How Do You Fund Your Trips?

EllaEverAfter

Earning My Ears
Joined
Oct 15, 2017
My question to you all is this - how do you fund your Disney lifestyle?

My family income is pretty tight as I am working part time around my children's hours at school. I want to earn more to be able to fund my life/dreams.

So I am curious......how do you do it?
 
My question to you all is this - how do you fund your Disney lifestyle?

My family income is pretty tight as I am working part time around my children's hours at school. I want to earn more to be able to fund my life/dreams.

So I am curious......how do you do it?

We are fortunate that my DH does well and we can afford to vacation.
Some ideas for you, though, are to give up some of the luxuries you may enjoy...movies, dining out, coffee runs, etc. Also, when buying something that is a want or need, ask yourself “would I rather have this or go on vacation?” If you choose vaca, set that money aside in your trip fund.
Coupon for groceries and set aside the savings.
Sell stuff around the house and save that money.
Can you offer any crafts or services for sale? Pet sitting, etc.

...all things I have done in the past before we go to where we are. Hope that helps!
 
No magic solutions from me I'm afraid, I rely on overtime shifts, although I can imagine that would be difficult for you given you're only able to work part time.
 
How many people are in your family? And where would you be flying from? Some people get the SWA credit card when it has a high promotional sign up (like 50,000 miles) and can fly their family of four (if they are on the East Coast) - round trip - for the cost of those miles. So the annual fee that is less than $200 a year is worth it. Plus, I think the first year's annual fee is waived so it's "free" (just remember to cancel it before renewal time).

If you are the type to pay off your bills in full each month, then consider a credit card that provides rewards for your purchases and then pay off the bill each month. Cash in the rewards!
 
I keep a very tight ship with the finances. We have very little spent on extravagant things - no TV packages, no nights out, takeaways are minimal, gift spending is budgeted through the year and minimum spending, gifts are generally things we need rather than what we want. We do have to run two cars due to where we live and jobs but again expenses are kept to a minimum. Neither live close enough to work to drop the second car. I try to earn extra online when I can though the consistency of this is not great due to illness.

It doesn't help that we are UK based so flights and hotels during school holidays (we get fined or prosecuted if we take children out of school for holidays) costs in the region of £6500 which if what our next trip is costing though this was quite a deal and most trips are in the region of £7500.

We could go to Paris but still costs in the region of £1400 per trip and this is only for 4 days.

At the moment we do put every spare penny towards our trip but it looks as though this one will be our last until the children grow up or until something fantasic happens to our financial position i.e. we win the lottery and pay off our mortgage :charac2: :tongue:
 
Fiance and I both work a lot of overtime. We know we can't afford to go on a big vacation every year, so we just put a little bit of money away every month for whenever we want to go on vacation next. We also try to book deals as where we stay isn't always super important to us. We're going this month and switched from Pop to CBR to get the gift cards at check in which actually made it a little cheaper AND managed to get free dining on top of that!
 
I wish overtime was available at my place. I would take it in a heartbeat. It i easier to work more when it is for something you want.
 
You might be interested in the following threads:

Share Your Rewards towards Disney: https://www.disboards.com/threads/s...ard-disney-week-of-11-05-17-11-11-17.3645574/
Track Your 2018 Budget Here: https://www.disboards.com/threads/track-your-2018-vacation-budget-here.3643423/

For me, I do some apps/websites that offer cash (swagbucks, mturk, etc), and then funnel any "extra" money into a separate savings account (interest on my emergency fund account, credit card cash back rewards, tax refund, work bonus, etc). I don't technically need to do this, but it lets me feel better about spending the money and helps me convince myself that I can afford to splurge on things. I'm a saver by nature so I have a hard time justifying all the extras, but if it's "free" money then I don't second guess myself.
 
Patience! Integrity! Penny-pinching! Finding ways to get along with less! Consuming as little as possible, re-using everything possible, creating zero waste...

