Best Plan for Saving

[danceintherain]

I'm tentatively planning a trip for January 2019, which will be our 10th wedding anniversary. Not sure of the details, but I told DH we could train for a 5K (he might do a half marathon...I dunno).
We'll be a family of 5 then.
I'm open to either WDW early in the month or Disneyland mid-month.

For pretty much our entire marriage, we've qualified for the military discounts, so it's been easy to find good deals without a great deal of planning ahead. It's likely that we'll no longer qualify in 2019. I would love to plan a trip before then, but we're trying to save for a down payment on a house, so it isn't likely.

Anyway...so what can I do to start building up "savings" now. I'm thinking that using credit card points might be the best way to build up a little extra to use towards a trip, but I'm not sure I like the idea of being locked entirely into Disney related points. A friend of mine might be moving to Italy in the next few years (but only temporarily) and I want to be able to visit her, during that window. If I take that trip, the Disney trip will likely get postponed...

Hopefully, after things settle, I'll be able to start setting aside "real" money towards the trip, but I want to keep the amount of "real" money as low as possible. This is part of the reason I'm considering DL, because I know we'll want to stay on-property at WDW.

Which credit cards should I open, and on what timeline to avoid annual fees? I know if I wait until 6 months before the trip, it will be difficult to build enough sign up bonuses.
I've done Swagbucks before, but I don't really like it as a search engine, and don't particularly like spending a ton of time doing surveys and such. I've since switched to Bing rewards, but they don't have a Disney GC option.
I know about 5% off GCs at Target, but that's more something I can do later on...
Also the Disney savings account they offer...Again I won't do it, until I'm more locked into the trip.

Thanks!

 

[Marionnette]

I'm tentatively planning a trip for January 2019, which will be our 10th wedding anniversary. Not sure of the details, but I told DH we could train for a 5K (he might do a half marathon...I dunno).
We'll be a family of 5 then.
I'm open to either WDW early in the month or Disneyland mid-month.

For pretty much our entire marriage, we've qualified for the military discounts, so it's been easy to find good deals without a great deal of planning ahead. It's likely that we'll no longer qualify in 2019. I would love to plan a trip before then, but we're trying to save for a down payment on a house, so it isn't likely.

Anyway...so what can I do to start building up "savings" now. I'm thinking that using credit card points might be the best way to build up a little extra to use towards a trip, but I'm not sure I like the idea of being locked entirely into Disney related points. A friend of mine might be moving to Italy in the next few years (but only temporarily) and I want to be able to visit her, during that window. If I take that trip, the Disney trip will likely get postponed...

Hopefully, after things settle, I'll be able to start setting aside "real" money towards the trip, but I want to keep the amount of "real" money as low as possible. This is part of the reason I'm considering DL, because I know we'll want to stay on-property at WDW.

Which credit cards should I open, and on what timeline to avoid annual fees? I know if I wait until 6 months before the trip, it will be difficult to build enough sign up bonuses.
I've done Swagbucks before, but I don't really like it as a search engine, and don't particularly like spending a ton of time doing surveys and such. I've since switched to Bing rewards, but they don't have a Disney GC option.
I know about 5% off GCs at Target, but that's more something I can do later on...
Also the Disney savings account they offer...Again I won't do it, until I'm more locked into the trip.

Thanks!

There's a thread (I Love Credit Cards!) that can help you with determining which credit cards will suit your need best. You can also look into blogs like MillionMileSecrets and ThePointsGuy. My personal favorite is the Chase Sapphire Preferred but it does have an annual fee. The rewards are flexible and if you end up going to Italy, the card comes with a "no foreign transaction fees" benefit. If that's not your cup of tea, then consider the Chase Freedom Visa. Same rewards program with different earnings parameters but no annual fee.

