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TalkDisnerdytome

Mouseketeer
Joined
Oct 19, 2015
How early do you start saving for your trip? I am going to try using the DVA I was hesitant at first but from what I have been reading, you can get all your money back if you need to. Is that correct? I am terrible at saving money, I have a savings account that is just about empty due to me never being able to use it. I'm hoping that with this DVA I can just forget about it. But I have never actually done a family vacation on my own before, it's always been either my parents or my husbands parents doing the planning and the most I've had to do was pay for tickets. How far in advance do you plan the trip? Or better question how far in advance do you get better prices on hotel cost? Or is that not a thing? I'm thinking like plane tickets, does the price of hotel rooms go up if I want to buy a hotel room months in advance vs next month?
 
Well, as far as Disney is concerned, the sooner you know when you want to go, the better. There are a lot of things you need to think about. Are you booking through Disney directly? Rent DVC? Staying offsite? Park Tickets... Hoppers (WDW), Dining Plan (which level of dining plan)... Transportation, souvenirs, and the list goes on.

I've never done the DVA. I have a savings account that I put a set amount into on a weekly basis and it does it automatically. I'll check in to see the interest building up, but that's about it until I start booking things.

If you would like, PM me and we can discuss further if you don't want to air everything here.
 
It's never too early to start saving for disney in my opinion. As I'm sure you know already the cost can be substantial depending on how many in your family, how long you are staying, the type of hotel you pick ect... To answer your question, yes you can get your money back out of the account. If you use a credit card it will be refunded to that credit card.
If you are 100% sure your family is going to do a disney trip in the future I would fund the DVA with discounted disney gift cards. For 2 reasons. 1. (The obvious reason) saving a few dollars on each gift card. 2. You said you are terrible at saving money, if you buy disney gift cards the money is locked into disney. The only downside is if there is an emergency you won't be able to use the money from you DVA.
When I do my weekly grocery shopping I throw in a gift card to load to my DVA. Sometimes it's only $25 but even that small amount is $100 a month saved. I anyways do a small gift card but really stock up when a store is having 4x the gas points or buy a $50'gc get $10 back. Do whatever works for you.
 
My daughter, family of five, are saving this year and next year's income tax to go in 2018. Staying offsite is much cheaper but then you have to factor in transportation to and from airport, and whether the place you stay has a shuttle service to the parks, or you need to rent a car. Food is the next biggest factor and there are so many options for saving on meals. Bringing your own lunch and snacks will save spending on meals. So, price things out (room and tickets), factor in transportation (including flights if needed) and meals, then begin a saving plan with your estimated costs in mind. Hope this helps.
 


If you are staying on property, I would book as far ahead as possible. That way you get the resort you want. If a special deal comes out you can apply it to your reservation. I always book room only and do the rest a la cart but we don't do the dining plan.
 
How early do you start saving for your trip? I am going to try using the DVA I was hesitant at first but from what I have been reading, you can get all your money back if you need to. Is that correct? I am terrible at saving money, I have a savings account that is just about empty due to me never being able to use it. I'm hoping that with this DVA I can just forget about it. But I have never actually done a family vacation on my own before, it's always been either my parents or my husbands parents doing the planning and the most I've had to do was pay for tickets. How far in advance do you plan the trip? Or better question how far in advance do you get better prices on hotel cost? Or is that not a thing? I'm thinking like plane tickets, does the price of hotel rooms go up if I want to buy a hotel room months in advance vs next month?
Do not do the DVA!

Ask yourself why it is that your savings account is nearly empty.
  • Are you unable to find the extra cash to put towards savings? That won't change just because you've changed where the money is kept.
  • Are you raiding the account for unexpected bills? Then you need an emergency fund, not a vacation account.
  • Are you withdrawing money because having a pile of money makes you want to spend it? Then you need to learn impulse control.
Funding a DVA may sound like a good way to save for Disney but it's not a savings account. There is no interest being earned on what you put into it. You only get a little extra back once you spend the money on qualifying purchases. And even then, it's in the form of a Disney gift card.

If you need that money for an emergency or decide not to vacation at Disney, you will wait a while to get it back. If you funded the account with Disney gift cards, the money goes back on Disney gift cards. If you funded it with a credit card, the money goes back on your credit card. If you made small deposits from your checking account, it may be returned to your account in small credits over a period of time.

My advice is to find an online banking service that does not have a branch office near you. Open a savings account and have regular deposits made to it from your household checking account. The money remains yours -as cash- and can generally be transferred back to your checking account in about 3 business days if you need it for an emergency. You can always open a DVA, fund it with $10 and then leave it open until you're ready to book your trip. Then, just transfer the amount needed to pay Disney to the DVA. You'll still earn the $20 bonus for every $1000 spent as long as the account has been open at least 120 days and assuming that Disney will continue the bonus program past 12/31/2017.

I'm always planning and saving for Disney. We own DVC, so we go often. However, for most people, the planning and saving can take a few years. It's not true that if you book now and an offer comes out, you can "apply it to your reservation ". Your dates, resort and room category all have to be available under the offer in order for your reservation to be amended to the new terms. The offers usually come out 3-6 months ahead of time and vary from season to season and also from year to year, depending on Disney's need to fill hotel rooms. Once a room category gets sold out, it's unusual for Disney to add more rooms to the offer.

Go to the Disney website and plan your dream trip for whatever time of the year you expect to go, even if your plans are not for 3 years from now. Use the rack rates and not any of the special offers. Get a price for what it would cost to go on those days this year. That's your starting point. Divide that number by the number of months between now and the days when you actually plan to go. That's going to be your monthly savings goal. When room and package rates are announced for the year of your actual trip, go back and recalculate the price. Adjust your savings plan accordingly.

There's no big secret to saving for a Disney trip. It just takes determination and a budget that has enough wiggle room to permit it.
 
How early do you start saving for your trip? I am going to try using the DVA I was hesitant at first but from what I have been reading, you can get all your money back if you need to. Is that correct? I am terrible at saving money, I have a savings account that is just about empty due to me never being able to use it. I'm hoping that with this DVA I can just forget about it. But I have never actually done a family vacation on my own before, it's always been either my parents or my husbands parents doing the planning and the most I've had to do was pay for tickets. How far in advance do you plan the trip? Or better question how far in advance do you get better prices on hotel cost? Or is that not a thing? I'm thinking like plane tickets, does the price of hotel rooms go up if I want to buy a hotel room months in advance vs next month?

For vacations - we put a set dollar amount into a brokerage account monthly and try to throw any extra money we find into it as well.. We use an app called "Betterment". The funds are invested for us - this is sort of a "robo investor". Since investments cost money to buy & sell, it is motivation for us to leave the money alone and not "dip" into it. It takes discipline to save money, but nothing worth having ever came easy in my opinion.

Disney vacations are about double what our "normal" vacations are, so it typically takes us 2+ years to save for Disney.

As far as planning, we are going in late May early June and I started planning in January once we realized we had the funds to pull it off this year. We like to stay on site - so I will typically call a travel agent (we love "Small World Vacations"). As it turns out, I have a friend from high school who is a cast member and she got us a nice discount this year which helps - but typically we've gotten a PIN.

As soon as possible - I start looking at flights on SW and when I see their fare sales, I typically jump on them. Even if we have to cancel the trip - I can use the $$ from the flights for future purchases on SW, so for us, buying flights early is not an issue.
 



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