How Do You Fund Your Trips?

[4luv2cdisney]

Charge everything to credit cards every month and pay in full.

Previous trips have almost always been during free dining and Disney Visa rewards usually covered the room.

Southwest Visa rewards covers airfare or else we drive.

We have a change jar we always cash in for tips and misc. How many "extra's" we do depends on how full the change jar is.

So, our trips pretty much cost us park tickets.

*****
Kids grow older.....D wants to take boyfriend on vacation....we now need 2 rooms. (But they have their own spending and misc money.) Trips are no longer "cheap". Need new ideas.
*****

So, we just bought DVC and are hoping Dis Visa rewards will regularly cover the equivalent of dues and basic food.

We are getting DVC APs for the next 2 trips. With tax, I think that will be around $2400 for 4 of us. Divided among 2 trips = $1200 / trip. (Boyfriend and/or D have to buy his ticket)

My DH has the ability to work side jobs. Once I start talking about a trip, he suddenly becomes very motivated to take on extra work. This is usually for "extras", better meals, etc.

I'm looking for ways to make as much of that $1200 per trip in other ways, too since we just shelled out the cash for DVC. Really hoping that our buy in is the only OOP for 2018 and 2019 trips.

We will need to take a year or so off after those 2 trips to "reload" and start again.

 

[Marionnette]

So, we just bought DVC and are hoping Dis Visa rewards will regularly cover the equivalent of dues and basic food.

We are getting DVC APs for the next 2 trips. With tax, I think that will be around $2400 for 4 of us. Divided among 2 trips = $1200 / trip. (Boyfriend and/or D have to buy his ticket)

Did you purchase your DVC on the resale market or thru DVD directly? If your recent purchase was a post-April 2016 resale, you don't qualify for the DVC AP discount.

However, if you bought direct or if the purchase was finalized before the April 2016 cutoff date for grandfathered memberships, you would pay $595.35 per person for a DVC Gold AP or the same price for a Platinum Plus AP if you buy them before 01/03/18.

 

[4luv2cdisney]

Did you purchase your DVC on the resale market or thru DVD directly? If your recent purchase was a post-April 2016 resale, you don't qualify for the DVC AP discount.

However, if you bought direct or if the purchase was finalized before the April 2016 cutoff date for grandfathered memberships, you would pay $595.35 per person for a DVC Gold AP or the same price for a Platinum Plus AP if you buy them before 01/03/18.

Yes, we qualify. Gave up on resale, bought direct. Thanks for the total! I knew it was $550-something plus tax. Guess I estimated pretty well! Christmas shopping this month, APs next month!

 

[westcoastfldisneygirl]

Not having kids. JK...kinda

Also, saving, not eating out unless it's on gift cards, meal planning. Sticking heavily to a budget.

Agree with the overtime, and H's clients as well (separate from his regular work).

 

[mi*vida*loca]

X amount of dollars comes out of my account every pay.

My SO bonus.

I refuse to give up every luxury year round for one week at Disney. I like my iPhones, cable, manicures, eating out. We just don’t go overboard. Everything in moderation. We also don’t do disney every year or want to go every year. We vacation other places in the off years.

 

[tarheel618]

Im trying Swagbucks to earn extra money for our March trip. Check out the Swagbucks thread here on the budget board. There are some posters who pretty much earned all of their trip money through swagbucks.

 

[ssgjason]

When I got a decent raise a few years ago, I had half the additional money direct deposited into a vacation account. It takes care of our vacations every year. If we don't go on a vacation, it goes to a home improvement project, like repainting, updating fixtures etc...
I do something similar with my yearly raise, I automatically take half of that and put that additional in my 401k and/or Roth. I have found the more money you have the more you spend. We live within our means. We have basic cable, charge everything (EVERYTHING) on our rewards cards. The rewards cards often take care of Christmas presents or other travel expenses.

 

[tasha99]

airfare--airline miles (we charge everything but don't carry a balance)
housing--DVC (this was surprisingly a good purchase for us financially. I thought it would just mostly get us where we wanted to stay, but it has saved us money, too, and our contracts are worth more than we paid for them).
food--we eat in our villa a lot and have a grocery order delivered. There is a DVC discount in many restaurants. Our food is our biggest expense, though, as we tend to eat in a lot, then splurge on some really expensive meals.
tickets--we search for the best deal. This year it was Last minute travel club.

One thing is I'm in my 50's now, and no longer single. I remember really pinching pennies to go when my kids were young, because we were a younger family, newly divorced, and I had a lower salary and higher kid expenses. We went much cheaper then--free dining (back when it included the tip), value or moderate hotel rooms, etc. I didn't use airline miles because I didn't spend enough to accrue many.