How do you save money for your trip?

[Alexx]

There was a thread on this AAAAAAAAGES ago so i thought i'd make a new one.

How do you save money for your trip? Except from the obvious working and then just saving that money.

Do you do anything extra like

- Making lunches instead of buying them

Name yours!

 

[Tiggerfanatic]

Disney has known for years that they have my money. :lol: I make regular donations. I'm definitely going to look into buying giftcards when I food shop though. Before you go on a trip do you combine them all into one big giftcard or do you just bring a stack of them with you?

Some of them I use to pay for the dining plan, and the rest I take along in a stack. I keep them in the room safe and just take what I plan on spending that day. I would rather take chance on losing a $25 card than a $500 card, especially when I give them to the kids.

 

[Magical Dreamer]

I buy a $25 Disney Gift card every chance I get at our local grocery store. there is no fee and a good way for me to put away untouchable Disney $$.

Right now I have $375 in cards and am hoping to purchase 1 card per week until our trip in November.

 

[disneycouple07]

Every payday for the DH and myself, I transfer money into a savings account. Our parents still give us money for every holiday, so we put that money in another account and that's our spending money once in Disney. Even though I'm transferring into my savings, I still try to pay Disney as if it was a monthly bill. We have a Disney Chase Visa credit card and we like to use it for the discounts and points, so I always leave some money in the account for when the bill comes!

 

[UberPlannerMom]

Money must be a lot tighter for us than it is the rest of y'all! We use rebates, coupons, craigslist sales, etc. to save the money we can. This trip is largely being paid by mileage. My hubby's company sends him places sometimes and instead of flying he has been driving and pocketing the difference between the gas cost and the alloted mileage money. It is amazing how much that has helped. The mileage for the trip to the home office in Florida amouted to $650 while the gas was around $150... a $500 difference!

 

[marcriss]

We have a piggy bank that takes all of our change....usually adds up to around $500.

And we have the Disney Visa, We charge everything and pay it off each month so we rack up a lot of points.

We instituted the "Gift Card Christmas" and birthdays which is disney gift cards for us. Since we go in early December we hold our xmas cards for the next trip.

The latest thing is that the Disney Store now accepts paypal. So I've been selling stuff we have lying around the house on eBay and using the money I collect in my paypal account to buy Disney gift cards which they ship for free.

I like the $5 bill idea. We may have to try that...

 

[Lisalyn]

Couple different things. We always get a nice tax refund, so we use that for the trip itself (hotel, airfare, tickets.) Whenever I get a good commission check, I put that towards it.

The biggest thing I do for spending money is about 5 months ahead, every morning when I come into work, I transfer $30 from my checking to a savings account. Comes out to about $600 per month. In 5 months, I'll have about $3,000 saved. Then I try to put aside an additional $2,000 from commission checks here and there, and we go down with $5,000.

If you get commission checks that big....and can afford to transfer $30 a DAY into your savings account - I need to work where you work. You guys hiring??? LOL :ROFLOL:

 

[Tomi-Rocket]

whatever we can....

For the last three trips we've had a change jar. Last time I used the refund we got from applying the free dining to our package and saved that towards our trip. For our next trip in Sept. '11 we have the obligitory change jar, I've started a dollar jar just for $1 bills and any money I get unexpectedly. For example my class reunion was cancelled and I put the money they refunded me right into my "Disney Fund". The kids also save their own money. They put part of their allowance away every week, they had change my dad gave them and split the money between savings, games/iPod they want and their own "Disney Fund". It's just that when we go on vacation, since we don't go to WDW every year, I like to be able to buy whatever we want. I don't want to budget nor worry about what we're spending. Now that being said we also don't just buy everything we can just to buy something. I want things that last and will have meaning, like photo albums or the Christmas ornaments we get every trip.

 

[Tomi-Rocket]

adding $5 to the list....

I forgot to add that we use our tax refund to pay for the trip package so that the money we bring is all spending money (and for tips).

Now, after reading some posts I think I'm going to change my $1 jar to a $1 AND $5 jar! Thanks for the tip! :sohappy:

 

[zurgandfriend]

1. I have special bank account were I put money away every payday for WDW.

2. I save all my change and put it in a special "piggy bank" every evening and by all change I mean every coin, one dollar bill and five dollar bill I get everyday.

 

[plutospal]

What a great idea to get the Disney gift cards! And the change jar! You guys are great:sohappy::sohappy:

 

[Korfar]

And we have the Disney Visa, We charge everything and pay it off each month so we rack up a lot of points.

We do this exact same thing. After a year we end up with a nice bit of money to use while at the parks.

I like the gift card idea. We will have to see if our local store has these.

