saving trip money

[Firewolfe51]

Just wondering, who all has a WDW change jar or bucket? we have 32 days left and just dropped a $100 bill into our change bottle. About a week before we go we will take our bottle to one of those change counters. That will be our spendeing money on drinks,tips and food outside the park.

 

[tigsmom]

We also save all of our change. We roll it ourselves and then take it to the bank to cash in, that way you don't have to pay a fee. The kids usually use it for buying their "goodies".

 

[ryank007]

Yep, but mine's a change "envelope" for getting the family APs. Any leftover or extra money from the previous week's "family allotment" goes in. Usually it's $15 or so, but every once in a while, it's $50 or $100. We've saved up almost $500 so far, only $275 or so to go! :sohappy:

 

[KnK]

We have a Disney Tin from several years ago. I put $60.00 a week into it for our Disney fund. We also do the change thing.

 

[1DisneyDad]

Just started ours after the last trip in Jan. It's fun and the kids have not lost interest in it. Don't know how much is in it?!?

 

[monorailguy01]

has anyone ever made a special bank accout just for vacations, where you can only put money in and not take any out till your vacation day? If so did you find that it works better then a jar of change?

 

[Nemo14]

We have a "yard" container that we use exclusively for quarters. When it's full it holds about $100, so we roll it up and put it aside for spending money.

 

[Uponastar]

We have two coin banks that we empty and take to the coin machine at our supermarket before each trip. We usually have a few hundred dollars saved by trip time, just from spare change.
Our daughter is planning a WDW honeymoon for October 2007. I suggested she put a large container in her living room with a sign on it saying "Help send us on our WDW honeymoon"! It's only been a few weeks, but already she's got a good bit of change in there! Of course, Mom and Dad will contribute some paper money to the cause whenever we drop by!

 

[tigsmom]

has anyone ever made a special bank accout just for vacations, where you can only put money in and not take any out till your vacation day? If so did you find that it works better then a jar of change?

My DH has an account at his credit union. The money comes out of his check before he gets it so we don't miss it. We don't touch it until a few days before we leave on our trip. We have been doing that since the late 80's and it works out well for us. The change jar is really just spending money for the kids.

 

[maddiesmommy]

We have a big water jug that we put everything into, money from birthdays, feeding neighbors cat, whatever extra money everyone in the family earns. Then we will cash in before trip, have probably put 200.00 in just this last month from birthdays and odd jobs. We need it because during last years trip on our last day we had about $20.00 left, spent way to much time shopping at World of Disney. Next trip to WL 11/24-12/2 Cannot Wait !!!

 

[Dwarful]

We too do the vacation club account and Christmas Club account at the credit union. Our oldest daughter (10) has begun "babysitting" the neighbor boy 2 days a week after school [at our house w/me here ] But she gets $10 a week for that..so by our Christmas trip she will have $140 and then by our June trip she will have another roughly $240. She might take all or just some of the money. We buy the food, drinks, snacks etc. and usually one souvineer for each girl. but if they wants a bunch of pins or extra stuff..the girls generally each bring $100 of their own money from birthdays, holidays etc. $25 each park. works out well, they make better choices and don't come home with a bunch of impulse junk they never use or play with.

 

[Princess YaYa]

We keep a change container for the whole family to use. Both of my children also keep a container for any "paper" money that they may get. I let each one pick their favorite picture from the last trip and placed it on their container. Since our December '05 trip they have both saved enough to purchase a CD which will mature just before our Oct '07 trip.

 

[swimmom]

We save all our change for spending money. We also put $40.00 a week in a vacation fund to pay for trip expenses. I play Bunco once a month and what ever my winnings are it goes into the vacation fund too. I also have a Christmas club account and since my MIL & SIL who are going with us on our next trip have decided that we need to spend less this Christmas, I have decided to put any leftover Christmas money in the vacation fund. That will give me more insentative to stay on a tighter budget for Christmas!!!

 

[CAPTAIN HOOK]

We use a big old Whisky bottle and started saving as soon as we got back on August 23rd towards our next trip (dates to be confirmed)

 

[frankd1962]

has anyone ever made a special bank accout just for vacations, where you can only put money in and not take any out till your vacation day? If so did you find that it works better then a jar of change?

