What is the secret

[jdb in AZ]

For those who would rather cruise than visit family -- as far as we're concerned, Mickey & co ARE family!!!

 

[Rono007]

I'm grateful for this thread. I'm learning just how much money we give to StarBucks on a yearly basis!

 

[UK-Simon]

Now, my friends, are buying themselves big 350 000 $ houses, have new furniture every 3 years and spend a lot of time in restaurants, and buy quite a lot of clothes for their kids. Us? We have a 150 000 $ house, with old, very old furniture...

WOW, try buying a house for $150 000 in Vancouver! In fact, try buying one in Vancouver's lower mainland for anything less than about $600 000 for an old house!!!

Make's me kinda jealous!

 

[UK-Simon]

I'm grateful for this thread. I'm learning just how much money we give to StarBucks on a yearly basis!

Maybe I should get my wife to read this threat!

 

[carmie3377]

This December will be the 5th year in 6 years that we have a Disney trip (cruise or WDW) right before/after Christmas. I have asked the kids if they'd rather have a Disney trip or presents from mom and dad and they look at us like we have two heads. Of course WDW/cruise wins!!!! It's more money than we would spend on Christmas presents but we very seldom eat out, we go to the cheap theater (all 4 of us for $10 and we don't order snacks), DH takes leftovers to work, he parks in offsite lot for work and takes a shuttle saving a ton, ect.
Savings for one year
$1600 - Only eat out once/month vs once/weekly at $40 meal
$300 - Going to the cheap theater vs Cinemark and snacks for 6 movies/yr
$1300 - DH taking leftovers vs buying lunch daily at $5/day (and that would be cheap)
$1800 - DH parking in offsite lot at $150 difference/month
$5000 Total saved and that doesn't even include having the trips be our Christmas presents to/from the 4 of us! Of course Santa still visits. They don't miss out at all. In fact, DS really doesn't even know what it's like to have a ton a presents at Christmas from us but he does have the memories of the Mickey Boat and Mickey Mouse's House. The other day when we started the movie Up and the castle came up at the beginning, he said "Look, it's my favorite place!!!"

My little nephew is the same age as DS but has never been on vacation. After Christmas, my sis said that her son had SO many toys and that most would probably never even get opened. A couple weeks ago, he got a new four wheeler. They always go out to eat. She spends tons of money on her hair. And then she has the nerve to tell a mutual friend in a snarky voice with me standing right there "She goes on a cruise like every 6 months!" Not true, only been on 2 cruises and they were 13 months apart. I pointed that out and she said "Well, you go on vacation like every 6 months." I told her that sometimes we do (we try to sneak in a non-Disney things in between). But as I made clear, it's a priority to us. We sacrifice other things.

 

[kmitchel]

We have been on 7 Disney cruises now and the only way we are able to afford it is that we are blessed to live in Florida. The Disney FL resident rates makes it cheaper for us to cruise on Disney than any other cruise line!

 

[atinkerbellmom]

Income tax refund... We use our refund every year just for a Great vacation...

This is what we do. We take our refund and place it in a CD for a year and use it for vacation. Know that we both claim 0 on our taxes. So huge chunks taken out at the time, but makes for our vacation. We do not do every year but about every 18 months.

 

[RedSox68]

We've been rolling over cruises since we started cruising in 2000. Booked onboard a year in advance, which gives us a year to pay it off. Then we book the next one a year or more advance, and so on. Each one is paid up by the time we go without charging anything. Also, we started a vacation club years ago and once we got used to that money not being available in our budget, it was never an issue. Then at the end of the club we get a big fat check which pays off the balances of the cruise, airfare and onboard expenses.

 

[twinstars]

This December will be the 5th year in 6 years that we have a Disney trip (cruise or WDW) right before/after Christmas. I have asked the kids if they'd rather have a Disney trip or presents from mom and dad and they look at us like we have two heads. Of course WDW/cruise wins!!!! It's more money than we would spend on Christmas presents but we very seldom eat out, we go to the cheap theater (all 4 of us for $10 and we don't order snacks), DH takes leftovers to work, he parks in offsite lot for work and takes a shuttle saving a ton, ect.
Savings for one year
$1600 - Only eat out once/month vs once/weekly at $40 meal
$300 - Going to the cheap theater vs Cinemark and snacks for 6 movies/yr
$1300 - DH taking leftovers vs buying lunch daily at $5/day (and that would be cheap)
$1800 - DH parking in offsite lot at $150 difference/month
$5000 Total saved and that doesn't even include having the trips be our Christmas presents to/from the 4 of us! Of course Santa still visits. They don't miss out at all. In fact, DS really doesn't even know what it's like to have a ton a presents at Christmas from us but he does have the memories of the Mickey Boat and Mickey Mouse's House. The other day when we started the movie Up and the castle came up at the beginning, he said "Look, it's my favorite place!!!"

My little nephew is the same age as DS but has never been on vacation. After Christmas, my sis said that her son had SO many toys and that most would probably never even get opened. A couple weeks ago, he got a new four wheeler. They always go out to eat. She spends tons of money on her hair. And then she has the nerve to tell a mutual friend in a snarky voice with me standing right there "She goes on a cruise like every 6 months!" Not true, only been on 2 cruises and they were 13 months apart. I pointed that out and she said "Well, you go on vacation like every 6 months." I told her that sometimes we do (we try to sneak in a non-Disney things in between). But as I made clear, it's a priority to us. We sacrifice other things.

