How do you save for Disney?

[MrsRoyale]

So, as I am planning our next trip, I got curious...What are some tips and tricks you use to save for Disney? I started saving when my son was born, 3 years ago, planning for a trip when he turns 5, so I came up with a few ideas that has helped us a lot. I am curious how other people save long time...Maybe I can pick up a few ideas?

Here are mine:

-For flights, I opened up a Chase credit card that gives as 1 point per dollar towards air miles with Southwest, plus 6000 points every anniversary. I also complete online surveys, which also accumulate points towards air miles (I can choose the airline, so I can add them to my Southwest Rapid Rewards account). By the time the trip comes, air fare will be covered with points.

- I buy a Disney gift card every month for $25. By the time the trip comes, I will have accumulated enough to pay for the tickets to the parks.

- I also put $25/month in an "out of sight, out of mind" bank account, which will give me enough money for the Dining Plan.

Next year we will be buying -hopefully- a DVC, so that should help us with lodging.

So what are your saving tips? I would like to know, maybe I can steal a few?

 

[Pesky]

The budget board has some great ideas so might want to check there.
* I opened a Disney visa. Warning: those rewards are not as good as other cards but as DH has miles and hotel points from his business travel, eh, why not? I have saved quite a bit on there as I use it and pay it off every month.
* DH travels a ton for work so his miles are covering our flights.
* I buy GC at Target using my Red Card (debit). Not much now as before but it does save me 5%.
* I routinely have money automatically pulled aside each month into a savings account with a higher interest rate than normal that is a bit more difficult to access (no ready ATMs, no cards). I can direct a transfer but it takes some time. I have upped that over time to serve as our emergency fund and vacation fund.

 

[MrsRoyale]

Oh, I will have to check that board, then! I have read about the GC at Target before, I also read that you could get discounted gift cards at Sam's Club. But it doesn't really save much

 

[Mandi Bartz]

We paid for our large trip with Sams cards. Its 142.98 for every 150. Saved us almost $400. The reason I liked that better than the Target deal is I have a rewards credit card that earns double points at grocery, which they consider Sams but not Target. So that was another $150 roughly that was built up over time doing it too.

 

[AshleeH]

We are DVC members now, but for our first trips, we used tax returns. We saved up so long for our first trip that we had money leftover and it paid for our second trip.

For our cruise, I had been buying one Disney gift card a week for five years with no destination in mind. I just knew we could take a fun vacation at some point - those ended up paying every cent of our 7 night cruise to Alaska. Well worth it! We joined the DVC on that trip, but I keep buying the cards - they can always come in handy. They will now be paying a good portion of my Princess Trip with my daughter next year, freeing up most of my saved funds to really spoil us both with a girly girl vacation.

 

[MrsRoyale]

Buying a card a week seems like a great idea. I figured I spend money in so much unneeded stuff every week, that perhaps I could just switch those funds towards gift cards. Might be worth looking into it.

Has anyone used the Disney Saving Plan?

 

[disneydeal]

Get the Southwest Airlines CC when they offer points promo. Often 50,000 or so points if you spend a certain amount within a time period. I haven't paid for airfare the past 3 trips.

Also at the park get free water and save lots of cash on drinks and stay hydrated in the heat.

 

[disneyjes]

We will use CC's that give us money back.
We use Shopkick and Ibotta.
We buy gift cards at Target with our Redcard to get 5% off.

Doing all of those things saved us a huge chunk last trip.

 

[Pesky]

Buying a card a week seems like a great idea. I figured I spend money in so much unneeded stuff every week, that perhaps I could just switch those funds towards gift cards. Might be worth looking into it.

Has anyone used the Disney Saving Plan?

Do a search on the Disney Savings Plan. There have been a few threads and seem to be somewhat mixed results. YMMV.

 

[MrsRoyale]

Shopkick and Ibotta...are they really worth the effort you have to put in? Can you get enough money back to justify it?

I will checkout the thread on the Disney Savings thing

 

[xlxo]

Buying DIS helps...
https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=DIS&t=5y&l=on&z=l&q=l&c=

 

[Minnie121]

Everytime I get change back from a cash purchase I put aside any $1 and $5 bills. Over time it really adds up. I learned that on the Budget Board. I also have a change jar that is strictly for Disney. I cash it in before a trip and there is at least a few hundred in there.

 

[Happyinwonerland]

I just pick up a few extra shifts at work. 3 or 4 overtime shifts covers my cost. I try to be smart with my paychecks so that there is plenty left over each week anyway.

I do try to make wise decisions when booking my vacation. We stay off site, whis saves hundreds on lodging. I buy tickets on park savers and then bridge those to an AP- that saved me $70/AP. We eat some meals, including all breakfasts, in room (as much to save my waistline as to save money), we bring 2 lunchboxes full of frozen bottled water into the park, we drive instead of fly, and we really don't buy much in the way of souvenirs, because those are just clutter to me, I'd rather have pictures.

 

[MrsRoyale]

The curse of paying everything with my debit card is the.fect that I never carry cash with me, so I never have change back that I can put away Maybe I should change my ways...

OMG, I actually thought about buying Disney shares yesterday! I am not sure how that would help me on my trips as I do not undertand the stock markets very well, but I am more excited about the prospect of owning a piece of Disney

 

[Trip planner]

We pay most of our bills with a credit card that offers rewards. This is beneficial as long as you pay off the credit card. Shortly before our trip we used rewards in our Citicard (thank you points) to make a (partial) mortgage payment and I cashed in our Bank of America cash back points. These actions added $1100 to our vacation budget without doing anything different.

 

[Mousemommy1]

We go annually and always book our trip a year in advance. We put down our deposit and then divide the balance by 12 months and just make the monthly payments a part of our budget.

For our spending cash, we put $100/month into an envelope and then by the time our trip comes, we have at least $1200 in spending cash ready to go. We usually take that cash and buy gift cards at Target for a discount to get even more cash.

We have been doing it this way for 8 years now and it works well.

 

[hmwinter85]

Shopkick and Ibotta...are they really worth the effort you have to put in? Can you get enough money back to justify it?

I will checkout the thread on the Disney Savings thing

I love Ibotta. I started using it in July of last year and have earned over $250. I only use it for stuff I was going to buy anyway.

Just started using Shopkick a few months ago and have cashed out $20.

Both are easy to use and while it's not a lot every little bit helps.

 

[disneydeal]

Everytime I get change back from a cash purchase I put aside any $1 and $5 bills. Over time it really adds up. I learned that on the Budget Board. I also have a change jar that is strictly for Disney. I cash it in before a trip and there is at least a few hundred in there.

We saved all change for maybe 5 or 6 months and cash it in for $420.

 

[DnA2010]

We have a set amount transferred for a vacation account (not necessarily Disney trips, but Disney, cruise/Hawaii etc) I also track "extra" money from selling stuff on facebook, extra earnings etc.

 

[smiths02]

We have a set amount transferred for a vacation account (not necessarily Disney trips, but Disney, cruise/Hawaii etc) I also track "extra" money from selling stuff on facebook, extra earnings etc.

We have a vacation club account with our bank.