 

[Mr. Morrow]

I simply set aside 100 bucks a week until I have enough.

 

[drp4video]

I do many of the things already mentioned.

1. I only pay for things with bills. Change goes into my purse and at the end of each week, I dump it into a coffee can. Adds up fast.

2. I charge most everything on my Disney Visa and rack up dollars that way, it will pay for the hotel or passes. Allstate lets you charge, which I recently found out, your insurance, so this helps to add up those dollars.
( I am also able to charge business expenses to my card which helps...I am a lawyer and have to charge bankrtupcy court cost...:shrug

3. I try to put money away each week into my drawer before I pay my bills. Sometimes I have to tap into it, but usually not. It doesn't have to be a lot. As I am basically self employed, my pay varies every week, so I try to put away at least 10% or more.

4. I watch a lot of Disney web sites for helpful information on discounts, both on hotels, food, passes and rental cars.

5. I used to go 4 times a year, so the annual pass was so worth it. Now that my daughter is older, I am going about once a year (although it has been 16 months....), so now I buy a 10 day pass, no expiration and hopper so it can last three visits.

6. We aren't big eaters, so when we do go to disney, we share meals a lot. I am not a big french fry fan, my daughter loves em, so we get chicken fingers and fries a lot, split the fingers, she gets the fries, I order a side salad and I have a chicken caesar salad.

I also try to use frequent flyer miles to fly, or I bump flights so I get free ones.

 

[EaglesfanNJ]

There was a thread on this AAAAAAAAGES ago so i thought i'd make a new one.

How do you save money for your trip? Except from the obvious working and then just saving that money.

Do you do anything extra like

- Making lunches instead of buying them

Name yours!

I know this is an older thread but i had to chime in because i've just been recently thinking about this!

We're planning on going back October 2011, so it's time for me to start planning $-wise. I always have my trips paid in full, never use credit.

I wanted to try something that for me will be very challenging, maybe some of you have tried or are trying this, and you can keep me motivated..

I have a sick obsession with Dunkin' Donuts coffee, as in, I get a medium every single day without fail. Well that's $1.80 every day, and i give the .20 to the staff since i'm just getting that coffee. So i spend $2 a day for a month on coffee, which is on average $60 a month and $720 a year.

I was thinking of issuing myself a challenge, reward being a Disney vacation. Kick the Dunkin Donuts every morning, and instead literally take that $2 and place it in a jar or envelope. I mean, my work has free coffee (i should preface by saying it's worse than NesCafe :lol.

Can this be done? Can i last long? Should i try tea? This is a daunting task, but reward would mean the world to me.

 

[NYwdwfan]

I have a sick obsession with Dunkin' Donuts coffee, as in, I get a medium every single day without fail. Well that's $1.80 every day, and i give the .20 to the staff since i'm just getting that coffee. So i spend $2 a day for a month on coffee, which is on average $60 a month and $720 a year.

That would definitely work - but it's going to be torture!!! Although - keeping your eye on the prize (the mouse!) should help!!

I use the Disney Visa for points, but I also have a separate bank account I call my "free $ for Disney". ANY found money (change jars, cash for selling old baby gear & toys on ebay, scratch-off lotto tix, rebates - including discount checks from our insurance for taking defensive driving & installing our home alarm, ETC.) gets deposited into that account. We have about $600 saved just from doing nothing! That makes me super-happy! :sohappy:

 

[marcriss]

I know this is an older thread but i had to chime in because i've just been recently thinking about this!

We're planning on going back October 2011, so it's time for me to start planning $-wise. I always have my trips paid in full, never use credit.

I wanted to try something that for me will be very challenging, maybe some of you have tried or are trying this, and you can keep me motivated..

I have a sick obsession with Dunkin' Donuts coffee, as in, I get a medium every single day without fail. Well that's $1.80 every day, and i give the .20 to the staff since i'm just getting that coffee. So i spend $2 a day for a month on coffee, which is on average $60 a month and $720 a year.

I was thinking of issuing myself a challenge, reward being a Disney vacation. Kick the Dunkin Donuts every morning, and instead literally take that $2 and place it in a jar or envelope. I mean, my work has free coffee (i should preface by saying it's worse than NesCafe :lol.

Can this be done? Can i last long? Should i try tea? This is a daunting task, but reward would mean the world to me.

I COULD NOT do this! In fact I've added an extra cup a day to my coffee addiction. What I did for a while was bring my own mug to my local 7-eleven. Doing that saved me around .40, which I added to the change that I usually got from buying my coffee and that went into the piggy. You could try making yourself a cup at home and bringing it with you, using DD beans. Unfortunately for me my coffee is hit or miss. Good luck!