Saving Money

[omgthatsfun]

Being the Disney-holic in my family, I decided I want to go back to the world ASAP. I also happen to be the most frugal of my family. Of course, this is a problem since we just blew a considerable amount of money on a disney world/cruise package for my "quince" (similar to a sweet sixteen in hispanic culture). My family then realized that we prefer to stay in Disney resorts rather than at an off-site hotel, adding to the cost of the bill. :brick: I made a "mickey piggy" a few months ago but we have only saved 150 dollars or so...clearly not enough for a trip to WDW.
Any tips/suggestions would be VERY much appreciated!

 

[marcriss]

We put ALL of our coins into a piggy bank. We just finished rolling for our upcoming trip. It's a great way to save money.

 

[Tiggerfanatic]

I save all my change, too. It paid for my plane ticket this time. I do garage sales, try to buy at least one Disney gift card a week (it helps that I can get them at my grocery store now), any "found" money (birthday, expense checks) goes into the Disney piggy bank, and probably the biggest one, I work a TON of overtime.

 

[drp4video]

I also roll coins. I try to never give out change when I buy something. I always just use bills. Then I get the change from the purchase and just throw it in my purse. At the end of the week, I take all the change out of my purse and throw it into a coffee can. A few weeks before a trip, I start to roll. It usually is enough to pay for all of our food.

 

[WishIWasAtWDW]

saving coins is always a great way to save. i recently made a box and decorated it with mickeys and wrote on the top "walt disney world fund". i put rolled coins in there and any loose bills i have in my purse. another great way to save money is by cutting back on things that you spend a considerable amount of money on. for instance, i drink lots of soda. so before my sept. trip i started limiting myself to a certain number a day. i would drink one soda, and then water or juice. this really helped me save some money for disney. some other things to cut back on are going out to eat, buying miscellaneous items like dvds, music, going to the movies. just tell yourself before any unnecessary purchases that you could be using that money for your disney trip. that always helps me spend less money and save more!

 

[mickey&me]

Pay Yourself

Designate certain things--chores no one ever gets around to or habits they'd like to break--and put money in the bank when the things are done. For example, if you'd like to lose weight, put in a certain amount for every pound; put in money when you clean out that hall closet; put in money when you mow the lawn yourself instead of paying someone else to do it. Get the idea?

 

[accord99cutie]

Some of the things we do is any time DH wants to order take out instead of cooking I make him pay me what he would pay for take out and I just cook him dinner and put aside the money for our Disney Fund. We do other things similar like instead of going out to the movies for a date night we rent a movie and put the money we saved ourselves into the disney fund.

 

[Scooter]

Any "Extra money" goes into our Disney vacation savings account.

By extra money I mean:

State income tax refunds.
Federal income tax refunds
Scratch off lottery ticket winnings
Christmas Bonuses at work
Visa reward dollars
End of year bonuses at work
store product rebates
Garage sale earnings

We also try and save as much loose change as we can.

 

[Susan Savia]

Many good ideas here! In addition to saving all our change, we have a big annual yard sale and we save our tax refunds each year. (The stimulus check we all got a year or so ago...its paying for our tickets on our upcoming trip). We do not go to movies and rarely eat out fast food. We cut back going to the grocery store to every other weekend, not every week. We use generic brands of many foods. We wash our cars ourselves. I bring a bagged lunch to work each day and drink water, not soda. Its a way of life for us and we know that in the end, a Disney World trip is well worth it!