Yep. I have a vacation club account and have so much taken out of my paycheck (before I see it) and placed into the acoount. Then on payday I might in a little extra. It's great because Ican't touch it until they issue me a check which is usually the last week of May /first week of June. So I'll have the money before the trip. I orginally used it to save up so much for the buying of the trip this year and next year will be the spending money for the stuff that the meal plan isn't covering. (souveniors, extra snacks, unlimited cup....)

 

[tink68]

We also have a large jar that we keep change in for our trips. This money is for my daughter (10 yr old) to spend on what she wants so she is not always asking me for money. It works out great because she is more careful about what she buys and we don't argue about what she buys. When she went in 2004 she had $100 and for this time (next week) she is trying to get at least $120-125. She hits up the grandparents alot too. lol:lol:

 

[LuvtheEars]

When we decided to go to WDW this year (last December for our November trip) we got a container for each child and told all our friends and family to get Disney Dollars or just money for the kids for gifts. The kids also earn money for doing odd things around the house and helping Grandma. My son had set a goal of $250.00 and has a little bit over $200.00 saved up so far. I know that is a lot of money for a kid, but he really want's to pick something up at the Lego store and I know that will take quite a bundle.

We have told him that his money is for things he wants, but his hotel, and food will be covered, so we are hoping he will manage his money well and not ask us for a lot while we are there.

I'm glad to hear others doing the same thing.

 

[campdisney]

We have a monorail shaped bank for collecting change and a Disney tin for holding bills. The bank can hold about $80-$90 in change before it gets overfull and has to be emptied. Then the cash goes in the tin, along with any Ebay money (another way we save for the trip - hubby sells his sportscards off) and any laundry money (money we've forgotten to take out of pockets when doing wash).

The kids are old enough now to be in charge of their own savings this trip. We informed them that since we're paying for the trip and the tickets, its only fair that they save up for their own spending money. We set them a goal of saving at least $100 each. They know we won't bail them out either if they fail to save that much. I've seen both my kids work their little keisters off (doing odd jobs for relatives or extra jobs for me) to save up for video games quite a few times. They should have no problem reaching their goal.

The only problem is that the grandparents kill our home economy when they pay out for doing chores. I pay $.50 to have them unload the dishwasher or fold/put away a load of wash. My mother, who lives close by, pays them $2.00 to do the same stuff when we visit her! Guess who gets more help! :lol:

 

[TrentMom]

We too have a water jug that we put in whatever change we have at the end of the day.

We had one that was a little more than 1/4 full when we were robbed in January and the creep actually emptied out the change into god knows what and left us the jar. We had put a nice picture on it with the words, for our next Magical Disney Trip.

Anyways, we have bought a new jar a few months ago and threw out the other one...didn't want something that the creep had his hands on..... We now have a burgular Alarm. But, that is enough about that.

I tell my relative to get us either Disney Dollars or those Disney World gift cards for our birthdays and holidays...

I find these all work great for extra spending money.

next trip.......Nov 2007:xmas:

 

[Raquel]

has anyone ever made a special bank accout just for vacations, where you can only put money in and not take any out till your vacation day? If so did you find that it works better then a jar of change?

Hubby and I originally set-up our separate savings account when we were planning our wedding. We got married at Sandals Ocho Rios in Jamaica, and this was a great way for us to save. After the wedding, we changed it to our vacation fund. We were originally putting in $50 each from every paycheck. We both went through some job upheaval last year and haven't been able to get back to the $50 per paycheck again, but all our tax money and any extra goes in there. I also just started a part-time job and have decided that one paycheck each month from that job will go into the account.

But we also have a change jar. All of our spare change (coins) go into it. We'd started it Jan. 1, 2005 and we cashed it all in December 31. That money was used for groceries for our Disney trip this past January. It was only around $45, but that's mainly because we didn't include quarters (needed those for laundry) and since we were both out of work for a time, there wasn't much spending going on so not much spare change to throw in the jar. So far this year, we have a lot more and we're not planning a WDW trip until Dec. 2007 - so we'll have almost 2 years of change saved up.