How do you pay for your Disney trip?

[ohanaMAMA]

We are doing several things. I am making payments every week or so.. on the debit card. NO charging at ALL. I am CONVINCED that we can pay ahead for EVERYTHING this time. I get after trip blues pretty bad.. and I think a big part of it is having to PAY after we come back.

I started couponing and am putting every cent I save into our vacation fund. In two weeks? Ive added $40! It might not seem like much.. but thats FREE money that I got for just putting out the effort to clip the coupons.

We are also saving by not going out to eat as often, thats an additional 50 a week into the fund. It gets to be like a game.. Just HOW MUCH can we save?

 

[budbeerlady]

We book with the $200 down, then I pay $25 each time we are paid. We usually book the 1st of the yearish and dont travel until fall so we have plenty of time to have it paid off. We pay for it all with cash, even the airline tickets with the debit cards.

 

[andrews_dad]

I sell a kidney on the black market. I sell naming rights to my kids on Ebay. Then I scrape all of the loose change from the local wishing well.

 

[Weluvdisny]

This is how we pay for our Disney trips:

1. We have a Disney Visa to get the reward points

2. Sunshine Rewards for Disney gift cards

3. Save change

4. Put $25/week into a savings account

5. Found another website to do daily paid clicks for quick easy $-SimpleGPT

6. Make my own laundry soap

7. Bought a woodstove last year and cut/chop our own trees so no big National Grid bill in the winter

8. Clip coupons, go to each store in my area that has the deals or bring my ads to Wal-Mart to price match

9. I'm taking a Defensive Driving Course online right now to save 10% on my car insurance. Each driver in my house can do it and we'll save 10%/per person

 

[calena]

We use credit card points for whatever we can. We live in Canada so our credit cards are Canadian, but we paid for our flights (100 percent) with credit card points on one card. Got tickets through Airmiles (another card) and are staying in a timeshare from my folks. So when you look at what we have saved we get a half price vacation. Staying at a timeshare is great because we save on food. The kids each get one souvenier we buy and $20 to spend on their own.

 

[PrncessA]

Last year we used some savings for our first trip. This year we created a Disney savings and after paying the deposit I deposit at least $200 every two weeks plus our tax refund went directly into the Disney Savings. This will definatly give us OVER what we need for trip and it will continue to collect for emergencies or our next trip. If we end up with extra money at the end of the month when all of our bills are paid we take about half of that and deposit it into savings as well.


I also do surveys, MyPoints and refund sites all of that money and gift cards go toward Disney as well.

 

[duketennisgal]

Normally I just put a small amount in my savings each paycheck and then use my tax refund to finish paying for the trip. This year I'm using my bonus check to pay for my trip, but I'm still putting the money I normally would for the vacation into savings. This way I'll have plenty extra if I need it, if I don't need it I'll have a good start on the next trip. Maybe we'll get to stay in a deluxe one year, although we are staying at SoG which room wise seems to be just as good.

 

[saradela]

Usually I go to buy my food at the supermarket, and grab anything I like, but when I only have 4 months to pay for Disney, every 15 days, I make my food calendar, and go to buy EXACTLY what I will need every day, NO MORE, and I save around 400 dollars a Month in food. That is 1600 dollars, then, I do a Garage sale, and Kids help not asking for a lot of candy.

 

[dd50]

I save it but not purchasing things that I don't really need and not eating out. When my kids ask for something I say no because we are going to Disney. I like to have it all paid off except for a few expenses when I am there and pay them off when I get my credit card bill. I try to budget way more for food so we always have enough and some extra when we are there. Nothing more stressful than charging your vacation and coming home and trying to figure out how to pay for it.

 

[heatherleigh]

We save up all our money prior to the trip so we don't have to charge anything. I like booking w/ WDTC because I can make little payments up until a month before the trip. I'll put $50 in here and there whenever I have it, and it adds up. This time, I'm taking $3K of our tax return and setting it aside for our fall trip. I will open up a savings and stick it in there for now, as we do not have a vacation fund acct. I don't plan on booking until July, when all the deals come out.

 

[wdwfan16]

We never vacation without already having the cash. We pay the hotel, tickets, airfare and the like before we go. All we spend is for food and purchases. We charge them as well as the earlier things. All are paid off on the next billing cycle with the money we have already saved.

