How long do you save for a Disney trip?

[CocoTravels]

I have never had a "vacation fund" and I have just used credit cards to fund vacations in the past. I have resolved to pay off debt and not use any credit cards so I am on the road to becoming debt free. Right now EVERY extra penny is going toward debt in hopes of paying it all off by March of 2016. I was able to take a quick trip to Disney world last week because my family was there and I only had to buy airfare (about $200 round trip). I was able to get $250 in Disney giftcards and $50 in Starbucks giftcards by doing Swagbucks, Perk and surveys to have some spending money.

So I want to plan a trip back in the future. How long do you save for a Disney trip? $100 or $200 put away each month for many months or just make a plan and pay it all at once? I want to do my next trip with no debt so I am just looking for experiences.

 

[OhMari]

I started a vacation fund, when my dh got a raise. It was an extra $18 dollars, but it was something. then I got a raise of $8 dollars a week, so I added that. he got a performance raise of $50 3 months later, so I was able to save $76 a week. IP stopped using his raises, but I use mine, but I currently put away about $86 a week into my vacation fund. So it takes about 18 months to save about $6000.

I also do reward site, E-rewards for Southwest Flights, Pinecone Research surveys and SunshineRewards for shopping rewards and surveys. I have a Disney VISA card, that I use for everything. so I get Disney Rewards to use. I can get around $500 in 18 months.

 

[bookgirl]

I have never had a true vacation fund. I tend to keep a running account that I use as fun money. This includes vacations. It never gets totally depleted and I just keep adding (tax rebates, extra earned money, change deposits, etc). I think it took me about a year when I first began it, to get it up to an amount that would pay out right for a small weekend trip. ($20 a paycheck into an envelope) Now almost 10 years later I keep a large amount in that account. I pay for a lot of trip stuff OOP but any big things I pay back into my checking from that account.

The one caveat to this is that I did a big outside job and got paid a large amount. I have a big trip I'm trying to plan for the UK next year. That entire amount was put into it's own account specifically to be saved for that trip.

 

[ateam79828592]

We save a certain amount each week...which is how we do really everything from house payments, insurance, taxes, etc. If we get extra money (ebates, swagbucks, etc), the usually goes toward Disney as well. Keep up the debt reduction...hard work, but you'll LOVE the freedom and extra money it brings.

 

[Marionnette]

I have never had a "vacation fund" and I have just used credit cards to fund vacations in the past. I have resolved to pay off debt and not use any credit cards so I am on the road to becoming debt free. Right now EVERY extra penny is going toward debt in hopes of paying it all off by March of 2016. I was able to take a quick trip to Disney world last week because my family was there and I only had to buy airfare (about $200 round trip). I was able to get $250 in Disney giftcards and $50 in Starbucks giftcards by doing Swagbucks, Perk and surveys to have some spending money.

So I want to plan a trip back in the future. How long do you save for a Disney trip? $100 or $200 put away each month for many months or just make a plan and pay it all at once? I want to do my next trip with no debt so I am just looking for experiences.

We have always had a vacation fund. Initially, I would put $X out of every paycheck into a vacation club account (similar to a Christmas Club). I paid in $20 every 2 weeks and after a 50-week period, I got a check for $500 + interest. That was about 30 years ago and I don't think that any bank offers vacation club accounts anymore. $500 doesn't sound like much now, but it paid for quite a bit in 1985.

Now, we have a separate account that covers our vacations and we put money into it every week. Like a PP, that account never gets emptied but it gets used to cover weekend trips, our annual trip to the Jersey Shore, week-long domestic vacations and (if we're lucky) a luxury trip overseas every couple of years. We also purchased a few small DVC contracts on the resale market a couple of years ago, so we have DVC dues that need to be paid from that account whether we go to Disney or not.

Lately, I've been doing Shopkick, Perk and Swagbucks to earn Target GCs that I convert to Disney GCs. I do e-miles and e-rewards to add RR miles to my SWA account for free airfare. I also use rewards credit cards to help with travel costs, but it is not something that I would recommend doing until you manage to get your debt under control.

Good luck getting your debt under control. I hope that you meet your March 2016 deadline and can start putting money aside for your debt-free vacation very soon!

