For the first year after a Disney trip, I use an airlines miles card then switch. Certainly auto pay items stay on the air miles card. I buy Disney gift cards with any extra cash (rebates, gifts, windfalls or a really good below budget week on grocery purchases).

We are not on a tight budget really. We are almost done paying for our townhouse, the cars are paid for, our retirement home is paid for and we have adequate savings and retirement accounts. We just don't like to waste money and DH would be bored silly with WDW more than every four years. It is by far our priciest vacation and we have had wonderful National Park and scenic drive trips as well as camping near home for a change of pace.

 

[GaSleepingBeautyFan]

We own DVC now which does cover most (but not all) of the hotel rooms for the trips I take. Maintenance fees for DVC are a normal part of our budget so I don't have to save up extra for those.
When I take trips that don't involve a DVC stay those are usually shorter and I only book when I can get a moderate room at a discount. I've stayed at value rooms too but don't really like those.

I save for other things like food or tours by selling on Ebay and Craig's list. I'm cleaning out our attic right now and once that is done will be starting on the basement. I'm thinking of trying local facebook groups for selling things too.

I budgeted 20.00 a week "fun" money for myself. I don't always spend it. Quite often I put it away for Disney instead.

Plus I do Swagbucks and get gift cards to spend for things we would normally spend money on - when I use the gift card, I take the cash out of the bank and put that away for Disney. Lately I've been getting paypal gift cards and then transferring the money to our bank account and pulling it out once it's been transferred. We have a safe at our house so I have a safe place to put the cash.
Right now I've been putting my Swagbucks Paypal money away for Christmas. Once I'm done Christmas shopping I'll put it away for Disney again.

I also coupon as much as possible at the grocery store - I have a weekly budget and then try to buy on the sales and coupon. Whatever money I save from that also goes to Disney. This week I was able to save 25.00 which was nice. I don't always get to save that much.

I need to see what others do to get some more ideas - especially since my husband got laid off from work and wants to work on ramping up his business instead of finding a job working for someone else. I may end up having to change my Disney saving ideas to normal paying the bills ideas.

 

[skittles67]

We are lucky my DH can work overtime. We just take all the extra pay and put it into a vacation account.

 

[magical-me]

I work more than 2 jobs at least 90 hours every 2 weeks, but it’s worth it. It allows me to vaca every 2-3 months

 

[kkmcan]

I sell on ebay and that money has always been our vacation money. If I want to go somewhere I bust my rear end to sell, sell, sell.
-Secondly, we can drive to DL. Being about 8 hours away means we can be there by dinner time and make a long weekend of it. We don't need a full week or even more than 3 days to do DL. Thats cuts out a lot of money when you only need to buy 2 or 3 days tickets.
-My inlaws own a timeshare and if they have enough available points we book 1 of the 3 available Disneyland area hotels using those and it makes it free for us.
- Lastly, we religiously use our Disney Visa for everything and pay off every month. We rack up $700-$800 per year in reward dollars. That means our tickets could be free or mostly paid for. We like to pay for 2 of the tickets ourselves, use rewards for 2 tickets and keep the rest of the reward dollars to use in the parks.

I know WDW takes a lot more money. For sure, it would for us being that we are in Arizona and would need to fly and stay for a week. But this scenario still works the same for us. We use our Capital One miles towards our flights, book the inlaws timeshare and use our Disney rewards from our Visa for tickets and food. If we are planning a WDW trip we take a year off from DL to save for the WDW trip.

 

[superme80]

Family members die and leave us money. Not the best way, but it happens. Thankfully this next trip will be funded because we sold our house this summer.

 

[trouttigger]

First, I'm loving the creative ideas I'm seeing here. Currently, I'm looking for a part time job. I am sometimes seeing jobs for one day/one time needs. Personally, my ebay sales of items around the house has brought in some $, but not enough for a vacation.

I think cutting expenses where possible is most helpful. I'm surprised at a couple friends who are tight for $ who eat out several times a week. As the SAH parent, I try to make sure I strategize meal planning so that we rarely eat out. I've been looking recently at a website that posts deals and ways to save. Some good ideas there.

 

[MillauFr]

I got rid of our 2nd car 16 years ago. My wife and I rely on using public transit, walking, and bicycle to get around. Saves a ton of money that we use on Disney.

 

[Buzzsgramma]

First off we are retired. 10yrs....I was a SAHM ....my job be frugal...but we did buy.. DVC in 2000..paid cash....even with the yearly dues at almost $1900 for 300 pts..BWV that's still a cheap vacation...a few times a year....ok so that's not an option for everyone......we almost never eat out..ok well Culvers or maybe i order a pizza.......unless we are at WDW....

shopping is a coupon for another 50%off yellow dot at Carson's..usually...clearance or sale are the options...we have always lived below our means...

DH was in construction so the pay was good...he fixes everything he can...he never turned down overtime...

Use the Disney Visa for rewards...buy a TIW card...use UT or buy an AP sometimes..
I had a garage sale every year for about 30 or 40 years.....yes its alot of work...
We have 2 grown kids and 5 adult grandkids...took everyone in May 2017...
This is one of the most important things I told all of them...no debt,unless its your house and 401K as soon as you have a job...sorry if i got off topic..

 

[Julylady]

One of the ways I fund our annual Disney trip is by purchasing Disney gift cards at Target. I shop at Target 1-2 times a month. Each time I shop, I purchase a $50 Disney gift card. I also make sure that all of my cleaning/laundry supplies earn $5 or $10 Target gift cards that I turn into Disney gift cards. Prior to our trip last summer I had accumulated $800 in gift cards which paid our restaurant bills at Disney.

In addition, about 3 months prior to our trip I start tucking away all $5 bills I am given as change. Any time I have a $5 in my wallet, I take it out and put it aside. I saved almost $200 using this tip last spring and used that money for food in the airport and tips (bell services, etc.).

I usually pay for park tickets and airline tickets out of my income tax refund which I earmark for travel. I own DVC, so no need to cover hotel costs.

I hope this helps!