Bring in extra $$ - what do you do to pay for that vacay?

[Squishie]

What kinds of things do you do to bring in extra money to pay for your trip?

I’ve done sales of stuff just around the home and thought of making and selling some simple things , but really don’t know where to start.

Really want to help fund this trip so I need tips and ideas!

 

[MICKIMINI]

I funnel all rebates, coupons and cash back deals on credit cards into the vacation fund. It is amazing how much can be accumulated.

2% at grocery store plus 2% using Disney Visa, 5% on gas July-September, $10 off with $150 purchase at BJ's etc. DH even got a $300 cash back with a $500 spend on a card he hasn't used for quite some time. These are just the current deals. I have DH trained to ask which card to use when he gets gas, shops for something etc.

 

[Twilghtsprkle]

I don’t have the stomach for it, but my husband invests in the stock market when he sees an opportunity. He set up a couple trailing stops this week and made $2500.

 

[tvguy]

Nothing. We only take vacations that are within our income.

 

[Squishie]

Nothing. We only take vacations that are within our income.

While I understand what you are saying, it implies that it is not in our income. This is not true. “Income” comes in a lot of forms. Let me know if you have any other forms of income besides a full time job. I’m just interested in other ways to supplement and not use all we have saved up on this one vacation. Thanks.

 

[Squishie]

I funnel all rebates, coupons and cash back deals on credit cards into the vacation fund. It is amazing how much can be accumulated.

2% at grocery store plus 2% using Disney Visa, 5% on gas July-September, $10 off with $150 purchase at BJ's etc. DH even got a $300 cash back with a $500 spend on a card he hasn't used for quite some time. These are just the current deals. I have DH trained to ask which card to use when he gets gas, shops for something etc.

Great ideas!! Thank you!

 

[kuhltiffany]

Eat out only once per month, basic haircut once per year. No extra stuff like getting nails done, movies out, etc. No coffee trips, very limited gifts and holiday celebrations. Don’t buy single use anything, limit things that only get used once a year. Reuse and fix things, use what we have at home before shopping. With every purchase we ask ourselves, what do we want more, vacation or this?

 

[tvguy]

While I understand what you are saying, it implies that it is not in our income. This is not true. “Income” comes in a lot of forms. Let me know if you have any other forms of income besides a full time job. I’m just interested in other ways to supplement and not use all we have saved up on this one vacation. Thanks.

I'm retired, and my wife and I started Social Security this year. So we really don't have any additional income options. Just dip into savings. And even when we worked, there really weren't options to choose to pickup overtime. In our industry overtime is rarely planned, it just happens, sometimes minutes before the end of your scheduled shift.. Managers work hard to shift people to cover vacations and scheduled leave to avoid paying overtime.
So, how do we cover an expensive vacation? Well, I booked a land/sea vacation in May......the trip isn't until September 2025. So I will have 13 months before I have to pay it off, saving a little bit out of each month's SS checks, and 15 months before the trip.

 

[kathy884]

I put so much per pay into a vacation fund. If the trip I want to take is more expensive than what I will have at that point, I might shorten the planned trip or put it off till I will have the savings in the vacation fund for the trip I want to do. I have a credit card that gives me airline miles, so if I have points to cover airfare, that gives me the dollars I budgeted for airfare as extra. I'm not for example doing a summer trip this year except for visiting friends and family and am saving now for a trip I will do next July.

It also if you are renting a car or staying in a hotel pays to check to see if rates have come down. I always book refundable and re-book if rates come down. The same thing can be done with air for an airline like Southwest, but you don't see the payoff right away, as the difference is typically in the form of a travel credit for future airline purposes. I might also look more at ways to cut down how much the vacation costs besides shortening it (consider renting a condo and doing some meals in to be able to budget less for food). Consider if Orlando doing just three park days and doing three resort days might work for your family and how much that would save. If we have a good deal for a week in a condo, but we don't want to spend that much on theme park days and are with a group that would enjoy condo downtime and amenities, this can make for a really nice vacation.

And I typically each pay cycle will have some discretionary monies not going to expenses or planned savings goals. If I want to do something more on a trip that I didn't budget for, I might put those monies in the vacation fund. I track all of this on a spreadsheet.

I'm not one that would work extra (already have an intense job) or cut back on at home pleasures that give me more joy than vacation to fund a trip, but we all have different priorities, energy levels, and things we enjoy.

I don't know your budget or situation, but usually eating out less is a good way to save money and is usually healthier. But you aren't going to see me sacrificing my weekly Saturday night date night with DH or a standing lunch date that I have with my grown son as those are activities that give me great joy and I'd rather put a vacation off or do a more modest vacation than cut down on those activities.

Something that has been true for me over the years too is that I have just as much fun on inexpensive vacations as I do on expensive ones. Might you and your traveling companions be satisfied with a less costly destination?

 

[MICKIMINI]

SWA points along with sales are awesome combined with DVC makes a trip low cost for us!

I was able to book DH and I nonstop RT MHT-MCO for a total of $11.20 (I had various "funds" hanging around). Somehow, I got really lucky and picked up four nights at AKV in a 1 BR Value HA for October. I found a studio at Poly for the first night. Had to borrow, but oh well! We booked our son at SSR and got him RT nonstop. He has a medical conference at the Hyatt, but we saved him a bit of $$ and his flight was $11.20 RT. Worth it just to spend a few hours with our son (and DIL if she gets time off)!

All the deals, rebates and cash back will buy dinner at Boma, breakfast at Topolino's and a few QS meals. I always factor in the cost of food at home $20/day into the equation. I factor gas for the car rental at $0 since we are not using it at home.

Five nights/six days including flights, villas, garage parking, meals and rental car may end up $750-1000 out of pocket.

