Tips about Saving

We are Disney Vacation Club members, Annual Passholders and have the Tables in Wonderland dining card... I go on AllEars.Net and look at the menus to help me get a feel of how much we will be spending on each meal -- don't forget to add on some drinks. Then I include my discounts and tip so I can estimate how much we will need per day for food. It is a lot of work to do this planning, but it helps us a lot and I will pretty much have it paid for before we leave. - Michelle G.

Sam's Club sells Disney gift cards at a slight discount. Some other discount and grocery stores also sell them and you can in turn earn points on your grocery account for them. - Heather

It all begins at home. Every Sunday I do my grocery shopping. I always use coupons, and whatever the value of the coupons are I take out in cash and put it in my Disney travel case. If I feel I cannot take out that much this week I will take out half the value of my coupons. Then when I reach about $50 I buy a gift card for Disney with the cash. I do this because if I leave it, I know it is there and I will tend to spend it! - Michelle G.

The best tip I've ever read is the "Five Dollar Savings Plan." It's pretty easy: during the year, I try to pay with cash as much as possible. Any time I get a $5 bill as change, it goes into the Mickey Mouse bank on our bookshelf. You'd be surprised how fast it adds up! - Cari

My favorite tip is to join all the Disney websites and sit back while you receive special offers from Disney. - Cindy, Laurel, MD

My tip for saving money is to sign up for a survey-taking website like SurveySpot.com. This site emails paid survey invites to you. The paid surveys average about $3. I have been a member for just about a year now and have received $100 for the surveys I have taken. Many surveys that are sent aren't paid so make sure that you are focusing on completing the paid ones. Unlike other survey sites, this one is free to join and will not take a cut of your earnings when you wish to get a check mailed. - Abby, Enfield, CT

To help our monthly saving we've cut eating out down to once a week, and even then we usually get carry-out, which saves on beverages and tip. - Adele Camper

Each payday we figure out how much we can set aside for Disney gift cards. We purchase these once a month. Sometimes it's $10, sometimes it's $50. If the money goes into the savings account, it might be used for emergencies (like when our son had his two front teeth knocked out on a dare). This way, the vacation money is the vacation money, and it can't go anywhere else. - DShealer

If your bank has a vacation club or Christmas club save money out of your check each week and let it grow. If it takes more than a year to save for the vacation if you have to cash that out each year, just redeposit it for the next year. - Susan E. Kozicki

We have been going to WDW every two years because that's how long it takes us to save the money so that we won't incur debt. I have an online savings account separate from our "real" bank, and have a small amount automatically transferred with each paycheck into my "Disney Vacation Account." I chose a brand that actually pays interest. When it comes time to book the trip, the money is there waiting for us. There is no way we could have gone otherwise -- we stay on a very tight budget all year, and "live frugally" to be able to set aside this Magic Money for our every-two-years adventure. - Trudi Sabaj

My daughter wanted to celebrate her 25th birthday at the Magic Kingdom. Money is tight so we decided to see how cheaply we could do the trip. We did the following:

-- Signed up for coupons from Retailmenot.com
-- Booked a low cost flight on Southwest, and checked often to see if there was a price reduction ( saved $20 a ticket)
-- Used a hotel broker with a discount for the Regal Sun Hotel on Hotel Plaza Road. Paid $205 for three nights (weekend) and it included resort fee (great pool), and taxes. (The cheapest Disney hotel was Pop Century for $109/night.) Since it's on Disney property the transportation was great, and it was an easy walk to Disney Springs.
-- Checked the Goldstar.com web site for entertainment deals.

Having been to Disney many times, and stayed on property many times, I found this trip was almost 45 percent cheaper, and maybe even more stress free than other trips. - Meglowmaniainc

Use coupons at the store. When you get home, put the amount of money you saved using coupons in a jar and save it. Also if you get "buy one get one frees" you could put the free money you saved in the jar. - Susan E. Kozicki

Any time I save money on anything, the amount saved goes into the Disney fund, whether it's 50 cents or $5. - DShealer

We save our change. At the end of every night we empty all the change out of our pockets into our special "Disney" jar. We also toss in any $1 bills. At the end of the month we cash it in and put it into our travel savings account. This past December we pulled out our money from our savings account and had over $400 in there... Also, our tax return always goes straight to travel, no matter what. Since we know we will spend it if we just put it in the bank, I buy Disney gift cards for the amount of the tax return. This way we have the money for Disney and we don't spend it on other things. - Elaine

We save all of our change for the entire time leading up to our trip. We are actually able to save hundreds of dollars doing this -- your pennies add up quickly! Another thing we do takes some discipline, but we can save some major moolah. When we make a purchase using our debit card or checking account, I round up when I enter it. For example, if I have spent $13.50 somewhere, I enter $15 in my check book. Every couple of months I will figure out how much extra is in the checking account and transfer it to savings. It doesn't even feel like we are saving money! - Heather from Ohio