Not totally cruise related, but....

[DDreamer]

I REALLY want to take my kids on a Disney Cruise, but I just don't see how we can afford it. I'm sitting here trying to figure out my "plan" and can't come up with anything aside from getting a new job. We make enough money, just not enough to enjoy the special things like taking kids on family vacations. So my question to all of you:

Does anyone here have success with any work at home "jobs". I'm trying to figure my life out (lol) and would like to make more money (doesn't everyone?). I thought everyone here would be the perfect people to ask since I already feel like you guys are all my friends. You can send me a PM if you need to.

Thanks for the input everyone!

 

[DisneyDreamer8]

Me and DH decided when we got married (4 yrs ago) that any extra money we got (b-day, holidays, taxes, bonus etc.) would get put into a seperate savings account. Plus we put in a little each month. So far we have has enough for out 1st anniversary trip at WDW/DCL (land&sea), 7 day Eastern and now another WDW/DCL trip this May. A plus for us is we don't have kids yet. Once that happens we probably won't be able to go somewhere every year.

Don't give up hope. Just put what you can away and it will add up before you know it . Also book during off-peak times of the year, you can save quite a bit

 

[denise5374]

ddreamer,

I sent you a PM.

denise

 

[mamo-4-wdw]

DDreamer, These are a few of the things I did.

1. Look over your budget and see if you could cut down on
some thing. For us it was the Sat. moives and pizza thing. We rented movies from Hollywood videoHad a coupon rent1get1 free(from Cereal Box) and then we went to Dollar tree and got our movie candy for $1 each. Then the DS's(age14 & 22) would make pizza while I got the sodas and Living room straight. This one thing saved us $57 a week=$2964 This paid for theWestern 7-day Sept 25th,2004 cruise.

2. We went thru the whole house top to bottom and even the storage building and put unwanted and unneeded items on Ebay. There is a thread here on the boards some where. Not finished here but have made close to $300 so far, this will pay for the tips. If you don't want to do Ebay you could have a yard sale.

3. We still love to eat out so I joined mysteryshops.com. In exchange for my review of service and food we get our dinner free. I then take that money I would have spent($20-50) and save it for our hummer limo from PO to DCL.$350 but worth the splurge.

4. I had origanilly booked with Disney, then I read the Disboard and found out about allseastravel and saved over $1000!!!!!!
This will be our excursion money. YAHOO!

5. Then we will be getting a tax return and will use some of it to book our next cruise while on board our first cruise.

Also there are cheaper times to cruise.I picked Sept because my birthday is the 29th. Sept is also high risk for Hurricans but I know the Captian will steer clear of bad weather.
You can go on the 3day or the 4 day cruise.

6. My children will do handy work for neighbors for cruise spending money(arcades)and also ask Grammie for Disney Dollars for Birthdays,Easter,Christmas. You cann't spend Disney Dollars on the cruise but I have read you can put them on your account as everything is paid by the room key.

7.My DS14 said to put a change jar(he uses a washed out pickle jar) in your room and everyday put some change in there and some days when you can put dollars in there. He has $150 so far. He would think about purchasing video games and stuff and decide it would be more fun to spend it in Cozumel or Grand Caymen and just save it.

8. There is a way! Just put your heart and mind in to it

sending pixie dust your way

 

[hydster]

mamo had some GREAT ideas to help! I have just one more to add....we take about 40 dollars per paycheck and have it direct deposited into our trip savings account through dh's work. It's money that we dont miss and we dont have the urge to spend it since it's already taken out. Also when hubby gets a raise we took the extra money that we would have gotten and put it into the savings account every paycheck as well. Also I agree that putting away your tax refund money or even part of it is also a big budget booster. Maybe you could watch someone else's child at night or weekends or days whatever works for you and save them some $$$ and get you some extra cash. I know my sister in law sent out flyers in their neighborhood offering to babysit children on the weekends for the parents to go out for something like 5 dollars per kid or something like that! She actually made enough money to put a down payment on a mini-van and the parents liked having another adult in charge of the kids. My nieces and nephews got the opportunity to play with other kids and my sister in law got the extra cash when they would have just sat home anyway.

I know the budget board has great ideas on how to earn or save extra money!

Heidi