Saving for vacations??

[dntd]

Great tips I realy need a vacation so I am more likely to save a my change

 

[WeLoveLilo05]

I usually take out say $140-$160 for groceries every 2 weeks and then whatever is left goes into the fund. Clip coupons they really do help you save!
I have made several trips to the consignment shop this year and made close to $200 within the year...I took some things a few weeks ago so there's some more cash that I didn't pick up yet.
Change, didn't cash it yet but I have a baby wipes container full.
My parents and other family members still give me birthday and Christmas gifts, and usually its cash. I put about 75% of it into Disney savings then spend the other 25%. Some people like to spend on purses, shoes, etc, I just like my vacations lol.

Our first trip we used our income tax check to pay it.

That said....I paid off our Aug vacation last night, didn't have to charge any of it

 

[NeverlandClub23]

I opened up a TD Ameritrade savings account online a couple of months ago. If you set up an automatic deposit of $100 or more a month after 12 months they give you an extra $100 (you also earn interest on this money but it's less than 1%).

My credit union offers a savings account that I never knew about (as I have just a regular savings account with them) until I was checking around on their website. You can only make two withdrawals a year from the account. You earn 5% on the first $2,500, 3% on anything between $2,500-$5,000, and 1.5% on anything after that.

So I approximate how much I will need for a vacation (I try to over-estimate) and divide it by how many months I have between now and then and that's how much I save every month.

I also charge everything on my Disney Visa so I should have a couple hundred dollars and Rewards Dollars (my Mom does this too and usually has $1,000 in Rewards dollars but they go every 2-3 years). I also do Sunshine Rewards and should have $100-$200 in Disney gift cards by my big family trip in December 2011.

I have other separate savings accounts with ING (and their measly interest rate ) for other things like taxes, car repairs, dog maintenance, Christmas/gifts, etc. It's easier to keep everything separate so I know exactly what each account is "for".

I'm going on a solo trip to WDW for a half marathon this October and I rented points so that saved me money and Kroger had a deal before Easter if you buy $45 worth of gift cards you save $5 so I bought enough to cover the rest of any expenses on that trip and probably will have some left over for the next trip.

 

[cseca]

Just like PPs...

- Have vacation savings acct. $x automatically funneled in there from every paycheck.
- Pay everything with cc and pay off the balance every month.
- DH packs for lunch, drinks, and snacks 90% of the time.
- Refrain from buying crap... basically I think long and hard before purchasing anything. Even things on sale... No more trying to justify that because it's on sale I just have to have it. Plus we don't need additional clutter in the house anyways.
- Try to craiglist or sell some stuff (this one not doing so well, I'm too scared to craigslist now because of scammers).
- Eat out only once a week. Maybe twice if we're having a bad week. (this is a biggie because I used to love to eat out. But I love disney more... so we're sacrificing this.)
- Coupon as much as possible. I am not as good as those people who could get out of the grocery store with a cartful of stuff for $1. But I do my best.
- I'm a SAHM, I minimize running errands to twice a week so we save on gas $.

 

[TandLMommy28]

I save for vacation with coupons. I clip coupons like a maniac for my grocery shopping, and then I take my receipt home and however much it says I saved by using coupons, I transfer to my vacation savings account. I sometimes use as much as $70 in coupons in one shot and sicne I was going to spend that money on groceries anyway, I let the savings MEAN something.

 

[Jynohn]

I use an envelope system to save for vacations, and it makes it kind of fun to see each portion of the trip paid off. Once I have all of our vacation plans laid out, I make a budget, which includes the big items like tickets, airfare, rental car, souvenirs etc., plus all the little things like an estimate of how much each individual meal will be (for Disney trips I use the menus on allears to get a general idea of how much to set aside for each meal).

Once I have all my expenses laid out, I label envelopes for each budget item. Then each night if I have any extra money I haven't spent, it goes straight into one of the envelopes. As soon as I have enough in one envelope to pay for that item, I either pay for it in advance online, or it gets sealed and put away somewhere that I'm not tempted to use it. Then I move on to the next envelope. Using this method, I've gone on my last few trips having the entire vacation paid in advance, including all of our meals. It makes it easier to resist little temptations throughout the day, knowing that any money I don't spend goes into an envelope, and it makes it almost fun to see the trip get paid off a little bit each day!

 

[ski070880]

Every week we transfer money into a local internet savings account that gets really good intrest. We also have started a different way that saves for things at the parks and souvenirs. First we get a cheap bank that you have to break to open. Second, Everytime we go shopping at a store and use bonus cards or coupons we figure what half of the amount we saved. Third, we go to the bank and take out that amount which we round up and put it on the bank. Finally, whatever money that is in our pockets when we come home also goes in the bank. We usually save a few thousand dollars over a year by this method. The stores that we use for the receipts are giant, weis, wegmans and jc penny. The glass or porcelain banks keep us from cheating the money.