2 trips in 4 months?!

[FutureDisneyEventPlanner]

hi everyone, i'm planning on going to Disneyland in September and possibly Disney World in November/December...how do you all save for your trips? am i crazy?

i am a college graduate with loans so i have to budget wisely!

 

[dclpluto]

hi everyone, i'm planning on going to Disneyland in September and possibly Disney World in November/December...how do you all save for your trips? am i crazy?

i am a college graduate with loans so i have to budget wisely!

Overtime

No your not crazy enjoy your life

 

[disneedee]

Auto deposit from pay check to savings acct.
Also buying discounted gift cards.

 

[duffybear32830]

Not crazy at all! (But you do still need to be able to halfway afford it.) WDW ticket prices will likely go up in February so if at all possible if you can purchase your tickets before then that's an easy win. Discounted gift cards are a fun game for those of us with good credit.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

hi everyone, i'm planning on going to Disneyland in September and possibly Disney World in November/December...how do you all save for your trips? am i crazy?

i am a college graduate with loans so i have to budget wisely!

This was me in 1990! but worse!
The day after my last day of school, Sept 1st, a classmate and I left for a 14 night Perillo tour of Italy. (Thanks to a sign on bonus of employment granted to us while we were students.)
That was our "Thank God We're Done School" trip.


Then 4 months later, Jan, a different classmate and I spent 7 nts in Cancun (way before the Girls Gone Wild days. Nice beach, nice nightlife.)
Then 2 months later, March, we went back to Cancun.
Then 5 months later, Aug, back to Cancun.
Then the next March, back to Cancun. By then I was dating dh and was going to miss his birthday. Sorry Baby, I got travelin' bones.
The next March back to Cancun again. By then it was getting really popular and we had enough.
1.5 years later, married dh. (Prior to that, I squeezed in trips with dh to Williamsburg, Disney Word & Aruba.)
For our honeymoon, we did 12 night trip to Ireland.

From there it just goes on and on.

Enjoy being young with minimal responsibility. Don't drag your student loans out but still have fun.
It's nice being married with kids, house, spouse, etc but much less discretionary income then.
I have zero regrets of any vacation I've taken. Life is short.

 

[Maddie2]

We have 2 kids in college and I see a large portion of their spending going toward dinner out with friends. Hard to reign that in, but if you are the same, you may want to curb it a bit. Eating at home certainly does save money.

As others have said, enjoy being young with minimal responsibility!

 

[smcabee]

Annual Passes and DVC membership.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

We have 2 kids in college and I see a large portion of their spending going toward dinner out with friends. Hard to reign that in, but if you are the same, you may want to curb it a bit. Eating at home certainly does save money.

As others have said, enjoy being young with minimal responsibility!

omgoodness my dd18 does the same thing! Then she texts me asking for more of the vol cash that they can spend at the chain restaurants on campus. They get $300 vol cash with their meal plan per semester. She blew through that quick. My reply...ummm, no. Go to the cafeteria that I am paying for!

 

[Princess Disney Mom]

Honestly if I had loans I would not do two trips. To answer your question my family does not eat out much and that helps a lot.

 

[kandb]

I would do one Longer trip instead of 2 separate trips. I am sure it would be a lot cheaper. Be smart, it's all about your priorities.

 

[Darcy03231]

Some small things that add up over time:

Pack your lunch.
Take your own coffee to work.
Plan out dinners. You're less likely to eat out if you have everything you need to make dinner. I also would do prep on the weekends or the night before the next night's dinner. You can also make a couple of things on the weekend and then just reheat through the week.
Rather than go out for entertainment, plan things in. Redbox movies, board/card game nights, etc.
Organize a clothing/accessories swap with friends to avoid buying new clothes/accessories.
If you need something, check local 2nd hand places first.

 

[gottalovepluto]

You're not crazy as long as you don't put yourself into credit card debt and don't put off contributing to savings and retirement accounts
in order to make your trips happen. Last year I went to WDW in Nov and DL in Dec. A magical year!

I have to look at an overall picture, little things here and there and kinda saving doesn't work for me. Make a plan. Know how much money you need to save at a bare minimum for each trip. If you don't plan on doing a "bare minimum" trip also calculate out how much money you hope to save for upgraded experiences on your trip (holiday party? table service dining? nicer hotel? whatever you might be shooting for.). Shoot for the upgraded savings amount, but having a bare minimum budget will tell you how much money you absolutely must have for your trips to not become a problem for you if anything goes wrong in your financial world this year.

Do a long term budget for the year if you don't already have one. Housing payments, car payments & student loan payments are easy but make sure utility bills, phone bills, groceries, health expenses, car expenses, subscription expenses (netflix? hulu? amazon? spotify? really any little thing you pay each month and may have forgotten about) and other "fun money" (eating out, movies, etc.) and finally make sure your savings and retirement contributions are in there to. Now you can see how much you can afford to save towards your Disney trips each month. The hardest part about a budget is updating it every month. Keep it updated, it is your financial guide to the year with a wonderful goal of Disney and more Disney! When you have a set-back, big unexpected bill or something put it in there and see if you need to cut back on expenses elsewhere to account for that and get back on track towards Disney savings.

