I’m so proud of Brandy! Not only is she more then 80% towards her goal, she realized that she could fully fund her vacation by following what I teach in my Saving for Disney course.
Since I first began my couponing to Disney journey some things have changed. We originally where planning on taking my grandmother with us. My goal was to pay off my Magic Your Way vacation package for 7 people in 2 rooms at Port Orleans Riverside for 8 nights (including rooms and tickets to all 4 parks), for a total of $6,373.63, by February 2017. All thru Swagbucks, Ibotta, selling stuff, and any other money saving apps or unexpected funds that we received.
Along the way some things changed, my grandmother decided she didn’t want to go with us. She had back surgery less then a year ago and isn’t back to her normal activity level. She felt like the money needed for her to go would be a waste. Without her going we wanted all of us to be in one area such as a suite. After looking at all the options, including staying offsite we decided upon the Art of Animation Lion King suite.
Even though I had this huge goal I didn’t think I would be able to achieve it. When I saw I was actually coming really close to achieving my goal, I talked to my husband about paying off our whole trip with my earnings. He agreed that not only was it possible, but doable if we decreased our number of days. Due to my family size and us wanting to eat 2 meals out a day as well as 2 snacks per person. We decided that we could do 5 days without having to use any money from our paychecks.
My new budget looks like this:
Magic your way vacation package – $3397.28 ($400.00 was paid before I starting couponing to Disney.)
Flights for 6 people round trip – $941.76 (Be on the lookout for a post with tips on how to save on airfare.) Paid in full!
Food – $1,300 (Includes ordering groceries and drinks, as well as food on the way to and from Disney.)
Souvenirs – $150.00 (My children have been saving their allowances since December to spend while at WDW.)
Luggage set – $89.99 (We only had 6 pieces. I wanted to utilize the 2 bags fly free per person rule on Southwest by bringing food and souvenirs from home.) Purchased!
Total: $5879.03
Swagbucks – $125.00 Paypal
Ibotta – $43.50
Mypoints – $10.00
Medical budget excess – $350.00 (Our deductible is high we budget $50.00 a check to cover costs. Due to my son having to be hospitalized and having surgery we met our deductible this year. Our FSA will more then cover the rest of the year costs.)
Grocery budget excess – $123.25
Sold a bag of clothes – $13.00
Total earned these past 2 weeks: $664.75
You can click here to see how I did on my previous weeks.
Total needed: $5,879.03
Total saved/earned to date: $5,027.01
(Thanks, Brandy)