 

[brandip22]

We are DVC members, so that part is paid for. I am buying APs this year, which is a chunk. However, we'll get at least 2 trips out of them. For one of the APs, we will be exchanging a 2 day MYW plus hopper ticket I got from my bank debit card rewards program. I also have been buying Disney GCs from Walgreens every payday. Starting next month, I'll buy one AP a month (just two will be left) and then the same amount will go to the savings account for the rest of our trip. We do not have CCs at all, so we certainly won't charge anything. However, I don't want to spend more than we have on GCs, so we are really working to get plenty of those purchased.

 

[DisneyMomma81]

For our 1st trip to the World my mom came with us so she and I split the hotel costs in 1/2, she paid for her MYW ticket and I paid for mine and my kids (only had 1 day in the package and upgraded upon checking in) we had free dining which really helped. She and I both made payments with our debit cards (the deposit was made using my mom's Disney Visa). My mom had enough Sky Miles for her and my DS to fly for free ~ that really helped, I purchased airfare for DD & I using my debit card. For our next visit *WDW* ~ fall 2011 I'm thinking, I'll use a big chunk of my 2010 tax refund. For DLR trips ~ the past few years we've gone a couple times each year - AP's help ~ lower priced hotels ~ I try not to spend more than $60 per night, I purchase and/or add $$ to Disney gift cards/character meal vouchers as a way of pre paying for meals, souvies.

 

[ohlas]

Book a full price trip on disney.com divide that in to payments before 45 days is up buy gift certicates at grocery store till payed in full. easy really. oh a hope that disney gives me a code. oh plz disney i want a good discount plz.... give kids disney dollars allowance to spend on gifts. my points rewards normally gives me a free meal at rainforest cafe for filling out survey every year about 100.oo in gc

 

[Goofy'slady]

Can you say TAX REFUND? I know it might not be a popular thing to do around here but hey - to each his own, right? I do however put our deposit on our CC and then pay it off the rest when we get our tax refund.

For spending money we save for it and this year we got both of our girls Disney gift cards as stocking stuffers and they have a set amount on each to use however they please; once it's gone it's gone. We're on the dining plan so we have all of our meals pre-paid and that works for us. I do however include dining tips and mousekeeping tips in along with our saving for spending.

T.

 

[KELLY]

We have been booking bounce back offers before we leave we pay the 200.00 deposit. Than starting after christmas I start putting 50.00 a week on the trip. We usually stay moderate and go every year. Airfare I usually just take that money out of are fun savings.
So far this year paid for airfare and owe around 1100.00 on our trip in September. This works for us as we use to be heavy cc users and are down to one credit card left.

 

[littlbugmom]

We've been using our tax refund. This year's vacation will be paid for as soon as our refund comes in.


But we've recently changed our withholdings. We always get really BIG tax refunds. Our financial planner finally convinced us that getting $10,000 in a tax refund isn't the best way to go.


So......we've changed our witholdings and expect a much smaller return next year. That means we'll have to save for the vacation. I like the idea of an automatic withdrawal into a vacation account. We go to Disney every other year, so it shouldn't be too hard to save the money.

 

[Swimalie]

We have been putting $150 in an account every month for years now with no purpose for the money. This is in addition to other savings that we have. So we charged the trip on our Costco American Express (to get cash back from that) and when the bill comes, we will pay off the card in full, like we do every month.

 

[aggielawyer]

I live my financial life the old fashioned way--I don't buy things unless I have the cash to pay for them. So I save up and pay for the trip before I leave.

 

[tinkmom2]

Our WD cruise is in 2011 so I put the $800 deposit on that and am going to pay $100/month on that unil we get our taxes next year which are around $7000.00 and pay the trip off. Then I am going to book us at Pop and wait to pay it off until free dining comes up and take advantage of that. We are also going to MNSHP(around $250/4 of us to go) plus I will need about $600/ shipboard expenses and spending money for WDW. I am taking 2010 as a year off from Disney to save up we had both a bounceback cruise and a 3 day WDW vacation this past November. Every payment I make is with my Chase rewards card where I get 4xs the number of points for each purchase.