Everyone knows that WDW is expensive...but WELL worth it! Is there any special way you save for your trips to the world? I make candles as a hobby/side job, and sell them. All of my candle money is my "play" money, so this year I've decided to play at WDW!! It may take me 8-12 months to save it this way, but at least I know I've earned every mickey bar! How do you save for your trips?
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How do you save $$ for your WDW trip?
- Thread starter tinkfan05
- Start date
WTBAD
Active Member
I like to make a budget for each trip. Then I know how much I need to save for the trip. To save, the first thing I do is use my Disney Visa to buy just about everything, form food to gas to paying any bill that will accept visa. I subtract each purchase just as if I had used a check. Then when the visa bill comes in I just add back all of the visa charges in my checkbook that are on the visa bill & write a check for the full amount of the visa bill. We do the change thing too, but we include any rebate checks from purchases also in our savings. Also, I will create a "bill" for the trip & write a check to pay that "bill" along with all our other bills. I just put the payment for the trip "bill" in a separate envelope & deposit it to our savings account. Also I use the Disney Visa to pay for everthing on the trip. I charge everything to my room while at WDW then pay for everything with the visa at checkout. When the visa bill come in with the cost of the trip on it, I already have all the money saved to cover the cost of the trip. If you time the charge for the trip at the beginning of the visa billing cycle, you will still have a month, or thereabout, to save that last little bit.
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Ms. Tinkerbell
Member
Thanks! It was a long hard road
When we first got married and dh was new to the military, we had tons of credit offers thrown at us, and I must admit we took a lot of them, so it took us awhile to wise up, so now we have done away with all CC. It's harsh I know, but that's what works best for us. If we can't pay for it with our checking account/debit we can't have it, with a very few exceptions. Our Disney trips are our big trip each year too. We normally take several smaller trips when dh is home, but nothing like our WDW ones.Good luck to you on your pay off! and to your next Disney trip!
For us, it's a very important trip each year that we all look forward to, so we are very committed to making it happen too.
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Pooh'sBuddy
Well-Known Member
If I'm not mistaken, we get 1% reward of each $100 spent. Every now and then, they have offers of double or triple reward for 1 to 3 months for certain categories, i.e. gas, groceries, restaurants. How much do we get back? With the bonus offers, it makes it worthwhile. It's fun having The Mouse on my card - we get "how cute" comments every now and then. We'll have to see if the extras like a special meet and greet at EPCOT is any good.
jer
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Ms. Tinkerbell
Member
Thanks so much! That's a very nice thing to say and we are very appreciative!
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We charge everything we can to Disney Visa and pay off the balance every month. That way, we earn points, but don't pay extra in intrest. You earn 1 point for every $100 you spend per month rounded, i.e. if you charge $1975 you earn 20 points. Those points are then redeemed for reward dollars on a 1 to 1 basis. Sometimes, usually around Christmas, they have bonus points you can earn on certain types of charges.
BTW, can you PM me those survey sites too?
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mousebymarriage
Active Member
Could you PM me those survey sites too? I have heard about them but, have been hesitant to try because I am afraid I'll end up with ones that are a scam!
Thanks!
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New2WDW
New Member
Just a quick side note regarding the Online Surveys that many of you have asked about. I set up a separate email account to use for these sites just in case I got a bunch of junk mail and so far I have not received any junk mail.
Now back to our regularly scheduled savings thread......:lol:
Now back to our regularly scheduled savings thread......:lol:
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amykissangel
Member
Disney Visa card, change from piggy banks, Disney Dollars and gift cards procured through Birthday and Christmas gifts, donating plasma (good $$ :~)), and singing for Weddings/Funerals...all that goes into a separate account. 3 1/2 months!!! :~))))
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Tiggerfanatic
Well-Known Member
So many change savers
I save change as well, but the problem is I never cash it in
I also seperate out pennies. I have an old canvas bank bag that has about 60 pounds of pennies in it. I keep it on the floor for people to trip over
I use my Disney Visa when I can, which gets me reward points. I also get a bonus every year. A take that and divide it up. Some goes immediately to some things I want - like a new computer. Some goes into savings. The rest goes into a seperate account for "discretionary spending" - vacations, "toys", things like that.
-dave
I do this, too. Between our trip in 1998 to the trip in 2006, I had enough pennies saved to buy a new video camera.
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Disneykidder
Well-Known Member
I have a change jar as well. I don't use as that much cash as I used to, but whenever I do, I throw the change in the bottom of my purse and then dump it in my jar. I usually accumulate a decent chunk to use as spending money.
Kind of off topic but we purchase a Disney dollar every trip at Town Hall in MK. We save each in our album. They do change the pics every few years so it's kind of cool. My son also likes spending them, too.
Kind of off topic but we purchase a Disney dollar every trip at Town Hall in MK. We save each in our album. They do change the pics every few years so it's kind of cool. My son also likes spending them, too.
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bigorangeandy
Well-Known Member
I do the change savings, I'm in the $300.00 neighborhood at the moment. I've been taking my lunch to work for the last month, so I've not had a lot of change (good thing is that I'm saving a lot more cash). I've got a work trip coming up a few weeks before our trip this year so I can bank a little saved per diem money. I'll use a roll of quarters for the tolls, but the rest I'll cash in and use for treats.
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raven
Well-Known Member
It all depends on the store. I work at a Disney Store and we have lots of adult merchandise. Basically my paycheck goes right back into the store since I buy about everything I see. :lol:
But I used to save $20 a week starting 6 months out from my vacation. If I couldn't do $20 a week then I would do $20 a paycheck. I'd put the cash in an envelope and not count it until a month before I went. It's surprising how much that adds up!
Nowadays when I am out and about and want to spend a little money on something useless I say to myself "This money could buy a Dole Whip or a Mickey Bar!" and I would put it in an envelope instead. So whenever I got the urge to spend something small I would use that money for WDW instead.
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