I tracked our household food usage over two months and decided, no more impulse eating. If it's not on the meal planner, we're not taking it out of the fridge/pantry. No snacks for Mom and Dad outside of meal time. Somehow I cut our food bill in half!

I mend/re-sew DD's clothes to minimize how much clothing shopping we do with a growing child .... I can mix-and-match pairs of ripped up leggings and combine them into longer leggings with cooler patterns. :) I add panels into t-shirts and tunics.

If our family is done with it, but it's not unhygienic to pass the item along to someone else... I resell it! That can be $20-100 extra a month...

We also have this thread here to help you track your frivolous spending:
https://www.disboards.com/threads/november-no-buy-2017.3645616/
 
I will check out those threads.

I currently shop through cashback sites, use bank account rewards and savings interest. I have no bonuses or overtime available to me so can't do that and currently do not pay tax as I don't earn enough!

I have YNAB so my budget is scrutinised. Due to my obsessive illness I was meticulous about our finances for a really long time and after treatment I am no longer checking the bank accounts multiple times a day. I have kept the healthy traits like finding deals and saving where I can. I also worked for a bank for a while so quite savvy financially.

Think I need to get back to my surveys etc to bring in that extra. I wish my list of visits were as long as some of the folks on here.

It is quite difficult having a passion for something that you can do nothing with.
 
Back when I was a single mom and money was very tight, I used to fund our Disney trips by taking on extra work. Usually seasonal or contract work since I didn't want to work two jobs for a long time. One year I delivered telephone books to get the money for a weekend at Disneyland.
 
I too am very fortunate too have a large vacation budget. HOWEVER I am huge into ebay and facebook swap shops. My house is completely clutter free and very organized. yet I still found $1200 worth of stuff to sell from August 20th until now. It was the day I dropped my daughter off at school which is how I remember. Mind you, I have ebay'ed for YEARS and felt like I really had nothing left that I was willing to part with. I went through every closet in the house and pulled out anything I didn't love. Sold via facebook swap groups, ebay etc. I plan to use my "winnings" to fund a last minute trip we are taking to WDW on January 1st for the week. That with super cheap airfare, etc. nearly paid for the entire package.
 
1) Direct Deposit: A set amount goes into a "vacation account" in an online bank which makes it difficult to access for impulse purchases. It also assures that I will have a known amount available for each trip. Currently, I have $75 per paycheck sent to the account. This puts close to $2K per year into my vacation account. Last year, there was a ticket deal that was too good to pass up. I did not have the funds available in the "vacation account" so I took out a "loan" from the kids' "college" accounts (they are 12 and 14 so they have a while) so now instead of $75 going into the vacation account, only $19 goes to that account. The rest goes back into the college accounts to pay back the cost of the ticket for the trips we will be taking in 2018 and 2019.

2) Disney Gift Cards: I do not pay for these and earn them by different methods. First, I save up those "Free with Purchase" gift cards from Target and use those to buy Disney gift cards. Second, I earn SwagBucks and redeem those for Target gift cards and turn those into Disney gift cards. Third, I have a BestBuy Visa card that earns rewards which can be converted into Disney gift cards as well. From now until the end of the year, gas and grocery purchases earn 3%. I can usually earn between $1000 and $1500 per year in free Disney gift cards.

3) Cash sources: My biggest cash source of vacation income is my plasma donations. You can donate up to two times in a 7-day period as long as you have at least one day in between donations. For the first donation, you receive $20 and you get $50 for the second donation in a calendar week. As long as I stay healthy and maintain my iron levels, I can earn over $2K in a year which covers over half of the cost of my vacations. I also have an Ally Visa card that earns 1% cash back on everything and 2% on gas and groceries, but when I redeem it into my Ally money market account (my online vacation account), I earn a 10% bonus. So when I redeem $25, I get $27.50.

