How Do you pay for your vacations?

[HappyLawyer]

I like to have fun when i vacation and i spend a lot when we are in Florida, I never use any of my paycheck to pay for the trip. When i was in college i used my financial aid -what was left over to go to disney. NOw i still find ways without using my check, I save my change in a mop bucket, and i mystery shop, it is fun and you can pull between 0-1000.00 depending on how much time you put into it-maybe more. Since we go to disney every other year we are able to save up quite a bit of change but because we stay there almost the entire month, the money does go fast. Anyway, this is what i use to buy tickets, cruise, villas, etc... does anyone else have any unique or normal ways they pay off their vacations?

 

[sk!mom]

I like to have fun when i vacation and i spend a lot when we are in Florida, I never use any of my paycheck to pay for the trip. When i was in college i used my financial aid -what was left over to go to disney. NOw i still find ways without using my check, I save my change in a mop bucket, and i mystery shop, it is fun and you can pull between 0-1000.00 depending on how much time you put into it-maybe more. Since we go to disney every other year we are able to save up quite a bit of change but because we stay there almost the entire month, the money does go fast. Anyway, this is what i use to buy tickets, cruise, villas, etc... does anyone else have any unique or normal ways they pay off their vacations?

That's a lot of change I can't imagine saving enough change to fund a vacation. I would, also, point out that you are actually spending your paycheck assuming that you earned that change at your job and didn't rob a wishing well.

We fund our vacations by budgeting a certain amount of our earnings toward vacations.

 

[diznee25]

You must be pretty busy to fund your entire vacation without using any of your paychecks! I couldn't do it.

We take a certain amount from our paycheck and sock it into savings acct. every month. Since we are Disney Chase card members, we also earn Disney Reward dollars to use towards our trip. I'm hoping to have around $300 Reward dollars by our next trip.

I'll also sock away birthday money, and any money I get from Christmas into my vacation fund. And the company I now work for, gives all employees a yearly bonus check. It's pretty hefty, and that will go towards my vacations.

Diznee25

 

[Alice's Mom]

I had heard if you only spend paper money and save change it can accumulate to about $30/month so my daughter and I decided to put change into a jar for 3 months for extra spending money at WDW, and we saved $132.00!

WDW was our first big vacation and I used my tax return to fund it.

 

[newchic99]

This year we paid for our vacation with our income tax refund(we don't usually get one), my coupon savings, pinecone surveys, and rebates. Extra spending money comes from the change jar and a yard sale.
Next year DH claims we are going to Las Vegas on vacation. Don't know about that. My heart belongs to Disney.

 

[twoeeyy]

I sell on Ebay to pay for our vacations. We go once a year and have never had to put in any ' other ' money

 

[jimmiej]

IRS refund
I'm a house painter part-time
save change
Credit card rewards
I work every Spring for a local music festival
save some from regular budget
use codes, etc. to save $$$

 

[HappyLawyer]

thanks for telling about your savings tips, thanks everyone

 

[HappyLawyer]

That's a lot of change I can't imagine saving enough change to fund a vacation. I would, also, point out that you are actually spending your paycheck assuming that you earned that change at your job and didn't rob a wishing well.

We fund our vacations by budgeting a certain amount of our earnings toward vacations.

Ok, thanks for pointing that out.

 

[kkaisu]

My DD13 and I are going in July of 2006, so we have 11 months.

We have quit eating out every week, I have always taken my daughter out to eat every other Friday or Saturday night. We have stopped this and stopped fast food every week so we can put this money to our trip about $80.00 to $100.00 a month.

Saving all change - $10-$20 a month, this will be some of our spending money.
My mom is buying our plane tickets for Christmas $500.00.

I am paying in installments since it is a group trip with the dance studio, so this also helps me with budgeting.

 

[disneysteve]

We don't keep separate or special accounts for different things. All incoming money goes into our checking account. When the balance in there is more than needed for routine bills, I transfer some to our money market account. If that balance gets bigger than needed for our emergency fund, then it gets invested somewhere.