 

[Happyinwonerland]

I work a few extra shifts the months before the trip. Usually takes me about 4- 6 weeks to save up

 

[texasroni75]

We don't use credit cards either. We could take a trip for the amount of our income tax refund each year. Of course, life gets in the way and other expenses happen (car repairs, insurance copays/deductibles, etc.). So, we usually end up paying for half of the Disney trip with our tax refund and setting aside the other half of the refund for emergencies.

To help pay for the other half of the trip, we save everywhere we can on a regular basis. I do Swagbucks, hold an annual yard sale, and shop very frugally - putting savings into our "Mickey Jar". It can take us a year to save, or 2-3 years if we decide to have other smaller vacations in between Disney trips.

Basically, I price out the trip I want to take, and divide it up into 12 months and see how much per month I need to set aside for the trip.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

Once upon a time when I was married and had a higher dual income household we would pay our onsite package with our savings in cash. When we stayed offsite accommodations were also cash. We would then charge everything to the room and/or to the credit card once we were there. That would include food and souveniors and everything else. We would pay that off once we got home.

This will be my first trip as a single mom...my live in BF is also coming and paying part of the trip too.

I put $100 into a separate savings account. That's mad cash (car repairs and other things not in our regular budget) and vacation money. I have a separate emergency account.

What we did was pay the package with part of my savings, BF's bonus and my income tax refund. He paid cash for our plane tickets. And since January I've been buying Disney GC's cash. I will have 2K in GC's and some cash for our trip.

This trip is completely cash. I would say we've been planning this trip for a good 2 years (2014 didn't work) but we started paying for it in January, minus the $200 deposit I made in November. So a solid 8 months of saving.

I don't know when we will do Disney again but if/when we do I plan on it coming completely out of my vacation savings.

 

[jen73]

I try to put aside anywhere from $50-$150 into my savings account from "leftover money" in the household acct. Meaning that I scrounge on looking for grocery deals and whatever extra I didn't use of the grocery budget for the month goes into it. Then I do ebates and usually get a check every 3 months averaging $50. I also put aside change into our vacation fund bag. Hubby laughs at it, but right now, it's pretty heavy and its NOT all pennies...lol If I happen to sell things on our neighborhood FB yard sale page, that goes into it also. I do like that you can make payments for your disney vacation through their website, so that helps.

 

[CocoTravels]

Thank you all for taking the time to answer! You are all giving me inspiration for a debt free vacation in the future I think looking forward to that will keep me motivated to pay off my debt. I have been pinching pennies for about 6 months and paying a lot toward debt every month...enough to take several vacations! So as I plan dream vacations, I can also plan how I will save fore them BEFORE I go.

This board is awesome!

 

[disney world dreamer]

personally i don't save in order to pay it off beforehand.

instead what i do is put it on my disney visa card which offers 0% APR for 6 months.

both my sister and i have disney visa cards.
we generally go together and book together.
we book 3-6 months in advance.
we split the cost of the $200 deposit so half goes on her card and half goes on mine.
we then have 6 months to pay that off which we don't need.
then a little before the 45 day deadline we pay off the vacation package with the disney visa cards.
again i pay my share on my card and she pays her share on her card.
we then have 6 months to pay that off interest free.
i divide what i owe into 6 payments which makes it much easier to handle.
i then pay that mount each month plus whatever else i've put on my card that month and its paid off within the 6 months.

 

[NY Pirate Princess]

Your goal is fantastic, and you will be so happy when you are debt free. That first fully paid for vacation will make you SWOON! We have been debt free except for mortgage for over three years now, and it has opened up a world of possibilities. Now I am working on early retirement while trying not to sacrifice experiences at all, just "stuff". You've gotten great advice from everyone on what to do when you become debt free, so KEEP ON GOING!

Once you have paid your debts and set up funds for specific purposes to keep yourself that way, spending becomes a guilt free joy. Saving is pretty joyful too when it has a purpose like Disney!

 

[kathy884]

I'm one who likes to take a vacation annually, so I look at what I can budget a year for vacation and then make vacation plans based on the budget. So for me it's typically a year of savings for a week long trip and one long weekend trip annually.

I put $300 our of every paycheck into a vacation fund, so $600 a month. So that gives me an annual vacation budget of $7200 a year. That for me typically funds one week vacation somewhere in the US, Mexico, or Canada for about $5000 and a mini long weekend trip somewhere for about $2200. // That week long trip or long weekend trip could cover Orlando if that was what we were interested in. // I also have a Southwest Visa card, so typically points for airline tickets, so often don't have to pay everyone's air out of the vacation budget which stretches the budget a bit further.

