How Do You Pay For Your DISNEY VACATION?

[KELLY]

We stayed at POP last year during free dining. Also doing the same this year. Airfare in September seems to be pretty resonable. IT was 800.00 for 4. Our package at pop for 9 nights for 2 adults,one child and a infant was 1667.00 with free dining.

I just pay what I can every month. Some months I pay more than others. This month I only paid 50.00. But I only have 225.00 left to go. With almost 4 months left to pay. Some how every year we manage to go.I do use the tax refund for airfare. My girls get giftcards and when I can I throw a 5.00 bill in there banks. So usually by the time we go they have 150.00 or so each. I get GC for Christmas ect I save for my souviners. I don't make my girls pay for things like hairwraps,facepaints so we bring another 600-800 for whatever we may need. I will make my older dd pay for 1/2 of her bbb. I think she already has 1/2 saved just in her bank.

We use to use our tax return every year and stay mod or deluxe. But we are commited to being debt free by feb 2011. With only our mortgage as debt.

 

[ML_LovesDisney]

When we went in February, we booked in October and just made payments on it everytime we had extra $$. I also restricted myself from spending on random stuff and impulse buys like clothes and shoes we didn't really NEED but I just wanted. Tried to eat out less and pack my lunch for work. And now we joined DVC so it's just our monthly payment which is nice.

 

[MadtownMama]

bonuses.

 

[Mrs.Reese]

We don't use the credit cards, no cable, very little eating out, coupons for everything (oil changes, restaurants, dry cleaning, etc. For the first time in about 2 years I actually went out and bought some new work clothes. We decided as a couple when we got married that we would rather go places than sit at home with fancy toys.

 

[myAAbatteries&aTD]

We have a timeshare so stay there for the amount of the RCI exchange fee (I know, plus our monthly upkeep but it's not much). For us, it's a great bargain.....

Buy 10-day no-expiry park hoppers which last us 2 trips. This last time I added the Water Parks and More so we will actually get LOTS more days to use that will last FOREVER. We did the Give A Day for this trip and will use the $79 toward our Park Hoppers. I usually buy from Undercover Tourist to save money, though.

Garage Sale money and Ebay and/or Craiglist (I used to pay for our entire trip with Ebay money, but now I run a business so don't have the time for that anymore). Try to do this right before we go for spending money. Last time we made over $500 in one Saturday morning.

Disney Rewards from Chase Visa - I use my card for business, of which I charge A LOT (and then immediately pay it off so there is never any interest charged). We will have about $1800, which will pay for our 10-day tickets above. We usually use our rewards for food and don't have to pay out of pocket for that when we're there, but it's the time to buy tickets so that comes first.

Change banks (Disney-themed of course!) for all the FUN stuff in the parks. My kids love putting money in for Mickey bars and souveniers!

We drive and take sandwich stuff for lunches on the way down, eat out at night, get hotels with breakfast included. It's fun and the kids like stopping at all the rest areas in the different states.

My daugthers do surveys for KidzEyes and earn spending money from them. Pretty neat and fun.

We do take a few snacks in, esp. some fruit (learned this after spending almost $20 in fruit in one day!) and water and just little munchie-type things they can eat in lines.

We end up paying very little "out-of-pocket" once we get there, esp. on the trip when we already have our tickets!

 

[Planogirl]

I have a trick that works well for us. DH and I are both paid biweekly. I budget everything for two paychecks per month which leaves an extra two paychecks for each of us per year. I use that for anything we HAVE to repair but with luck I can use most of it for trips.

 

[Evi]

We plan our vacations almost a year out and then pay it off over the year. we also dip a little of tax return for vacation.

 

[kristenrice]

Here's my Vacation Savings Plan...

1) MyPoints: If we are driving down, I use these for a $100 Marriott gift card to cover at least one night's hotel stay. If we fly, I use them for $100 worth of Landry's cards. That way, we can have at least one, maybe two, meals paid for.

2) American Express Blue Sky Rewards: Generally, this amounts to about $200 for each trip. We can redeem them for anything "travel" related, including anything we charge to the room. So, if we fly, it goes towards airfare. If we drive, it goes towards another hotel night on the road, and anything we want to charge to the room while at WDW.

3) Disney Visa Rewards: I usually wind up with about $100 of these. Since I opened the AMEX account, I use that as my primary card and use my Visa where AMEX isn't accepted. These rewards go towards our dining budget.

4) Sunshine Rewards: What a great place to earn some $$$! I really started cracking down and working on the surveys last November. Since then, I have earned over $250 in free money. That was with 3 surveys a day, now there are 5 so I can earn even more. I cash in the rewards to my PayPal account so that I can use them for anything I want.

5) Direct Deposit: $50 every two weeks goes into the vacation savings account. That's $1300 a year which would cover our park tickets.