We pay for vacations the same way we pay for everything else. We charge every expense we possibly can on one of two reward cards. We always pay the CC bills in full each month so we never carry a balance or pay any finance charges.

As for saving change, we do that but it really isn't a big deal for us since we rarely pay cash for anything. I don't see the point in paying cash when I can use my CC and get the reward points for purchases I'm making anyway.

 

[canwegosoon]

I Save several ways
1)Coin Jar (sometimes throwing in a couple of bills)...I try to hide $$$ when I get around $50 from DH(try to put it into an intrest account)
2)Savings account- Coin Jar money plus a few dollars each week (we have DVC so I usually need 2000 max)
3)Redeem rewards card from my bank (usually around $120) for souvies/food.
4)Redeem rewards card from Disney Visa (Usually around $80) for food.
5)Frequent flyer miles as possible

 

[EthansMom]

DH gets paid every two weeks. I run my monthly budget off just two paychecks per month. Every six months, DH gets an extra paycheck, which I put right into savings and keep for our vacations. It's painless.

 

[jimmiej]

My DD13 and I are going in July of 2006, so we have 11 months.

So are we! BCV July 2-9, Disney Wonder July 9-13.

 

[zippehsmom]

DH gets paid every two weeks. I run my monthly budget off just two paychecks per month. Every six months, DH gets an extra paycheck, which I put right into savings and keep for our vacations. It's painless.

We do this also. I get paid every two weeks also, so we get what we call 4 "free checks" each year.

We use these for vacations and we also have vacation as a part of our regular budget.

 

[New England Eeyore]

I don't keep a separate account or anything, but in general, my overtime pays for my vacations. When I get the list of OT shifts, it's a lot easier to motivate myself to sign up if I know it's going to help me to see Mickey.

 

[cbrfan]

We don't keep separate or special accounts for different things. All incoming money goes into our checking account. When the balance in there is more than needed for routine bills, I transfer some to our money market account. If that balance gets bigger than needed for our emergency fund, then it gets invested somewhere.

We pay for vacations the same way we pay for everything else. We charge every expense we possibly can on one of two reward cards. We always pay the CC bills in full each month so we never carry a balance or pay any finance charges.

As for saving change, we do that but it really isn't a big deal for us since we rarely pay cash for anything. I don't see the point in paying cash when I can use my CC and get the reward points for purchases I'm making anyway.

I do the same as disneysteve. In addition, I'm buying gift certificates from AirTran to collect enough points for free airfare. We're spending it anyway, might as well collect.

 

[Laurajean1014]

We pay cash for our vacations. We save up for a few months and go, go, go!

 

[sk!mom]

As for saving change, we do that but it really isn't a big deal for us since we rarely pay cash for anything. I don't see the point in paying cash when I can use my CC and get the reward points for purchases I'm making anyway.

I never have change either since we started using reward cards. We pay in full every month. Now when I get say $20 cash for times when I can't use a credit card it takes about a month to spend that $20.

 

[Goobergal99]

OOOO!!!! I gotta participate in this one, I have some very unique ways of paying for Disney trips.

When we went in '93, my dad had passed away and mom decided we all needed a pick me up trip (he had been sick awhile ) So we used some insurance money and stayed 10 nights at the Poly over 4th of July with a lagoon view of the castle.

In '95, we were boring and mom paid for the trip with our tax return and we took my pop and his girlfriend and they paid for food while we were there.

In 00' DH (then DBF) and I saved 1,000 in change and I used some of my college FA money

In 01' My pop-pop passed away and we were very close (he raised me in fact after my DF passed on) He left me money so we went again because we needed some pick me ups

In 04' we used money from my mom's husband dying (they were seperated and he refused to divorce her ) so she got the insurance money, he was a real jerk off and he died on my mom and dads anniversary (ironically enough) Oh and also my uncle sent me money for college graduation so we used some of that too..

This year' after getting engaged in Disney last year DH and I planned a big wedding, got married in June and used our money from the wedding to fund this trip. Oh and of course we are both working full time now since I graduated from school last year so we had plenty of money, in addition DD has saved $300 in change and now had this money in Disney Dollars

Ahh... paying for disney is always an adventure