Tracey’s Savings Story

Tracey shared her amazing savings story with me! $400 in gift cards since November!

My first trip to Disney was in celebration of my dad’s retirement.  We
did not take many extravagant trips in my childhood, and because
Disney is a good ways from central Louisiana and quite pricy I don’t
think it was ever really considered.  Dreamed of, yes, but never
teased to us or attempted that I know of.  With a 3-child family, a
mortgage, upcoming college tuitions, and providing well and sound for
such, my parents worked hard and planned well.  The payoff for the
discipline to invest, be frugal (not cheap), and be patient was that
my parents were able to take ALL of us kids PLUS the spouses PLUS the
grandkids…21 in all!…on a trip to Walt Disney World for Easter
week 2009.

I fell in love.

My young family–hubby & 2 boys, 8 & 5–were removed from distractions
of work, phones, school, bills, all the adulting fun of the real
world.  I was able to enjoy my parents and extended family, to ride
Mt. Everest with my dad and sister, to see my mom relax and enjoy
herself (and get totally soaked TWICE on Kali!) and be excited for
just the atmosphere of Disney, to see the joy of them giving us a gift
that would bless my growing-up family and my now growing family.
Disney is family.  Disney is fun.  Disney is magic.  Disney is a
blessing.

It lit a fire for my husband and I.  Not to just go back to Disney,
but to invest in the hearts of our family, to set aside the daily
trudge and just “be”.  Disney made that easy and magical.  We had to
go back!

Being a young family, big vacations mean big money on beginning
budgets.  It was going to take a lot of work and a lot of saving.  It
would be a little while, but we had a dream.

We started change jars, tried to set money aside, hid money from
ourselves…but something ALWAYS ate our “Disney money”.  Car repairs,
appliances, school clothes, doctors bills…all the usual fun stuff
that can sniff out an emergency fund with incredible odds of being
juuuuust more than was saved.

I cancelled two trips I fully believed we could make on the cheap.  It
was just not possible.
I still have the ADR confirmation emails…and the ADR cancellation
emails.  I was heartbroken.  My husband ached to see me so crushed, as
if he was not adequate enough.  So not the case…we have a
comfortable life and a great retirement plan.  He is a great
HARD-working man! Both our hearts just sunk.  Disney can just be very
expensive out of pocket.  There had to be a way to inch us to that
magical gateway.

I began couponing, collecting samples, buying trip odds & ends on
clearance and tossing them in a Disney-only-don’t-touch-it basket, and
looking for other ways to earn a few more steps toward the House of
Mouse.  In April 2014, shortly after that second unrealized trip for
Mardi Gras, I found Couponing to Disney.  Game changer.  😎
My brother and family had the bug worse than we did, and had taken a
few short trips.  By this time my SIL was so smitten she became a
Disney Travel Agent to help her own love affair. They were going AGAIN
(really?!?  Again?!??!?). She picked a great week, Halloween through
the first part of November…with free dining.  AoA was the cheapest
5-person option.  Hmmm…maybe THIS time…

I took a stab at Swagbucks.  Well, that was annoying.  Whatever.  I
got a Target card (my SIL buys so many DGC each payday also)…5% adds
up for Disney numbers!  I couponed again and stock-piled.  We were
gaining a little traction.  My hubby, a fire fighter, fell into
over-time jackpot! He was off line for several months after a nasty
incident with a log-splitter, so his crews were burned out working OT
so they passed them to him.  I got a Disney Visa card.  I shopped
sales for luggage, clothes, used EBates a LOT, and with every OT check
we would pay it off and the rest toward Disney.

Saving for Disney kept pestering me (inderectly) with Swagbucks.  Ugh,
ok ok, I’ll try again.  “Give it time,” “find a routine,” it takes a
while but it adds up,” all these awesome ladies kept encouraging.  I
stuck with it.  Holy cow, I have 2500 SB…I get a free gift card!!!
Woohoo!

I wanted soooooo bad to hurry up and turn that bad boy into a Disney
gift card I paid the extra on my Target card.  $50 for $22.50?
Ok…and I kept doing it.  I had a trip to earn for FAST!!!
Using this method allowed me to DEDICATE savings pretty painlessly to
our trip.  I paid back what I added to my Target card back each month.
If it wasn’t for the $1200+ I squirreled away, we would not have made
our final payment in time and would have been scrambling for spending
money.  We made it.  We actually paid for our vacation!

Now, I do still have $2000 for our trip on my Disney card, but I am
using the 6-month-no-interest to my advantage and paying off other
things that are accumulating interest (mostly dr bills from hubby’s
accident and what I had to do to get us by while he was on reduced
pay), but that will be paid off soon, too.  I still have debt, but
it’s not stupid debt (fridge died, dishwasher died, hot water tank
died, transmission died), it served a purpose and I am ok with that.
I don’t like it, but I can manage it and I don’t feel foolish for what
I do carry.  It will be gone soon enough.

What will not be gone are the beautiful memories we had October and
November of 2015 with my husband, my teenage boys, and now my very own
princess.  I would pay anything for the time and love and fun we
enjoyed with each other again!  (And Disney knows that!)

By sticking to Swagbucks (and $50 of the now dying Louder) I have in
hand $400 of FREE Disney gift cards to put toward the Mardi Gras 2017
trip with my parents & siblings & their families (again!) to celebrate
my brother & SIL’s 10th wedding anniversary.  I hope to pay most of it
with the tips Kristin has gathered for us, shopping deals, keeping a
consistent dedicated savings (the jug is getting full again too…and
with BILLS!),  not neglecting adulting in the meantime, and believing
that we CAN make this dream reality again!  I don’t and can’t do every
awesome deal that pops up.  I can make use of the camaraderie,
encouragement, and excitement I get from Kristen’s great SavEar
groups.  They are seriously like no other group I have ever been in.
I have saved more.  I have given more.  I have blessed more.  I have
been blessed more.  I love this group.  Thank you, Kristin, for
helping us find a quicker and wiser way to spend our time and
money…on people we love at a place we love!

My $400 in FREE gift cards just since November 2015!