Slowly Saving for Disney World

Last year, we took the kids to Walt Disney World for their first trip. It was not a cheap vacation, but one we had budgeted for over the span of half a year. At the time, we didn’t plan on visiting the home of the Mouse for another few years.

And then I had the opportunity to go to a one-day conference this year, held AT Walt Disney World. With the conference offering a discounted deal on room and park tickets for several days around the conference, we decided to make this another family trip. After all, Anna and Elsa from Frozen are now at Epcot, and Cordy and Mira would do just about anything to get to meet them.

The hardest part in preparing for the trip has been bracing ourselves for the expenses again. But I think we’ll be ready with most of our trip paid for before we’re even there, and the kids already have their spending money ready to go. How? Gift cards. It’s how we budgeted and saved for our last trip, and the method we’re using for this trip, too.

I knew about the conference back in the fall, and we quickly decided to make it a family vacation. At that point, each time I went to the grocery, I bought a $25 or $50 Disney gift card if we could afford it. I usually go to the grocery about three or four times a month, so that resulted in $75-200 we’ve been saving each month towards the trip. (Plus a lot of savings on gas thanks to fuel point bonuses on buying gift cards from our grocery!) We had to be sneaky about it at first, since we didn’t tell the girls we were going back to Disney until Christmas morning.

We also asked family for Disney gift cards as gifts during the holiday season. My family already does a lot of gift card exchanging at Christmas, so they were happy to give us gift cards towards our trip. The kids received smaller gifts with Disney gift cards taped to the back of them.

But Cordy and Mira have also been working towards earning their own spending money, too. We use a token system in place of an allowance in our family. Daily chores, good effort in school, and going above and beyond at home earn the girls “doubloons” (we bought a bag of plastic gold coins from a costume store) which can be traded for treats, extra privileges, or can be used like cash to purchase things they want. I prefer this system over a cash allowance since they can trade them in for non-cash rewards like staying up late, or a trip to the park when Aaron and I may not feel like going.

Since we told the kids about going back to Disney, we’ve encouraged them to save their doubloons to trade for Disney gift cards. The doubloons are roughly equal to $0.50, so every 50 earns them a $25 gift card. They’ve worked hard over the last three months to earn as many as possible and have added two or three gift cards to their stash. The cards they’ve earned or received as gifts are their own to spend as they see fit: Aaron and I will cover all meals and some snacks, and if we choose to buy them a souvenir it comes from our money, but anything else they want at Disney World is their responsibility.

I really like the gift card method of saving for a trip. While we also have a vacation savings account that has a very small amount of money transferred to each month, the gift cards are a more tangible reminder of what we’re saving towards, and the girls are so proud to hold the gift cards that they’ve earned, knowing they have their own cards to use at Walt Disney World for whatever they want. Whenever we purchase a new one, we pull them all out so the kids can see the progress we’ve all made towards the trip.

If you used this method, you could set your own schedule for when you buy a gift card. Maybe it’s every paycheck, or once a month, or when you cash in a change jar. (You can buy “add any amount” gift cards with a minimum $10 starting balance, too.) The great thing about Disney gift cards is that they can be used in the parks, at the Disney Store (local or online), and can be used for Disney travel, too. So if you’re a family who likes Disney, they won’t go to waste if you happen to have too many.

For me, it’s less painful to save in $25 and $50 increments, and exciting to see how fast it all adds up. I also don’t feel like a failure if we’re short on money and can’t buy a gift card during one shopping visit, since I know it’s likely we’ll buy a gift card on the next grocery trip.

Best of all? It’ll be such a relief to not have a huge credit card bill after our trip.