The fun part, of course, is how to spend the vacation money -- what to do and where to go.

 

[pixiemama91]

We have a specific savings account just for vacations. I put 25 per week in there, plus any "found money". My DH bartends 2 nights a week, so any spare change he brings home goes into a jar. We usually get an additional $100-$300 deposited into the vacation fund by doing this. I also use any credit card rewards or refunds to fund the vacation account. When we have an actual vacation planned, I work to make some monthly deposits on top of the weekly deposits. With Disney vacations I also by some gift cards here and there, redeem our Disney movie rewards for gift cards etc. Most of the time any money received as a birthday, christmas present is also put into the vacation account unless something specific is wanted. We just make a rule that any of the money deposited into that account can only be used for vacations and that is the only withdrawal we will make from that account. We have several savings accounts for different things.

 

[IndianaRRT]

We haven't "saved" for Disney in the past as much as we've "planned". Our 2007 and 2010 trips we paid for with DH's spring work bonus and our tax return (which was much larger when we had 2 kids at home and a lot of deductions!), so we'd just earmark that money for the trip. We paid our deposit out of our regular budget, pay off the vacation with the tax return, and use the bonus for spending money. When DH surprised me with a trip for my birthday this year, he took out a low-interest loan offered by his employer (financial services are part of his benefits package). So while technically we "financed" this one, the payments are less than we spend on fast-food each month.

Now we have a 2017 trip planned to celebrate DD's high school graduation that year, and we are old-fashioned saving for that. We started in April, so we'll be saving for about 20 months when we book our trip. We've set up auto deposits to a Disney Vacation Account, and we purchase Disney gift cards with proceeds from Ebates, Swagbucks, and gift-card incentives from my employer to supplement. We have a 'change bucket' that we put change, and occasionally small bills, in. We add that up once a month, convert the change to cash at the bank, and put it in our airfare fund. We've never been able to afford to fly to WDW, so we're really hoping we can save enough.

 

[worm761]

Any money that I make goes into the vacation/fun fund. I don't really work. I stay home with DD and occasionally do so transcription work. Most of that goes into the vacation fund. It also bought our annual zoo membership. I have been saving since January for this upcoming trip to Disney in September. Since it is by request of DH he is contributing some but not much. Most of it comes from my transcription pay. I also do Swagbucks and cash out for PayPal and Perk and cash out for Target to buy gift cards for vacation use.

 

[CocoTravels]

Your goal is fantastic, and you will be so happy when you are debt free. That first fully paid for vacation will make you SWOON! We have been debt free except for mortgage for over three years now, and it has opened up a world of possibilities. Now I am working on early retirement while trying not to sacrifice experiences at all, just "stuff". You've gotten great advice from everyone on what to do when you become debt free, so KEEP ON GOING!

Once you have paid your debts and set up funds for specific purposes to keep yourself that way, spending becomes a guilt free joy. Saving is pretty joyful too when it has a purpose like Disney!

Thank you so much for your words of encouragement! I know it sounds crazy but I am looking forward to saving so I can feel the freedom and joy of taking a vacation without the guilt that always comes with swiping that card.

I agree about experiences and not stuff. In fact I spent about $60 of the $250 I brought in gift cards on my recent trip. I focused on really enjoying my time and not worrying about what to buy or how much it cost. Just grabbed some snacks and a mug. (Of course my parents were footing the bill for food....so that wasn't in my budget).

 

[bjscheel]

I put $90 in a Capital One 360 online account twice a month. When I get bonuses, I also put a chunk of it in there. This is for vacation each year, Disney or elsewhere, and we tend to go in June, so I save for a year. Then I put the Disney package on my Disney Visa at 45 days out. I pay some monthly for the 6 months of no interest while leaving the vacation account alone. Then after 6 months, I pay it off with the vacation account.

We also have gotten SW Visa cards with 50,000 bonus points. DH charges enough fuel for the semi that with the bonuses we have flown for free the last 3 years and have enough to fly next summer. After the bonuses run out, we still should be able to fly every other year just on his business purchases.

 

[starry_solo]

Two years for WDW (since I'm in CA). We go for 2 weeks and we plan it out at least two years in advance so that's when I start saving. Not a set amount each week, though.

 

[Gr8t Fan]

We budget $521 a month for vacations and put the $ in a separate account so it's there when we need it.