Saving for anything takes sacrifice and saving for a trip to the Walt Disney World Resort is no different. As a family who lives paycheck to paycheck most of the time, we have made that sacrifice several times and found the results to be well worth it.
If you are financially secure, then you really don’t have anything to worry about. You can just pick up the phone or go online and book your trip. But for those of us who aren’t quite as fortunate, we have to get creative in our ways of saving for our Disney vacation.
The first year that we went as a family to Walt Disney World, I was particularly creative in the savings department. I had been a stay at home mom for quite a while and living on one income meant that there wasn’t much left over at the end of the month. The first thing we did was start a change jar. I used to sit in awe as my husband, at the end of each day, would unload this massive pile of change from his pockets. Then I’d go out to his truck and there’d be even more out there! We had booked our trip a year in advance and so from that booking point to the time of our final payment being due, we had saved a little over $500 in change!
Cleaning out the attic is a great way to add to your Disney fund. Seriously, a vacation is a wonderful incentive to go and have a yard sale. I am a huge fan of de-cluttering my house and that really started with that first Disney trip because I got rid of so much stuff and my house was so wonderfully clutter-free that I never went back! That yard sale netted us about $150 to add to your fund!
We learned to eliminate some of our take-out dinners or movie nights and it was well worth it because the food we had at Walt Disney World was better than any McDonald’s or pizza we were missing out on! I also took a temp job cleaning houses and put most of that money in to our savings fund, as well.
You see, we don’t use credit cards so we had to save up all of the money in cash by the time that final payment was due so all of these things that we did really were helpful and made us look forward to our trip even more because we worked so hard for it! And there is something to be said about a hard-earned vacation that makes it that much sweeter!