You might want to revisit doing other rewards programs like SB. I never do the surveys and rarely shop thru their portal. I still manage to pull in $50-$75/month by just meeting the daily goals (doing nCraves and apps). Check the SB thread for hints, SB codes and other help. I also have several old smart devices running Perk apps and I get at least $25/week in Target GCs (which can be spent on Disney GCs) from Perk. And to increase my Southwest RR points, I do eRewards surveys but you can redeem their rewards points for other things. If you aren't going thru a shopping portal when you place online orders, then looking into ebates. It's cash back but you can have it deposited into your PayPal account and then don't touch it for anything but your vacation.

Save your change. It will probably add up to enough to cover a few meals in the two years between now and your intended trip.

Ask for Disney GCs for those occasions when someone might be buying a gift for you.

Open a savings account that is dedicated just for your Disney trip. Deposit all refunds and other "found" money into it. Consider putting $5 of "real" money into it automatically each week. At $5/week for 100 weeks, you end up with $500 extra for your trip and it's pretty painless. And if you don't end up going to Disney, you have that money sitting aside for another use.

 

[danceintherain]

There's a thread (I Love Credit Cards!) that can help you with determining which credit cards will suit your need best. You can also look into blogs like MillionMileSecrets and ThePointsGuy. My personal favorite is the Chase Sapphire Preferred but it does have an annual fee. The rewards are flexible and if you end up going to Italy, the card comes with a "no foreign transaction fees" benefit. If that's not your cup of tea, then consider the Chase Freedom Visa. Same rewards program with different earnings parameters but no annual fee.

You might want to revisit doing other rewards programs like SB. I never do the surveys and rarely shop thru their portal. I still manage to pull in $50-$75/month by just meeting the daily goals (doing nCraves and apps). Check the SB thread for hints, SB codes and other help. I also have several old smart devices running Perk apps and I get at least $25/week in Target GCs (which can be spent on Disney GCs) from Perk. And to increase my Southwest RR points, I do eRewards surveys but you can redeem their rewards points for other things. If you aren't going thru a shopping portal when you place online orders, then looking into ebates. It's cash back but you can have it deposited into your PayPal account and then don't touch it for anything but your vacation.

Save your change. It will probably add up to enough to cover a few meals in the two years between now and your intended trip.

Ask for Disney GCs for those occasions when someone might be buying a gift for you.

Open a savings account that is dedicated just for your Disney trip. Deposit all refunds and other "found" money into it. Consider putting $5 of "real" money into it automatically each week. At $5/week for 100 weeks, you end up with $500 extra for your trip and it's pretty painless. And if you don't end up going to Disney, you have that money sitting aside for another use.

Thanks! We don't really have a problem saving in general. We zero-based budget, so there's not really any "extra" money. We have $75/month being set aside for travel right now, and about $1000 sitting in that category currently. So there should be about $2800 available for the trip (if we do no other travel between now and then) but that's less than we've ever spent, especially with airfare and accommodations for 5 now (the baby due in April will be still under 2, so that's something). After we buy a house, things should ease up a bit, but we have other goals, and vacations are pretty much last on the list of DH's priorities. He likes Disney, but doesn't love it the same way I do. The 5K/half marathon goal, and the fact that it will be our 10th anniversary, are both bargaining chips for me, but he would, honestly, much rather sit/run at home. I might be able to squeeze another $100/month out of him, but only if we literally can't think of anything else to use the money for (and there's always something else to spend money on...)
Rewards are basically "off-budget" right now, so I'm sure I could build up a few hundred dollars worth passively in 2 years. I just want a plan to maximize them as much as possible, so I'm not scrambling to open and reach sign up bonuses for 5 cards 6 months, before we're supposed to go on the trip.
I guess I was hoping someone would have a Touring Plan for Credit Card Rewards, or something. Like "open X card this day, transfer points to this program, close X card, open Y card," etc.
I just want to plan better. We just went out and basically paid cash for a used minivan, and they let us put most of it on a credit card, without any fees. If I had been planning well, I could have opened a Preferred or Reserve, and basically reached the signup bonus in one transaction. I did get points for it on my Quicksilver, but that's only $60.

I'll definitely give Swagbucks a try again. The user interface seems to have improved some, since I was actively using it.

