How do YOU save for your Disney trip?

[todzwife]

I've been taking cash out every month and putting it away in a Disney envelope. Unfortunately, that envelope keeps getting raided for other things when our paychecks get tight. I've budgeted a certain amount to come into the "Disney fund" every month. I do surveys (holy cow it's so slow though) I save rebates. I dump all our change into a bucket. I use cash for groceries and coupon to save money and the "extra" goes into the envelope.


I'm curious if there is a better way to go about the saving. We aren't going until NEXT Thanksgiving (2010).

 

[WDWHo]

Can you sell stuff on ebay? Or how about having a GREAT yardsale in the spring? Start now by going thru all over the house and pull out lots of stuff to sell. The more you purge, the more money. Our last yard sale we did $800 and the year before that we did $1000!

You have plenty of time to save. A savings of $2.00 a day can net you over $730!!! So make yourself a goal to save $2 a day in some form and stash it somewhere. Time is on your side for sure! Best of luck!!!

Keep us posted!!

 

[wdwfan16]

If your current income does not generate enough to save for the trip and you have nothing that you can or are willing to cut out of your budget you will need to bring in more cash.

 

[An_Island_Girl]

I have an account with ING online. You can seperate it into different accounts, and I labeled one "vacation". I love that I can transfer money form my checking account at the click of a button (even only a dollar or two if that's all I have that week). I find that by having it an "untouchable" account, I don't dip in like if I actually had the cash laying around the house. It is very easy to transfer it back to my checking if I needed the money at any time.

Good Luck!

 

[MommyBryn]

ING is the BEST way for us to save without touching it. We have like 10 subaccounts. LOL But it's so great because each one is for something individual, and once it gets put into ING it doesn't get touched until we need it for what it was intended for. It takes too long to transfer the money to get it "instantly" so it's easy to not touch it for that kind of thing.

Other than that, I'm doing a bunch of reward programs and we also save in and envelope at home.

 

[todzwife]

If your current income does not generate enough to save for the trip and you have nothing that you can or are willing to cut out of your budget you will need to bring in more cash.

I'm just trying to save without cutting into the budget too much. DH makes plenty of money, but I don't want to charge anything to a card, I'd rather have it all upfront. Just looking at ways to save since my cash keeps getting used for other stuff (new mattress, skii lessons etc.)

 

[DawnM]

Ah, well, that is the problem then......you need to cut something.....any of those things could be cut.....lessons, extra things, new stuff you really want but don't need......you get the picture.

you need to figure out what you want more......new stuff or a Disney trip. We can't help you figure out how to have your cake and eat it too.

Dawn

I'm just trying to save without cutting into the budget too much. DH makes plenty of money, but I don't want to charge anything to a card, I'd rather have it all upfront. Just looking at ways to save since my cash keeps getting used for other stuff (new mattress, skii lessons etc.)

 

[snarlingcoyote]

Every time I go somewhere and see something I want but don't need, I remind myself of Disney. Then I go home and deposit that amount of money into my ING account.

It works surprisingly well for me. For a while I wore a bracelet with a couple of Disney charms on it to remind me.

Would I rather have Disney or another shirt I don't need?

 

[wdwfan16]

I said "If your current income does not generate enough to save for the trip and you have nothing that you can or are willing to cut out of your budget you will need to bring in more cash"

I included cutting things.

I'm just trying to save without cutting into the budget too much. DH makes plenty of money, but I don't want to charge anything to a card, I'd rather have it all upfront. Just looking at ways to save since my cash keeps getting used for other stuff (new mattress, skii lessons etc.)

Seems you want it all.

I would buy a mattress over a vacation but ski lessons are the same level as a vacation. If you want Disney then stop the ski lessons.


We budget for our vacations. No ski lessons, older cars and on and on.

 

[worm761]

I am doing a bunch of rewards programs to help supplement our vacation budget. We won't be going again until May 2011 so I have lots of time to build it up. The programs I do pay in cash to my paypal, I transfer that money to my checking and then to my ING. Once it is in ING it is a pain in the butt to get back out. It takes at least 3 days to transfer back into my checking account. I also started a change bucket but that is slow going since we are both paid by direct deposit.

 

[MommyBryn]

I am doing a bunch of rewards programs to help supplement our vacation budget. We won't be going again until May 2011 so I have lots of time to build it up. The programs I do pay in cash to my paypal, I transfer that money to my checking and then to my ING. Once it is in ING it is a pain in the butt to get back out. It takes at least 3 days to transfer back into my checking account. I also started a change bucket but that is slow going since we are both paid by direct deposit.

I should add that in addition to using our ING vacation savings, I'm doing this, too. I only started on 10/6 and through various programs I have earned quite a bit with very little effort. In the next year before our trip I'm excited to see how much I'll end up with.