Once you've established how much you can save stretch it a bit farther by buying Disney gift cards, you can get a minimum of 5% off by using a Target Red Card or Debit Card to buy them at your local Target. There are some other ways to get cheaper gift cards, see the Disney gift card thread if you're interested, but if you don't have a lot of time the Target route is the easiest.

 

[RADOPT]

am i crazy?

Kind of but only you know if you can afford it.

I know you did not ask but........
I just got back from a girlfriend trip to Disneyland. One nice thing is that it is not necessary to stay onsite so look around for hotels and food. We stayed at the Holiday Inn on South Walnut. The walk was not bad, about 15 minutes. Pros for us - no banging doors or kids running around since it is not on Harbor, adult places to drink between Disneyland and the hotel (thought we did not stop at as many as we thought we would), took the monerail from DTD into the park everyday except our one early entry, Ralph Brennan's Jazz Kitchen® Express is near the monerail where we picked up Beignets and chickory coffee on the way into the park two mornings. Con - no breakfast included and maybe the walk. I did not want the free breakfast anyways because I get tired of them after one day. One day we had breakfast at the Rainforest Cafe on the way to the park but there are a number of places to eat there.
I wanted to try Trader Sam's Enchanted Tiki Bar - it is small and noisey but has outdoor seating. If you like rum, try their special drinks - we didn't and the drinks where awful as was the service but the Pu Pu Platter was excellent.
I got our tickets from Last Minute Travel Club (lastminutetravel.com) and saved about $35 per ticket on our 4 day ticket. We also got MaxPass 2 of our 4 days and got everything done we wanted to.

 

[LYSE]

Acorns

But really it's less of saving money and more about reducing cost.

Leverage your credit cards ..we are going to wdw and flying there 4 times in 2018 and are paying less than alot of people spend for one trip.

Our credit cards are getting us free flights,food and off setting accommodations by way of nights at the airport Hyatt and dolphin

 

[QueenIsabella]

It's tough for us to say if this is okay or not--only you know your salary, debt level, and spending habits.

As others have said, if traveling is a priority for you, find other places in your budget to cut back. There's absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying vacations, but you're young, and you don't want to put yourself behind the 8-ball with a ton of debt. So, if you can pay your bills and go without racking up a ton of credit card debt, well, go and have fun!

FWIW, I have a DD22 who loves to travel. We're treating her to a trip to Europe this coming summer, but then she called last week and asked if she should also go to Cuba. She found a deal on flights ($99 each way), and thought it would be a wonderful place to visit. She's a bilingual education teacher, so I think she'll get a LOT out of the second trip. So, I said "Go for it!", even though she doesn't have a huge salary, and does have student loans. So, she'll be visiting 4 countries next summer! This isn't typical for her, but she does love to travel, and she's more of an "experience" person. OTOH, she furnished her apartment for free, and asked for a crockpot and a wok for Christmas. SO, I feel like she's doing a decent job of balancing her priorities.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

hi everyone, i'm planning on going to Disneyland in September and possibly Disney World in November/December...how do you all save for your trips? am i crazy?

i am a college graduate with loans so i have to budget wisely!

Feel free to swing on over to the Debt Dumpers thread. Lots of great advice, tips and motivation there to get your student loans paid off. The sooner you bang them out, the better!

 

[katyjeka]

I'll never forget when my dh and I got married many years ago. We bought a house, got married, and pregnant within a year. I REALLY wanted a WDW vacation but we decided to pay down debt, including student loans, before we went. Twenty some years and four kids later I'm glad we put if off for a couple years. We have being traveling ever since. Life is not a guarantee but MAYBE you could compromise and take just one trip. Student Loans are not fun and trust me you'll be so relieved when they are paid off.

 

[AquamarineSteph]

Kinda depends. Are you paying ALL of your own expenses? Or are your parents/other relatives paying for things?

If it's option one - you have an AMAZING job (and congrats on that!) then budget wisely and put all your money toward trip things.

If ANYONE else is paying ANY of your expenses (cell phone, insurance, other loans, rent, food, clothing, etc.), then you don't have enough money to travel like this unless you are willing to accept that you are taking from others to do this. If they're good with this, no problem. If they're waiting for you to take responsibility for yourself on the above things that need to be paid, then perhaps you need to wait a year and then plan a once a year adventure to visit the Mouse.

 

[Tenacious K]

I made two trips within 5 months to WDW when I was 23 and then a third trip to Universal/Seaworld 5 months after that and I regret the timing. I wish I had spaced it out more. I had loans as well and my excuse was that I was penny pinching so it’s ok, but in reality I was penny pinching so much that it was more stressful than enjoyable