I'm currently using the Upromise shopping portal, for the most part, to get dollars towards my kids' college accounts. But, it doesn't always have a good option for everything, so I'll try ebates.

Asking for specific gifts doesn't work well for me, especially gift cards. My Mom is the quantity over quality type, and she's the one who pretty much buys us presents. I'm just glad she at least looks at our Amazon wish lists, even if she ends up buying 5 other things that it would never even occur to me to want. I think it might be a good option for the Christmas immediately before the trip though.
Also, if we're going to really train for running...I'm going to have to budget in some decent running shoes for each of us. Plus, if we do the Star Wars Half Marathon weekend at DL, DH will want to run in full Jedi gard... Yup...always something else to spend money on...

 

[OrangeBirdGirl]

Another way to save is you said you do the zero budget, if you allocated $x to food each month or week or however, if you save on the food budget for the month put it towards vacation. Same with gas budget, etc.

Somewhat OT but you talk about getting military discounts. Is DH in the service? I totally get the fact about saving for a down payment on the house as it's always nice to borrow less. But if he's in the service (or honorably discharged when you buy the house) contingent on having somewhat decent credit you could get a VA loan which is no money down......

 

[danceintherain]

Another way to save is you said you do the zero budget, if you allocated $x to food each month or week or however, if you save on the food budget for the month put it towards vacation. Same with gas budget, etc.

Somewhat OT but you talk about getting military discounts. Is DH in the service? I totally get the fact about saving for a down payment on the house as it's always nice to borrow less. But if he's in the service (or honorably discharged when you buy the house) contingent on having somewhat decent credit you could get a VA loan which is no money down......

Getting a mortgage with no money down is a poor financial choice for just about everyone (I actually think it's a disservice to even offer it, especially to service members, when they're likely to move every few years without any time to build equity). At minimum, I want to be able to cover selling costs, if we have to sell earlier than we anticipate, and any minor fluctuations in the market. Obviously, another major housing crisis could put us underwater regardless, but the more equity we start out with the less likely it will be that we'll end up under significant hardship in a downturn. If we decide to put less down...our target is actually only about 10% right now (since we can use a VA loan) I would want to keep that money set aside in a house related fund to hedge against emergencies anyways, so it still wouldn't be available for a vacation. Also, a VA loan isn't always the best option. If we can put 20% down, we'll have more flexibility, because we could qualify for any type of mortgage without PMI. Another goal with the down payment is to keep the mortgage payments low to not inhibit cash flow too much. I was really hoping to be able to do a 15 year mortgage to keep the amount of interest we pay really low, but the monthly payment would be too high for our current income, unless we come up with a lot more money for a down payment. Mostly, I'm just trying to balance immediate wants with long term responsibility.

Generally, there's not a lot of excess in any of our categories, because we've been budgeted long enough that we know pretty close to exactly how much we're going to spend every month (I already meal plan and shop at Aldi). Plus, since we just bought a minivan, our fuel budget will probably go up. Insurance is going up etc. For the last few months, I've been really sick, so I've actually been pulling from non-essential categories (like vacations) to cover the overages. I had to start "protecting" the furniture category again, because with the new baby coming, I'll need to buy DD a new mattress soonish.
We'll get a tax refund for last year, but only because DH was deployed for most of it. Otherwise, I like to keep it as close to zero as possible, so it's unlikely we'll end up with much from this year. Whatever we get from 2016s taxes, we've already agreed to put towards the down payment.

DH is almost definitely getting out of the military within the next year, then we'll be reworking the budget to accommodate those changes. Hopefully, the changes will be minor, but it's entirely possible that we could end up having to cut back on everything, during the transition. I'm open to working, but that's not really a change I'm interested in implementing at the moment, since it's not an immediate need, and I'm 6 months pregnant.
I do think that if things get tough, we'll "need" a vacation, but the money pretty much has to be kept off budget, until we're more settled. Even right now, my Mammaw wants us to come down to Mississippi for a "family reunion" in July, and I'm thinking I'll need to tell her I can't come. She doesn't have room to accommodate everyone, camping in Mississippi in July with a 3 month old sounds like misery, so we're talking money. I hate to make that the reason, but with everything so up in the air for us right now, it just doesn't make sense.