Just checked out the clothes situation and we have all new clothes/shoes for the trip stashed away including ears, hats, halloween tee shirts, bags and even magic bands bought on clearance. Timing is everything.

 

[buzzgirls&dad]

I still do My Points, Ibotta, Fetch. While this things aren't going to fund your trip, they can be a few hundred off airfare, a Landry's or grocery card and some Starbs cards.

 

[bigpinkdaisy]

We are blessed to be able to travel frequently as a family, and we plan accordingly for that, however these are some of the ways we add to our Disney fun money - basically what we use to pay for our ideas of "magical extras", like a behind the scenes tour(Keys to the Kingdom, Behind the Seeds) or other fun activities like the Amphicars, etc when we go:

*All rebate checks, cash back apps, Rakuten, class action settlements, etc get cashed and added in
*We participate in several focus groups a year which are paid opinion panels - we have several research marketing groups locally and we are signed up to participate if we qualify for the studies.
*Reselling on Poshmark - I sell a ton of my very gently used clothes - and over the years a lot of the things my son wore(or didn't wear).
*We love Fetch for earning gift cards - for our trip next week we just cashed in some of our points for two hefty Starbucks gift cards, we load to our app and use for breakfast sandwiches, coffees etc in the parks.
*100 envelope savings challenge - we have 100 envelopes numbered 1-100. Whenever we have extra cash on hand that is in our wallets at the end of the week, we put it in one of the envelopes, ie. $30 in the envelope marked 30). When we finish filling all of the envelopes, we have $5,050...which actually pays for a trip! This one is our current challenge - we are having fun trying to see if we can complete it by Christmas this year.

 

[disneydreamer1980]

We’re very lucky that we’re able to vacation frequently and it doesn’t hurt us financially. But I still do things to get a little extra, since we’re a large family and everything costs a ton. I put money (usual around $100) every week into a vacay account. Save all of our change, cash it in monthly and add to our vacay account. We also used to have a thing set up on our debit cards that automatically rounded every purchase up and put the change into a savings account. I used to do surveys and opinion panels but stopped as it got harder to earn anything. I sell my kids clothes and things I don’t want anymore online. We have a yearly yard sale as well that usually gets us a couple hundred dollars. If someone’s looking to get us or my kids a gift I always suggest a Disney gift card, and we give our kids a $50 gift card as part of every bday and holiday gift. Our Disney trips tend to be the most expensive ones we take (even more so than our Europe trips usually which is crazy) so we focus mostly on Disney gift cards, doing the target red card savings thing and occasionally getting them on sale at Costco. We also make use of cc and airline points programs. It’s a shame vacations are so expensive because everyone deserves a break from their daily reality and the ones who need a break the most are frequently the ones who can’t afford it.

 

[AlohaNow]

We have two big trips coming up, so I am actively gathering additional income for them. After almost four years off I just started listing items on eBay again. It is slow-going, but I love that notification sound that something has sold! Someone upthread already mentioned focus groups. They are easy money, but sometimes hard to schedule if you work full-time. The day sessions tend to pay a little more than evening sessions, even when the focus group is online. I am now too busy with work to schedule any, but DH and DS make good smack doing them. DS’s opinion as a teenager regarding social media is really valuable to Meta – I can’t believe how much they pay him for a one-on-one session! Go online and search ‘focus groups’ or ‘opinion panels’ and then get signed up with as many places that you can. It’s kind of fun and if you can schedule a bunch, it’s good extra fun money for trips!

 

[bnf0522]

I funnel all rebates, coupons and cash back deals on credit cards into the vacation fund. It is amazing how much can be accumulated.

2% at grocery store plus 2% using Disney Visa, 5% on gas July-September, $10 off with $150 purchase at BJ's etc. DH even got a $300 cash back with a $500 spend on a card he hasn't used for quite some time. These are just the current deals. I have DH trained to ask which card to use when he gets gas, shops for something etc.

I second using all rebates, coupons, cash back from credit cards for a vacation fund. I also use iBotta, RMN & Fetch, in addition to setting aside money each month for a Disney trip fund. Most of the trip is paid for via "free money" (Which I realize isn't free, but it's not coming from my monthly budget so it feels free to me....girl math! LOL)

 

[MICKIMINI]

IMO "free money" is money that I would not have received if not for using that coupon. Using credit cards wisely and accurately for the most return from 1%-5% is a bit of work but not onerous. Really just paying attention!

We decided to take a last minute WDW trip (4 months out) but even then it is mostly meals and rental car which the "free money" will make a big dent in. Travel on!

 

[deepti1011]

I was lucky enough to graduate from a program in 2019 where I was offered a part time role to support the professor for a course. It went remote during the pandemic and as long as I live and work in the same state I can continue to work there. I’ve got a full time position since then but still do the part time to supplement my main income.

 

[kydisneyfans]

If you get paid every 2 weeks, 2 months a year has an "extra" pay. That's my starting point. It's a combination of discounted gift card buying, maximizing credit card points, and online cash back portals for funding. I also add in the cost of staying home for the week-so if I would normally spend $250 in fuel/groceries/etc that goes into my vacation budget too.

 

[tampabrat22]

I've been pretty big into budgeting for many years. We can afford the travel we do, but I have always tried to earn as much as I can to cover travel expenses. Then there is no guilt when we splurge on things. Here are some of the things I have done to make extra money:

Sell used items online
Instacart, Doordash, Amazon Flex, Spark delivery
Make & sell crafts (I used to make jewelry & candles)
Focus Groups
Donate Plasma
Yard Sale
Fiverr
Consign clothes & items
Part Time job
Lawn Care
Wash Garbage Bins in your neighborhood for $10-$20 a piece

 

[dclpluto]

Overtime,overtime and more overtime. Sorry I forgot to mention overtime.