Well said....I have a friend like that, who is always complaining to me that she does not have enough money to do the vacation things like us....but she is also the one who would buy herself expensive jewelry and re-decorates her home every few months. I am not saying there is anything wrong with that....but I just don't like hearing the complaints that she has no money, we all make choices about how we spend our money. We all can't have have it ALL!

 

[bombygriz]

We are also Dave Ramsey graduates: No mortgages, no car payments, no credit cards, no loans of any kind. Our money is ours to spend or save after utilities and groceries.

This interests me, as a future college student...should I be looking this up?

 

[Mmketeer]

Here's mine....

*Luck out on a discount.
*Go into debt and max back out that CC (I use this one alot).
*Beg and plead for GC's and not actual gifts for all celebrations (GC's can be used to pay for a Disney Cruise).

I have used all three of these and I am sure their are other things too, they are just so normal to me now I can't remember what they all are. LOL!

 

[AmandaRG]

This interests me, as a future college student...should I be looking this up?

I think so! That is what we have done for years, except for the DVC purchase. We had lots of debt and hadn't been on a vacation other than visiting family for 7 years...so we did celebrate our 20th anniversary on the cruise.

I wish I had read his stuff prior to getting my first credit card in college!!!

 

[bdink921]

I do a little of alot of things other posters have said. As a nurse, I opt to be 'on call' one night (16hrs) every or every other weekend. That money is not counted into the house budget and is used just for vacations. As a matter of fact, that money paid for just about our entire vacation this year. I also have Disney Visa, transferred our booking to an online agent for OBC, and had credits on Southwest to help with flights. We don't do a big trip every year, more like every other year. Our last cruise was on Carnival but the price drops were tremendous and with the savings we were able to add on 3 nights at WDW for a little Disney Magic . We also bag lunches, bring coffee from home and don't eat out often. We never come home from vacation owing a dime -- everything is paid for in advance. We don't consider any of that a sacrifice because we're used to it. Our vacations are always awesome family time and worth every bit of effort we put into it.

 

[AmberHeartsDisney]

We try to eat at home and not buy things we dont need.

 

[Bellecruiser]

We use our DVC points to cruise, among other things. Everyone tells us (on these boards) that it's not a good use of our points, but we love doing it, so off we go!

 

[sabrecmc]

Live in Florida!

Between not having to fly and FL resident rates, it really isn't all that expensive. I pay a bit at a time when I have some extra money. Being able to book so far in advance gives me a chance to get it paid off in little chunks.

 

[Shunasee]

How are we able to pay for a Disney cruise for our family of 5 each year (plus one with just me & my Mom and another with just me & DH)?

Move to Florida so you don't have to pay for airfare! There's no way we could cruise each year if we had to add on airfare to Florida for a family of 5. We also get to take advantage of Florida Resident rates, although I don't think they will be offered as much with the Dream and Fantasy as they were with the older ships. It's great to be a Floridian!

(I know, it's not realistic for most, but being able to drive to the port is a HUGE factor in how we can afford it.)

LOL! I live in Socal, and was WAY excited to see the Wonder come over here. We had never done a Disney Cruise, as I like my cruises to be 7+ days. Now that we can do one from LA, I was all over it!

 

[tiggerb]

I think so!
I wish I had read his stuff prior to getting my first credit card in college!!!

Us too! We would have been soooo much smarter if we knew the info @ 20 vs. late 30's! Instead, we know we could pay off more debt, but DH works 7/wk usually (w/ about 5 wks pd vacation +~1 week of floaters too), and says he wants to have some nice vacation. We don't go every year, but I was able to plan & pull off a surprise trip in 8 months to WDW, this cruise will be paid for in cash (over 20 months) along w/ extra $$, and we even took a short couples only trip w/ friends-- paid in cash (~ $1500 total w/ airfare and such... even came home w/ ~ $200 still left over) !

We now go on vacations (not often even w/ that much time off), paid for and debt free. Dave Ramsey stuff... debts aren't paid off, but we still use cash/envelope system for Christmas, clothes, gas, food ($70/wk for family of 4), grow a garden and freeze alot. WE ARE CHANGING OUR TREE BRANCHES/and ROOTS and teaching our boys to be much more wiser about $$! Beginning w/ when they get their 1st job! Dave's stuff SHOULD be taught to high school kids (cheaper than other books)! It meets state requirements/state and especially in today's economy! My 2 cents

 

[darkwing818]

Our "secret" starts with being DVC members since 1995 & have used our points (275 a year) to book all of our Disney vacations. However before we bought into DVC, we made sure we had our emergency fund in place & had started our DDs college funds. These were funded in large part by my DWs Teacher Assistant salary (she also has a 401b payroll deduction).

What has helped us over the last 20 years, is a formal monthly budget for expenses & 2 separate payroll deductions from my salary, the 1st goes to my 401K & the 2nd goes to our Vacation/Car/Christmas fund. This forced savings is critical for us, if we don't see the money, we've learned to live on what actually hits our check book.

Since 2001 we have cruised every other year, with at least one WDW vacation on the odd years. Presently we have 2 cash cruises & 1 cruise on points scheduled for 2011 & 2012. Another key to our Disney vacations, is that living in Tennessee, we always drive to WDW; for 4 people this is a major cost savings.

Bottom line,vacations are important to us as a family & we have found that WDW vacations are great fun & Disney cruising goes a long way to connect with our DDs and recharge our batteries.

 

[DreamBound23]

There are some people on here that go on several cruises a year! I say God bless them. They obviously must have well paying jobs and work very hard!

We are using our tax returns. You can always come up with something else that the $$$ should go to...this year I said life is too short!!! We both work very hard, and with our work schedules, we are hardly able to enjoy time together.