Tips on saving to book next trip?

Hello Lola - So nice to see you back again!

I am *horrible* at saving money. The thing that I have found that forces me not to spend the Disney Vacation money is that I always put my Disney money onto Disney Gift Cards, that way the ONLY place that I'm going to spend it is at Disney.

Other than that I like to make sure that I have everything for the trip pre-paid. As soon as I have a portion of it (enough for park tickets, dining, hotel, memory maker) I pay it off right away. I never let it sit around in my house or at the bank too long. It gets put right to work!

I wish we could do the gift card thing. Unfortunatly, the ones we buy here in Canada are only good in Canada

Will your bank do automatic withdrawals from your check into a savings account? We have done that and it works well!

Not sure about UK, but some banks in the US have Vacation Club accounts. You put in so much a week and you can only withdraw the money once per year. It usually earns very little interest, but it does keep you from being able to touch the money.

We do the gift card thing and we use a Disney Visa so that we rack up Disney spending money without having to work much at it. For my business, I use an airline rewards card, so I earn points toward "free" flights. Once again, geography could play a roll there. Not sure what is available to you.

I understand that WDW sometimes runs really great deals like 40% off deluxe accommodations for UK travelers. The best that we ever see here is 35% and 30% is more common. Try to take advantage of a room sale or at least free dining. The more discounts you can get on your trip, the less you have to save up in the first place!

My wife and I have a couple of strategies that work well for us. First, at the end of every day, any single dollar bills we have in our pockets are set aside. After a little while, you really don't even miss the money, and it adds up faster than you'd think. To discourage dipping into the cookie jar, it is allowed but must be repaid at 50% interest! We have a separate "Vacation Account" set up at our bank where we deposit the money when the cookie jar gets full. Secondly, any money we receive that's not the usual budget stream, such as gifts, rebates, whatever, gets deposited in the vacation account. My wife calls that unexpected money. Between the two, you can make it to Disney sooner than you think! Good Luck!!

I know how you feel! When I saw Kristen's post a year or so ago about putting money onto the Dis Gift Cards I was excited to try it out... Especially since the exchange rate fluctuates like mad up here in the Great White North. When I went into the store to try and hand them some US cash to load onto the gift card they wanted to exchange it for CAD funds to load it... And my day was just so very sad.

Ever since I've been on the hunt for a work around. If anyone has some tips or tricks on getting my worthless, monopoly coloured Canadian money onto USD Dis Gift Cards, you lemme know XD

Buy your US dollars when the British Pound is doing well.. Right now, our $$$ is doing good against the Pound.. Also, I was looking for cheap flights back to the US from London this past week and found that Norwegian Airlines flies direct from Gatwick to Orlando and it was only $280 bucks one-way.. So shop around for other airlines other than the top tier airlines..

I sell unwanted items or collectibles I've purchased over the years, on ebay, so all the income from that goes into my Disney fund...

My savings technique is to deposit funds monthly into my debit credit card, which is tucked away in my Halliburton case.