 

[sharonW]

I should add that in addition to using our ING vacation savings, I'm doing this, too. I only started on 10/6 and through various programs I have earned quite a bit with very little effort. In the next year before our trip I'm excited to see how much I'll end up with.

Which reward programs??

 

[aka-mad4themouse]

Which reward programs??

Check the Disney Rewards Programs Forum for popular programs and ideas on how to make the most of them.

 

[mom2em1214]

We just got back from oour first Disney family vacation and I am proud to say that it was a total cash vacation! We created a separate account and put money in it that we could not touch and we also had a change jar to help with our spending money. We have already started saving for November 2010!

 

[aka-mad4themouse]

I've been taking cash out every month and putting it away in a Disney envelope. Unfortunately, that envelope keeps getting raided for other things when our paychecks get tight. I've budgeted a certain amount to come into the "Disney fund" every month. I do surveys (holy cow it's so slow though) I save rebates. I dump all our change into a bucket. I use cash for groceries and coupon to save money and the "extra" goes into the envelope.


I'm curious if there is a better way to go about the saving. We aren't going until NEXT Thanksgiving (2010).

Having the money where it is easily accessible can be a problem. It's so easy to dip into it with full intentions of "paying it back" when the nexr paycheck comes (or whatever money source). More often than not, the money doesn't get replaced. It's not just you, OP, it's 99% of the world who can testify to doing the same thing.

My advice is to move that vacation money to some place that you can't touch. A lot of people have already mentioned an online bank acount. I'll go even further and suggest the drastic step of buying Disney Gift Cards with the money. Once purchased, you cannot use that money for anything other than Disney. You won't be able to dip into it to buy a mattress or pay for ski lessons. You will either have to find another way to pay for those "other" things or else go without.

Now, the purchasing a GCs as a savings method is far from my preferred method of saving because it ties your money up with Disney and I happen to like the comfort of knowing that if I need it in an emergency, I can tap my vacation savings. But if you need another way to save for Disney, this could work for you.

Another option: Book the trip and pay on it little by little as you acquire the money. Disney holds the money for you. You can no longer spend it on something else. BUT...if an emergency arises and you need the money, you can cancel your trip and get all of your money back as long as you are more than 45 days away from your arrival date.

Good Luck! You might want to check the Anyone want to keep track of how much they save towards their Disney vacation????? thread for ideas and support.

 

[dancrystal]

So excited, about this savings. I am also reducing bills and cutting out anything I can to see how much we can save this year.

I'l try not to repeat some of the great ideas that we are all already using.
But this week we had a couple banquets to attend and asked over to a home for dinner as a thank you to us. I was able to go a week without buying any extra groceries. I guess I was more stocked up than I realized.

This is a savings of $180.00 to Add to my $1,400 already saved. I about have my may trip paid for. We are disney vacation club members , and have tickets still from last trip. So we need airfare and food and spending. I will cook in our villa and only eat a few meals out. We have a taxi driver we always call and go to Winn dixie for groceries.

I am also hoping to save enough to have a 7 day cruise for my husband and I in Oct 2010. We don't have enough disney points left, so we will save them for a future trip with the family and add them to a following year to get a large villa again.

The time of the year and the days you fly can also save you money when planning your disney trip. The parks may not stay open as late but they don't need to because you get everything done.

Back to savings - When I buy somthing on sale I am trying to take the difference saved and slide that to savings. So I saved another $22.00 at a store. I am finding new uses for items around the house to limit my spending.
My daughter was laughing when I used a old tablecloth as a valance for a upstairs landing window. Until I said thats another $10.00 saved from the valance I saw up town and did not buy. Alot of your items around the house can be moved to a new room or repurposed and cut spending.
Total this week now $1612.00 one trip down, one to go!!!
I need to save another $3,500 for the cruise.
can not choose a favorite park or a favorite resort, enjoy them all!! for one reason or another.

 

[indimom]

We've gotten better about saving over the years and now we just use a standard savings account for our vacation fund. But, we also have an emergency fund, and another savings account for the little extras. When we were young and newly married, had no savings to speak of, this was a lot more difficult. We would dip into whatever savings we had all the time.
For this trip, I would stick with aka-madforthemouse' ideas. Either one would probably work well.

 

[Kteacher]

I work a second job and those checks go directly into an acct. for vacations. There are some retailers that are still hiring for Christmas-it can be a quick way to make $$ .

 

[blanq]

We have the disposable income available to just break down the trip and chunk out what I need to pay for. I will book/pay for airfare one month. Another month I might purchase my park tickets. One month I book/pay for our resort. Eventually it gets me to WDW. I don't save change, do rewards cards, have a separate vacation savings acct, etc.

 

[pjm-guy]

If possible, get a side job. I referee youth hockey (through USA Hockey) as a side job and have used my earnings the past few years to pay for vacations. Sure it takes time away from home and other things, but it is something that I enjoy doing and it gives me a good bit of exercise too!