jennasmommyinMS
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Sep 9, 2006
Here's a link for you to Sling's website: https://www.sling.com/
I love it--watching Flip or Flop on HGTV right now!
I love it--watching Flip or Flop on HGTV right now!
I've been wanting to get the Firestick too! They have the few cable channels I like and some programming that will be good when DS starts watching TV too. If my research is correct, you need internet for that too.
If you get rid of your DirecTV, what internet service will you use in order to use the Firestick?
So, the banks don't take money out when you use the "coin machines" there? I would love to do that instead of rolling coins old school style. However, I will roll coins instead of losing money with Coin Star that's for sure. Like you, I did that ONCE years ago and said, "no mas!" Lol
I will not use a Coinstar when I found out how much they take out!! I have been saving my change for the past year and have over $100 so far! Yeah me!
Many companies have loyalty discounts with other companies. Just call up your providers (cable, satelite, phone, internet, etc) and start asking if they offer discounts for ___ , ____ some usually works examples are supermarkets, banks, cable/tv/internet providers. I think I get about 30% off my mobile phone and 20% off my internet just from this one simple trick.
Can you explain this part again? It sounds interesting.
Let's say your mobile phone is sprint..
Call them up and ask if they offer any partner or loyalty discounts. When they ask for who, tell them you have AT&T internet, shop at pathmark, use welsfargo for your mortgage, bank of america for your savings, directv for your tv, drive a ford, etc etc etc.. This is where using a mall booth of local store is easier than calling. Usually the teenagers will just show you the screen of what they can click off for discounts.
Don't forget to include where you work, you'll be surprised how many companies have employee discounts and you didn't know it.
Repeat for anything that has a monthly bill.
I have a small amount from each paycheck direct deposited into a savings account rather than into my checking.
I know this isn't a good idea for everyone, but I use credit cards to pay for everything I can so I can get the rewards points. You have to have a lot of discipline to stick to a budget otherwise you could end up spending too much, and any interest charges and fees will wipe out any benefit you might get from rewards points.
I have 3 cards from Chase: my Disney Visa, my Southwest Airlines Visa, and a Chase Freedom Visa. I rotate which card I use depending on which gives me the best benefit. I used to get 5x's bonus offers from my Disney Visa a lot, but haven't in a few years. The bonus offers I get now are mostly from the Southwest card, because that's the card I use the least. I got an offer late last fall for bonus Rapid Rewards miles if I spent a certain amount on the card. So I shifted all my spending to that card and racked up a bunch more RR points. I was able to earn the last amount I needed to be able to pay for both mine and my DD's roundtrip flights for our cruise last month. In the first quarter, my Freedom card was offering 4% bonus points on grocery store purchases. I waited until Giant Eagle was offering double fuel perks on Disney gift cards and picked up the maximum amount that would qualify for the Freedom bonus offer. With gas prices at the time, I managed to get one completely free tank of gas and a second tank at less than half the normal cost.
ETA: I wanted to make it clear that I pay off the balance every single month. I never carry a balance because interest charges would eat up any savings from the rewards. The only time I don't pay off the entire amount is when I am using the Disney Visa 0% for 6 months option and that gets paid off before I accrue any charges.
I keep seeing people say my DD and DS etc. feeling silly for asking but what do all these mean?!?! lol
I have a Chase Disney Visa Premier credit card. Everything in my world that can be put on a credit card goes on that card. Then I just pay all of the cash that I would normally use to pay bills, buy groceries, etc. to pay the card each month. It's incredible how quickly the rewards points rack up. They can be redeemed for anything Disney & with the Premier card you can even use them as a statement credit to reimburse airfare purchases. You also get merch discounts in the parks & some dining discounts.
Honestly, it may sound extreme when talking about being short on money & trying to save for Disney, but consider joining DVC. I had already paid for our trip to WDW a few years ago. We were going to stay at Coronado Springs. I ended up joining DVC & bought points at AKL. My rep was able to take the money I had already paid to use as the down payment on our membership & rebook us to AKL (7 nights in a savannah view room). So, I basically got a deluxe hotel trip for the price of a moderate that year. In fact, that ended up being a 20% down payment when they only require 10%. So, I was able to get a better APR on my loan for the balance. The payment on the balance of my loan is about $200 a month. So, for those of you that put aside $100 per paycheck, it would just about even out. Of course this only makes sense for those of us that want to go at least once every year or two. But if that is you, you can save so much money.
I'm a bit OCD on tracking my investment & keep a spreadsheet of every penny I've paid into DVC & what I've saved on hotels & other discounts because of the membership. So far, I have yet to slip into the red. To me DVC was always the dream that I thought I would never attain. But, realizing that having enough for 1 trip equaled having enough for the down payment changed everything. I haven't regretted my purchase for a second!
We're going to DLR for 4 days/3 nights in October. A standard studio room at VGC for those dates would be about $1643 (absolutely crazy for 3 nights). I don't have to pay anything for that above my normal monthly payment. I was able to completely cover our airfare with Disney Visa rewards. And I bought APs this year for a trip we made earlier in the year. The APs have already more than paid for themselves, so I don't have a park ticket cost for this trip. So, really the only thing I've paid extra out of pocket for the trip is $106.00 for Halloween party tickets (would have been $131.00, but I won a $25.00 Disney gift card from a radio station). I'll still have to pay for dining of course, but with the AP there is a 15% discount. Even though I logically know that I've still paid for this trip in various ways, it really feels like I'm getting a trip for free thanks to Visa & DVC.