4) Other sources: Pretty much any other "free" money I come upon (loose change, gifts, unexpected rebates, windfalls, etc) goes into my vacation funds. We do own DVC and our annual dues come out of our regular budget so our lodging costs are not covered by our vacation budget. That in itself is a big money saver.
 
I do lots of selling on facebook and ebay. Currently in the process of a big house declutter so I know this will definitely help. I think I might look at local bar work or something. Ideally I want work I can do in an evening at home when the kids are asleep but those jobs do not exist!

Your replies have given me food for thought.
 
Overtime, overtime, and more overtime.

This. Both of us working FT and dh works OT plus side jobs.
That said, I would have loved to been able to work PT while our kids were little. Dh would often get laid off in slow winters so my job was always the reliable one.
 
How many people are in your family? And where would you be flying from? Some people get the SWA credit card when it has a high promotional sign up (like 50,000 miles) and can fly their family of four (if they are on the East Coast) - round trip - for the cost of those miles. So the annual fee that is less than $200 a year is worth it. Plus, I think the first year's annual fee is waived so it's "free" (just remember to cancel it before renewal time).

If you are the type to pay off your bills in full each month, then consider a credit card that provides rewards for your purchases and then pay off the bill each month. Cash in the rewards!

I’ve never seen SW waive their AF but with being able to get the Companion Pass for almost 2 years plus all of the points, the AF is definitely worth it.
 
My question to you all is this - how do you fund your Disney lifestyle?

My family income is pretty tight as I am working part time around my children's hours at school. I want to earn more to be able to fund my life/dreams.

So I am curious......how do you do it?
TBH, I don't think that a Disney vacation is affordable to families that are on tight budgets to begin with. It's expensive to get there (especially if you're coming from Europe) and once here, the cost of tickets, accommodations and dining can be dizzying!

The way that I fund my Disney trips is probably not going to work for you. Everyone's situation is different and what works for one person may not be doable for another.

For example, there was a deal posted today where if you purchase a $150 Best Buy eGC, you got a $15 eGC bonus at a later date. I bought $300 worth of eGCs and I'm contemplating purchasing another $150 to max out the deal. Why Best Buy GCs? Because I can use them to purchase Disney GCs in the store. I can do this because I have the cash available to be able to cover a $450 expense and not think about how I'll pay the electric bill as well. I can't imagine someone who is on a tight budget being able to do this without making huge sacrifices in their daily lives.

I do credit card points and rewards programs to fund most of my Disney fix. It's more of a game (or challenge) to me to see how much of my vacation can be paid for without dipping into our designated vacation savings account. All of our monthly expenses get paid with a rewards credit card. We also own a small business and pay most of our overhead costs with a rewards credit card. We accrue a significant number of points this way. In order to make this worthwhile, every credit card bill gets paid in full each money.

I get anywhere from $75-$100 in cash and GCs each week from online rewards programs that I run while working from home. Some weeks are better than others. Some programs are more consistent than others.

We made our first DVC purchase with cash a few years ago when the real estate market crashed and we made our most recent purchase (again, with cash) this past year before DVC resale prices began to skyrocket. When we have more points available than we think we will use, we rent them out to cover the cost of our annual dues and then some. I use the cash from the rentals to purchase Disney GCs at a discount (like the aforementioned Best Buy deal) and then pay my dues with the GCs.

We buy annual passes. DVC members get a discount and I pay for the APs with Disney GCs that I either got for free using rewards programs or at a discount whenever there's a deal available. We get two or more visits out of an AP and then we (usually) take a year off. It ends up costing less than if we purchased MYW tickets for each visit.

So, quite often when we tally up what we spent on a week-long Disney trip for 2, it comes down to a very small amount of cash from our regular income. 9/11 fees for the airline tickets, which we get for free on points, and a small amount of cash for tipping skycaps, DME drivers, Mousekeeping and bell services are all that we actually pay OOP for. Pretty much everything else is covered with rewards, discounts and our DVC points.
 

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