 

[littledebbie335]

Getting a mortgage with no money down is a poor financial choice for just about everyone

Not necessarily true. When you're ready to buy, you really need to do your homework and talk to multiple lenders. We ended up going with a small local bank who was able to facilitate a loan with essentially no down payment (it was super tiny, like less than 2%) but no PMI and a really good rate. On a monthly basis, this was cheaper than what we would have paid if we had gotten a traditional mortgage with a larger bank. This allowed us to move out of a really expensive rental market to an area with a cheaper cost of living but not much rental inventory, and we pay a little less now for our mortgage + taxes + insurance than we did for our kind of run down basement apartment. After two years, I believe we had enough equity to sell if needed. Also, you can still pay off your loan early if you have a 30 year mortgage, which would give you some savings in interest, but would prevent you from being locked into those higher monthly payments that you would have with a 15 year mortgage.

 

[ALWAYSMINNIE]

I'm tentatively planning a trip for January 2019, which will be our 10th wedding anniversary. Not sure of the details, but I told DH we could train for a 5K (he might do a half marathon...I dunno).
We'll be a family of 5 then.
I'm open to either WDW early in the month or Disneyland mid-month.

For pretty much our entire marriage, we've qualified for the military discounts, so it's been easy to find good deals without a great deal of planning ahead. It's likely that we'll no longer qualify in 2019. I would love to plan a trip before then, but we're trying to save for a down payment on a house, so it isn't likely.

Anyway...so what can I do to start building up "savings" now. I'm thinking that using credit card points might be the best way to build up a little extra to use towards a trip, but I'm not sure I like the idea of being locked entirely into Disney related points. A friend of mine might be moving to Italy in the next few years (but only temporarily) and I want to be able to visit her, during that window. If I take that trip, the Disney trip will likely get postponed...

Hopefully, after things settle, I'll be able to start setting aside "real" money towards the trip, but I want to keep the amount of "real" money as low as possible. This is part of the reason I'm considering DL, because I know we'll want to stay on-property at WDW.

Which credit cards should I open, and on what timeline to avoid annual fees? I know if I wait until 6 months before the trip, it will be difficult to build enough sign up bonuses.
I've done Swagbucks before, but I don't really like it as a search engine, and don't particularly like spending a ton of time doing surveys and such. I've since switched to Bing rewards, but they don't have a Disney GC option.
I know about 5% off GCs at Target, but that's more something I can do later on...
Also the Disney savings account they offer...Again I won't do it, until I'm more locked into the trip.

Thanks!

 

[ALWAYSMINNIE]

Hi! Retired Military still can get discount at Shades of Green and at other Disney resorts when available. Discount park tickets are usually offered every year also! Your family should take advantage and book early for Marathon! Have fun!
There is a specific web site devoted to what is offered to you, I'm sure you can google it. If I find it first, I'll post it for you..

 

[Ames77]

Getting a mortgage with no money down is a poor financial choice for just about everyone (I actually think it's a disservice to even offer it, especially to service members, when they're likely to move every few years without any time to build equity). At minimum, I want to be able to cover selling costs, if we have to sell earlier than we anticipate, and any minor fluctuations in the market. Obviously, another major housing crisis could put us underwater regardless, but the more equity we start out with the less likely it will be that we'll end up under significant hardship in a downturn. If we decide to put less down...our target is actually only about 10% right now (since we can use a VA loan) I would want to keep that money set aside in a house related fund to hedge against emergencies anyways, so it still wouldn't be available for a vacation. Also, a VA loan isn't always the best option. If we can put 20% down, we'll have more flexibility, because we could qualify for any type of mortgage without PMI. Another goal with the down payment is to keep the mortgage payments low to not inhibit cash flow too much. I was really hoping to be able to do a 15 year mortgage to keep the amount of interest we pay really low, but the monthly payment would be too high for our current income, unless we come up with a lot more money for a down payment. Mostly, I'm just trying to balance immediate wants with long term responsibility.

