How do you save for your Disney trips?

[tigger 12]

Just wondering how everyone saves for there Disney vacations or do you charge your trip and pay it off when you get back? I notice the majority of people on this site stay onsite. I usually stay offsite due to expenses. Plus when you add the hopper passes, the trip can add up fast. I've heard some people take on 2nd jobs or do odd jobs for vacation money or use there income tax refund. What's your secret?

 

[newholiday]

save up some each paycheck
and when we leave the entire bill is paid off
with the leftover money I do some Disney Christmas shopping and then save the rest for our next trip

 

[llij]

We save from our tax refund as well as putting a little aside with each paycheck. My DH likes to have all the trip funds set aside so that the trip is paid off in full.

 

[landmark]

As others have stated we have a seperate checking account. Each paycheck I make a deposit just like I would a bill. We haven't had to charge anything for our trips. I also do a budget in Excel where I add up what the expenses will be including charcter meals, cirque tickets whatever we plan to do and it gives me a running total of what I need total for the vacation, what I have and how much more I need. I love going in on each payday and updating the current balance and seeing how much closer I am.

 

[rcyannacci]

We always have the funds before we go (it would be too scary to do it on credit...just got those things paid off!). We have a monthly budget, and if we are good and stick to it a certain amount goes into our vacation fund. Plus, recently, I took on some extra tutoring hours to make some extra spending money. (Everytime one of the student athletes gives me a hard time, I just think "yes, but in a month I will be having lunch with an Imagineer!)

 

[Divamomto3]

My hospital's credit union has a vacation club. Every month, a set amount of money comes right out of my paycheck and into there. I have all my funds for everything before I go on the trip. I may use my credit card for convenience, but the money is there to pay the bill upon return.

 

[shelbyjosh]

Tax return. We usually have our refund by the 3rd week of February. We usually go early March. We have always used our tax $$ for WDW. It would be rare for us to use it all, though. There is enough left to cover the week that DH took off (lost wages). Maybe you could get a direct deposit into savings. Out of sight, out of mind. Just don't touch it until trip time!

 

[vhoffman]

Are you aware of the budget board? There's tons of information about how to save for trips, keeping costs down, etc. One of the best pieces of advice I found on that board is the ING Direct savings account. There's several threads about it, but basically its a savings account with no fees, no minimum deposits or transaction amounts, no minimum balance (I opened my account with $1) and pays about 2.10% annual interest! I use that account for my travel savings account. I make regular deposits and deposit any "extra" money, such as rebates, garage sale proceeds, etc. I've found if I comingle that money with our regular checking account its just gets used up for other purposes. If you want more information, go to their website www.ingdirect.com. Also, here's how I made about $300 with this account--if you open the account with a referral from an existing customer you get a $25 sign on bonus. You then get 20 referrals to send out to family, friends, etc. For each referral that signs up, you then get $10 and they get $25. I opened my account with a referral from someone on this board. I got $25. I then signed up my husband and two children, they each got the $25 sign on bonus and I got $10 each for referring them. So that was $130 right off! I opened my account several months ago, and have sent out referrals out to others and made over $300 total in bonus money. That's enough for one plane ticket right there! But the best part of this account is, like I said, its a place to store relatively small sums of money and keep it seperate from your general funds so it doesn't get spent on other things.

 

[Mimi Q]

Put money in my credit union account each month. Don't go until there is enough money in the account to pay for the trip.

 

[EsmeraldaX]

We don't charge vacations. That's a big no-no. In fact, I was almost ready to cancel my brief trip in Dec. because we may have to charge a few hundred and pay it off with the bonus we're getting from work when we get back. Luckily, my pals on the DIS talked some sense into me and we are still going.

We live very cheap during the year. We pay very cheap rent, eat cheap, never buy cds/dvds etc. , only buy clothing when needed and look for sales when we do, don't go out often, and just generally don't spend much of what we make on stuff we don't need.

Our one big splurge is vacations. We keep a vacation fund all year so by the time we go, we're all paid off and all set.

 

[eeyore kelly]

I guess I use a combo. We put some away from each paycheck and treat saving for our vacation like a bill. We put half of our income tax return toward vacations, and extra money like change, rebates, money from surveys goes into the change jar for extras. Our kids also have to put back 1/2 of their allowance for vacation spending money.

 

[bigbabyblues]

My paycheck goes direct deposit every two weeks into a checking account we set up for our housepayment. My check goes in, the housepayment comes out four days later, and then whatever's left I transfer to a separate savings account, as long as there is still enough to cover two extra housepayments in the checking, the rest is money for whatever. Right now, it's our next Disney trip, but in January it may become funds to pay off medical bills from DS surgery next month.