6) Change jar and Pop Bottle refunds: Living in Michigan, we pay a $0.10 deposit on all of our soda bottles and cans. When I return them, I take the refund and plop it into the savings account. DH and I drink a lot of soda so we end up with about $3-$4 a week in refunds. (Of course, we'd save a LOT more if we'd just give up the soda habit)

I astounded my family this past April. We took a 9-night trip (which included 5 nights at AKV and 4 nights in various other hotels on the road) over Easter week. We ate out and did not use the room for meals. We bought souvenirs, took a pony ride and rented Sea Raycers at FW, ate 6 TS meals including Boma (twice) and LeCellier. All total, I had to take less than $700 from our vacation account to cover the trip! Granted, we still had our AP's, a TiW card and our DVC so that covered a lot of it, but I used over $1000 in rewards which amounted to over 50% of our vacation cost.

 

[Pluto 2]

overtime,overtime,overtime, oh did i mention overtime

 

[mrsklamc]

To make all that money on SR are you creating separate emails? Or do you get tons of spam/phone calls? It's not worth survey money to me if that's going to happen.

 

[polineedyan]

[/Quote Anyone know of a good deal for a van?[/QUOTE]

Go on mousesavers. We always rent from dollar or budget and there are always codes on that site. I think 5 days was 260 last time we went..

 

[kristenrice]

To make all that money on SR are you creating separate emails? Or do you get tons of spam/phone calls? It's not worth survey money to me if that's going to happen.

The surveys do not ask for your phone number or address. I haven't noticed a lot of spam, but when I do, I just open it and "unsubscribe". If you are new to SR, I would recommend creating a new e-mail address specifically for it, in case you do start getting unwanted mail. For me, I really don't mind a little extra e-mail (which is easily deleted) if it means I can earn $100/month for Disney. If you complete all five surveys each day, you earn a total of $3.40 so if you do even half of that each month, you'll earn over $50. I've earned $30 this month alone (and I was on vacation for the first 10 days so I didn't start until the 11th) and only about $4 of that was from purchases.

 

[mrsklamc]

I have heard it is bad to click the 'unsubscribe' link because it can just confirm to spammers that you have a valid email and result in more spam. I wonder if the emails you enter in surveys have to be the same one you used to sign up. I will have to think about it more.

We can pay cash, but I think it would be fun to pay for an entire trip with nothing out of the regular budget just to see if I could do it.

 

[sjnocill]

We are mainly using our tax return. But we have made several changes over the last few years just to cut corners. One big change we made a year ago was getting rid of the satellite. We were paying $60/month for TV. We put up an antenna and use the computer to watch TV now. The kids have 2 channels to watch, PBS Kids and Qubo. We also have the cheapest NetFlix option and they watch a lot of movies from the website. My biggest concern was sports but I have found that it is actually better now. For the first time ever, I was able to watch every Duke basketball game this past year on the computer or local TV. And I have more options for NFL games now on local TV.

 

[arielmomma]

We go on our tax refund, primarily. We also have a cashbuilder credit card that we pay off each month. We are barely middle class, but we have no debt. We live rather frugally the rest of the year (old paid off cars, no cable or satellite, rarely eat out, garage sales, etc). We have now started to drive down. We take advantage of offers like free dining or camping discounts (this summer anyway). We do not buy souveniers.

We have simply made vacationing a priority in our lives (with saving for retirment and college of course!)

 

[sjnocill]

We go on our tax refund, primarily. We also have a cashbuilder credit card that we pay off each month. We are barely middle class, but we have no debt. We live rather frugally the rest of the year (old paid off cars, no cable or satellite, rarely eat out, garage sales, etc). We have now started to drive down. We take advantage of offers like free dining or camping discounts (this summer anyway). We do not buy souveniers.

We have simply made vacationing a priority in our lives (with saving for retirment and college of course!)

We do a lot of the same. We don't eat out much. Our 2 vehicles have been paid for, for a couple years now. We are driving down and looking at some of the hotels right outside of Animal Kingdom.

 

[deerhart]

lets see, in 2008 we used tax return and then I traded in lots of my frequent flyer and hotel points to get our airfare on the cheap (I spent a grand total of $250 to fly 4 people to Orlando and that was because I had to pay 2/3rds of one ticket).

Last year, I paid $200 every paycheck for 4 months (from booking to pay off) and then paid the rest out of the savings account (had to pay taxes last year).

This year, refund went to Disney

 

[loveysbydesign]

We use our tax refund for vacation every year..usually to WDW or for a cruise!

 

[andrews_dad]

How do I pay for vacation? With money. HAHA

 

[Ryansdad0727]

I put $200 per month in a special travel account. This money is only used for vacation purposes. It usually covers most of it. I also have a Worldmark and DVC timeshares so the cost of lodging is not too bad anymore. I also buy everything with a discover card and save up my points and use them for travel. It usually ends up being $600 per year.