We have a VA loan and I could not have gotten a better deal with any other mortgage than what we had with this. In fact, this is our second VA loan. The interest rate is extremely low, much lower than I would have gotten with a conventional mortgage. Our mortgage broker found us a low rate and then with closing costs paid by the seller we were able to buy our rate down even lower. Don't forget you can also use mortgage interest paid as a deduction on your taxes.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

There's a thread (I Love Credit Cards!) that can help you with determining which credit cards will suit your need best. You can also look into blogs like MillionMileSecrets and ThePointsGuy. My personal favorite is the Chase Sapphire Preferred but it does have an annual fee. The rewards are flexible and if you end up going to Italy, the card comes with a "no foreign transaction fees" benefit. If that's not your cup of tea, then consider the Chase Freedom Visa. Same rewards program with different earnings parameters but no annual fee.

You might want to revisit doing other rewards programs like SB. I never do the surveys and rarely shop thru their portal. I still manage to pull in $50-$75/month by just meeting the daily goals (doing nCraves and apps). Check the SB thread for hints, SB codes and other help. I also have several old smart devices running Perk apps and I get at least $25/week in Target GCs (which can be spent on Disney GCs) from Perk. And to increase my Southwest RR points, I do eRewards surveys but you can redeem their rewards points for other things. If you aren't going thru a shopping portal when you place online orders, then looking into ebates. It's cash back but you can have it deposited into your PayPal account and then don't touch it for anything but your vacation.

Save your change. It will probably add up to enough to cover a few meals in the two years between now and your intended trip.

Ask for Disney GCs for those occasions when someone might be buying a gift for you.

Open a savings account that is dedicated just for your Disney trip. Deposit all refunds and other "found" money into it. Consider putting $5 of "real" money into it automatically each week. At $5/week for 100 weeks, you end up with $500 extra for your trip and it's pretty painless. And if you don't end up going to Disney, you have that money sitting aside for another use.

I agree. We used to rave about our SWA visa until we tried this, quite by accident. We were each offered a 50,000 point bonus while in Chase branch for signing up for the CSP. (We were there to each sign up for their checking account which offered a $300 bonus but I digress.) We each got another 10,000 bonus for adding an authorized user.
Most purchases with the CSP earn 1 point per $ spent but all travel and dining earn double points, even casual/fast food & airport parking. These points (called Ultimate Reward points) are very flexible: can be converted to several airline ff programs, hotel frequent stay programs or just use Chase's website to book travel using points, cash or combination of both. This method is not just for their partner hotel & airlines. Disney hotels were listed there too.

I was looking for a very low budget weekend escape to WDW in March and IIRC, Caribbean Beach resort was around 16,000 points per night. GF was around 50,000.
So we already have enough SW points for 2 RT seats to MCO but need one more. We can transfer UR points to our SW account at a 1:1 ratio to book the 3rd seat and then book the Disney hotel with points. (Sadly we already have an unused 1 day MK ticket on our MDX account that we never got to use from last March when a tree fell on our house shortly after we arrived in WDW.) So maybe buy a 1 day park ticket for a 2nd day and then pay for food. Very cheap 3 night getaway.

I also love the $5/week savings idea. Even $10 if you can. It sounds so small; equivalent to what my coworkers spend on 1 day's lunch, but it really adds up quickly and you barely miss it.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

We have a VA loan and I could not have gotten a better deal with any other mortgage than what we had with this. In fact, this is our second VA loan. The interest rate is extremely low, much lower than I would have gotten with a conventional mortgage. Our mortgage broker found us a low rate and then with closing costs paid by the seller we were able to buy our rate down even lower. Don't forget you can also use mortgage interest paid as a deduction on your taxes.

And property taxes too!