We charge our vacation so we don't have to use cash, but we charge only what we have saved and write the check the day we get home.

 

[WDWLVR]

We do it two separate ways.

The first is that we have a dummy account set up in our checking called vacation fund. I "transfer" money into it when paying other bills. The money never really leaves the checking account so it is there if needed for other things but hidden so it isn't spent on other things. When we vacation we put in on the charge card, but it is paid off with this fund as soon as we return.

The other way is for bigger things like our cruise. We booked it and paid it off over time. Each month I would put a payment on the credit card and then pay it off when it came due. We broke it into 7 chunks and it was easy to budget for.

 

[aprilgail2]

I do online surveys and put all the money from that into a seperate account, along with all my ebay sales money, I have a 2nd job I do at home after my daughter is in bed for hte night from Oct-May and put all the money form that in that account also....then I usually get a 6,000 or so income tax check back every year so all that added up usually covers my Disney Cruise, spending money and a few overnight side trips to Hershey, Poconos etc a year....any scratch off lottery ticket winners I get for my birthday or buy myself I put aside to and cash out when its time to go along with a big bottle of change I cash in. I also use my disney visa card for EVERYTHING for the points and as soon as I come home from shopping I go right online and pay whatever it was I charged off through online banking.

 

[disneychrista]

I almost paid my entire 2002 WDW trip from overtime wages and a little tax return money. Every paycheck I would take those wages and put them into my vacation account. Unfortunetly right after/before (can't remember) I stoped getting the overtime so now I have to find other ways to pay for my trips.

Now I have to relie soly on my tax returns. Which also means less trips and cheaper trips to Disneyland.

I am trying to find a way to afford a WDW trip for 2007. WDW trips cost me about 2.5 times what a Disneyland trip does. And my next two tax returns are paying for already planned Disneyland trips. 2005 for the 50th. 2006 for my best friends daughters first trip.

 

[laurie31]

Originally posted by vhoffman
One of the best pieces of advice I found on that board is the ING Direct savings account.

If you want more information, go to their website www.ingdirect.com. Also, here's how I made about $300 with this account--if you open the account with a referral from an existing customer you get a $25 sign on bonus. You then get 20 referrals to send out to family, friends, etc. For each referral that signs up, you then get $10 and they get $25. I opened my account with a referral from someone on this board. I got $25.

How can I find someone to send me a referral? That sounds like a great plan!!

Laurie

 

[decker96]

We also put money in a savings account every month that is strictly for vacations. Any money DH and I get for our birthdays or anniversary and any kind of rebate we get for anything we buy goes in the vacation fund, like the $100 rebate we got last year from buying our computer. We also pay for our actual trip in stages.

For our trip next Oct, this is what I've done so far.
1) I bought one adult park-hopper ticket this summer when I was at the Disney store, then I'll buy another one every three or four months (we need 4 total).
2) I made our hotel reservations a couple weeks ago (on-site), so I had to put down a one-night deposit (we're staying five nights). I'm planning on sending in more money after Christmas, as my in-laws always give us some money. Then, I'll try and send in a little money every month so we don't have much of a balance left right before we get there.

I try to make our plane reservations at least 3 months in advance, but I start looking 6 months in advance. Then the tickets are paid for before we actually go (we charge them, but pay for the bill with $ from the vacation fund).
The only thing we end up having to pay for once we're there is food and souveniers. Our kids are 7, 4 and 1 and we buy them each one souvenier. After that, they have to use their own money to buy what they want. They save up money from birthdays and Christmas. On our last trip this worked really well, they each had $50 of their own to spend. My oldest was 5 and she thought she really wanted a Tinkerbelle costume. Once I told her it would take all her money (this was on the first day we were there) she changed her mind. She bought a few other smaller things instead, most of which she still plays with.

 

[Kitty 34]

We budget it into our bills and put so much away each week. It might be a bit more difficult now tho with out DS going off to college next year.

 

[Judy from Boise]

Mostly we just charge it on the card and pay it off over a few months, not a big deal to us. Of course the plane tickets are paid before we go.

 

[huey duey & luey]

It depends. When I was working we just paid for everthing, we didnt really need to save,. For this trip I own DVC so the hotel is already paid for , we used some tax return money for the airfare, The state of NJ tax rebate program bought our park passes. We will take the spending money out of the bank
Tara