How do you pay for your trip?
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| Wed, 07-05-2006 - 9:21am |
Let's face it...a trip to Disney World is not cheap. I'd assume that most of us have to scrimp and save for such a trip! How do you fund a trip? Do you charge it and hope to pay it off, or pay it off slowly? Do you save until you have the cash and then go? Do you depend on your income tax refund? Do you save change in a jar or sell on Ebay? Do you earn Disney Rewards on the Visa? Do you set aside a certain amount from every paycheck?
We don't have a huge savings account, but when we are presented with a great Disney deal, we take the money out of savings and go (but we can only afford to do this every other year or so...never a few times a year!). Then when our income tax refund comes in, we just replenish our savings with it. I also sell a bit on Ebay (kids outgrown clothes in season) and I save that money for trip incidentals. And, we have the Disney Visa. Although I charge EVERYTHING on it and use it like a debit card (and pay it in full each month, so I never carry a balance), we've never earned enough rewards to pay for an entire trip. Our last trip, we had 300 points, which we used for souvies since we had free dining. If not for the dining, it would have helped pay for our food.
I also started substitute teaching for our school district in March, so I've banked that money instead of spending it! I'll be working part time and subbing again in the Fall, so that money will get banked into my special "rainy day" account too.
Just curious how the rest of you do it!!
Marcy


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I am really bad about wanting to go out for lunch during the work week. I know it is bad for both the budget and the waistline but I enjoy getting out. So as an incentive I've started that whenever I eat in I put $5 in my disney account. This is a new thing I'm trying this year but it's going okay. It is an account I'd set up to try to sell things on ebay but never got around to. So you earn enough to feel like it is worth the trouble?
In the past I have not done Disney packages. We usually plan a trip a year in advance so one month I'll buy park tickets at the store then a few months later I'll book plane tickets, then a few months later the room, etc, so that by the time we go I've paid for everything but meals and souvinirs. We charge everything but don't carry a balance so I pay whatever I charged that month. If I don't have the money to pay the credit card bill then I transfer from savings but try to not book the next piece of the trip until I've replaced the money in savings.
Of course doing it this way I don't really know the whole cost of the trip unless I stop and think about it - which I try not to.
Elisa
Ebay is one of those things that if you stick with it and know how to price things and when to list things, you can have some good luck. When we decided to go to Disney in 2004, we really didn't have the cash, but we couldn't pass up the deal (kids stay and play free, I believe) that they were offering at the time. That's when I started listing on Ebay. I made $900 in about 6 months! I sold clothes, books, toys, and my DH sold some electronic equipment. Honestly, I haven't been as succesful since, but I do run into good luck from time to time! (now when I buy my kids clothes, I think "resale" before I decide on something!)
I haven't sold anything since the Spring, but I made enough then to pay for 2 nights and meals in Ocean City Maryland over Mother's Day.
I wouldn't be able to make a living off of it, but it's good for "fun money"....
Marcy
Marcy~
As you know, this is our first upcoming trip (we're under 30 days--wahoo!) and when we booked I put down the required deposit and paid it out until the final payment date. Steve is solely commission (so in addition to the trip, we had to come up w/the $$ lost while he is *off*)at his work but does get bonuses here and there....those went towards the trip as well.
His work does the vacation pay differently...at your year date, you get the $$ but can take your vacation anytime. In the past, we've taken a long weekend type trip and used some of the $$ for the days lost or on other stuff. This year, the whole amount is going into an account and we will build off of that.
I do like how you can pay out your trip.....a huge stress relief!
Well, in the past, I've paid what I could and then charged the rest to credit cards....but I'm trying to pay all of my credit cards off, so I am not going to put our next trip to Disney on a credit card! We aren't going until next summer and we are planning a big trip! We're going to go for 10 days and stay at the Contemporary! I'm planning on booking the trip as soon as possible (when the 2007 prices come out) and paying what I can each month. Then when our tax return comes in, I'll pay off the balance. I'm going to ask my relatives to buy Disney dollars for the kids for their birthdays and Christmas so that they can use that money for souvenirs, and I'll ask them to contribute to our trip for mine and DH's birthdays/ Christmas too. We also searched the house and the cars for change and started saving a bucket of change. DH and I empty our pockets into it each day, so we'll have a little bit of money there for extra expenses when it comes time to go!
I want to go to Disney again in 2008 and in 2009 as well...I'll use the tax return for those trips since they will be smaller than the one we are planning for 2007...
Claudia
WE charge it then pay it off from our Savings account. We do try to cut corners till the trip. We go out once a week for dinner, but now instead of ging to nice sit down places, we go for fast food and diner food. If you think about it, Disney is one of the cheapest all inclusive family vacations. For 1600 you get lodging, food, entertainment and you don't have to drive anywhere! Not many places you can go for that!
We went last year in October, we are going this year in Septmeber and hopefully we will go again next year. i hope it wil become a tradition.
I also sell things on ebay, work partime as a subtitute since I quite teaching full time and buy most of my children's clothes on sale or at consignment sales. We also do the grocery game and that really saves us money on food...by 50%! Every little thing you can do adds up!
I just charge the whole thing.
Send a free greeting card on me!!
We do a little bit of everything. Before our trip we stopped eating out at all. This included the children eating lunch at school. You would be surprised how much money goes out the window when you do that. I sold some stuff on ebay, consigned the children's clothing, and sold stuff on our local almostfreecycle site. I also did a few surveys and such. I put all this aside into a trip account. Whenever I had cash left over I put it aside as well. Say I had $20, but I had $5 left over, I put it aside. Dh and I did this without discussing it with each other. Well, we had both saved quite a bit. We also charged and paid off with the Disney Visa card. That helped us earn points and we used the rewards on our trip. We also used a small portion of our tax return.
If you are planning multiple trips then I would suggest planning them within a year's window. That way you can upgrade your first package's tickets once you arrive in the world to ap's. This will save you in the long run because you only pay for the tickets once. :)
We were going to do this this year but our travel days didn't fit in the one year time frame.............
we used to use our income tax refund but now i've picked up a part time job (a work from home type business where i'm my own boss)
and i've used all my profits to pay for this years disney trip.
if you guys are interested email me at noahsark940@yahoo.com
I paid for my trip in no time and now i'm putting money aside for next years trip, with little effort.
lisa
This is our 3rd trip in 3 years.
2004: my mom came with and paid for our airfare. we stayed at our off site time share - paid for already monthly, so no additional there. mom bought most of our food and souviners too. we charged what we didn't get paid for.
2005: this trip was 6 months after our 2004 trip. we had 2 free airline tickets from fare credits from 2004. we used our time share points as hotel credits and stayed off site. charged the rest of the trip.
2006: 1 free airline ticket. i sell Tastefully Simple and i challenged myself to book a ton of parties. so i did and should be able to pay for 1/2 the trip by august. then i still had to pay for the other 1/2, so i am working at our builders home tour for 3 weekends. we just built last year and loved the builder and i am working with our salesman so it should be a blast, and i am earning money too! the rest will be charged and paid off like the other trips.
our theory is, it is only money. we can make more. the kids are only small once so why save for a trip?
Sarah
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