Savings Account for Disney

[Dragonfly_34]

Hi all,

Our family recently expanded from four to six with the birth of our twins. We have taken our oldest son to WDW twice, and took a 5-day trip with our (then) youngest son a couple of months before the twins were born. It's not likely we'll venture back to WDW until the twins are 4 or 5 years old ~ I wish we could take them sooner but DS #2 was 2 1/2 years old when we took him and while he had a good time, it was pretty challenging....I'm not sure how I'd fare with two that age.

Obviously it will be more expensive to travel as a family of 5 than a family of 3 (our oldest will be 19 or 20 at that point and most likely won't want to join us) and I'm thinking about opening a savings account and having a certain amount of money automatically deposited from our paychecks. Has anyone else done that for a trip that is several years away? I find myself thinking about way too many little details already!!!

 

[Disney Addicted]

Personally I think it's a great idea.

I have a US account for vacation money, a savings account, plus a Christmas account. Now while I don't have the money automatically put in, they are on my monthly expense spreadsheet and I transfer the money into the accounts bi-weekly.

If I didn't do that - the money would spent on other things!

 

[ValpoCory]

Hi all,

Our family recently expanded from four to six with the birth of our twins. We have taken our oldest son to WDW twice, and took a 5-day trip with our (then) youngest son a couple of months before the twins were born. It's not likely we'll venture back to WDW until the twins are 4 or 5 years old ~ I wish we could take them sooner but DS #2 was 2 1/2 years old when we took him and while he had a good time, it was pretty challenging....I'm not sure how I'd fare with two that age.

Obviously it will be more expensive to travel as a family of 5 than a family of 3 (our oldest will be 19 or 20 at that point and most likely won't want to join us) and I'm thinking about opening a savings account and having a certain amount of money automatically deposited from our paychecks. Has anyone else done that for a trip that is several years away? I find myself thinking about way too many little details already!!!

I do that, but it's a generic Travel Savings account, not just Disney.

 

[tzeitel]

I think a vacation savings account is a great idea. If you are not comfortable with taking a set amount out of every paycheck you could check out the many discussions the budget board is always having about ways to save - you could use those tips to add to your fund.

For example you could have a change jar that once it is full you can just deposit into the account - we have one and every 6 months or so we get $40-50. Every little bit helps

P.S. Congrats on the twins!

 

[At World's End]

As soon as we got home from our last trip in January, I opened a vacation savings account. I created a spreadsheet that shows our balance, as well as our planned contributions to the account. My goal was to have the next trip fulled funded before we go (in January 2013), so I now how much we need to contribute every month to make it happen. I just transfer teh amount from my checking every month. I created a savings goal based on the cost of our last trip, and a column that shows how much is remaining to be saved. Watching that number dwindle every month is great! We only have $900 more to save before next January. Keeping track of it seperately has really inspired me to put every little bit into savings to meet the goal. We also decided as a family that saving for this trip is a priority, so instead of spending as much as we would have on birthdays, Christmas, anniversary, etc. we put some extra money into the vacation fund. An extra $20/$40 here and there really adds up.

 

[hkp1042]

Our trip is only about 16 months away so sooner than yours but i have $20 from each pay going into a Disney account. Honestly I don't even miss the money since I don't see it.

 

[MrSanderz]

I have a savings account through ingdirect.com. I do a lot of surveys and paid-to-click sites online and get paid via paypal. Then about once a month I transfer the paypal $ into my checking acct and then right to my ing acct. I don't even write it in my check register. I also put extra $ in there from birthdays, overtime, etc...

 

[LauraLouLovesPooh]

I think it is a wonderful idea! Then when you are ready to book your trip it won't be a shock to your regular account! I generally do this with Christmas every year and find that it works wonders. Good luck!

 

[gomomgo]

I use an ING account for a vacation fund, Christmas savings, yearly memberships and other bills that are not due every month like car insurance. You can create and name several different sub-accounts all under one account so you can view them all together. You can also set up auto-transfers from your bank account or transfer manually. This works really well for us.

 

[DisneyBill]

Hi all,

(our oldest will be 19 or 20 at that point and most likely won't want to join us)

WHAT!!! You'd better save extra, just-in-case the Disney gene is inherited.

I'm with the PPs that consider this a good idea, and it is never too soon!

 

[Pikezh638]

I send $15 a pay check to an account in my home town that I have little to no access to (so I can't use it) and I put $50 in my savings account each check.

I don't have any long term vacation plans, but like everyone else is saying it is never a bad idea

 

[dukesmama]

I do this for our family.
I save for school tuition, the future all the important things. To us, vacations are important as well.

Having the funds "on hand" makes me feel better about spending it. I say go for it. You'd be surprised how quickly even small amounts grow.

 

[family3indisney]

For our last trip we had a vacation savings account at our local credit union, we put a little away every paycheck and the money in the account earned a little interest (although the interest was not a whole lot). We were able to plan a fabulous trip to disney and the best part was we paid cash and came home with no credit card bills Have started saving for next trip, cant wait until there is enough money to make a reservation!

 

[AnjieNet]

We also have a family travel savings account and I've started a sub account for our WDW girls's trip as well. I like knowing the funds are there when I start planning. Takes a lot of the pressure off knowing the trip is essentially already paid for. We still put the trips on our credit card for the cashback rewards but pay it off with our savings so (generally) nothing comes out of the family budget.

 

[lovindisney4ever]

I too have an ING online savings account that I stash $10 away each week in. It is set up as an automatic transfer from my checking account. I have had the account for years but I declared it as my travel account at the beginning of this year and keep vowing not to touch it. Since it usually takes 2 days to receive the funds transfer it keeps me from touching it. I don't have much in it for my trip next month but the big trip I am going to start saving for when we come back is for fall 2013 where my boyfriend and I are taking ALL 6 of our kids on the land & sea trip. Gonna have to work some overtime and do a lot of saving for that one!! 6 kids and 2 adults equals = BIG MONEY!

I wish you luck on your saving and your new little ones

 

[Handbag Lady]

We have an automatic deposit from our paychecks directly into a Credit Union savings account at our place of work. We each put in $x every Thursday.

This is our travel account and we use it for both long-term vacations (went to Belize and Mexico this year) as well as weekend get-aways.

We LOVE just having that money there for when we need a break.