I have 4,501 points! yay! I'm planning to save all my gather cash to go towards our vacation next year. Hopefully, I can average even just $25 a month (I'm going on the cash plan, I just keep forgettign to fax my info in!), and donate it to our fund. That, counting the $72 worth I currently have, will put me at almost $400 for the trip.
Plus Treasure Trooper- I have $30 sitting in there. If I start getting active there again, though, I can average $5-10 a month.
Pinecone Research is another $5-10 a month.
Boomertowne- I'm almost to a $75 card. I'm thinking, depending on the fees associated with it, I will either hang onto it for the trip, or buy disney gift cards with it for the kids. If there's fees that will kick in, then I'll do the disney gift cards. If not, I'll just hang on to it until we are much closer to our goal.
I have $50 on a gift card from Netwinner which I should get before next January- I won't hold my breath, though. :) That has fees that kick in fast, though, so I'll use that for certain to buy the disney gift cards. You can get Disney gift cards at any disney store and they are useable in the parks.
I've got around 8k points on netwinner. I'll cash out once more, and have $75 total to use towards the disney cards. That's $25 for each of the kids.
Let's see... Oh, I sold 2 articles to AC the other day at just about $3.25-3.50 each. I have several more to post there tonight. That'll hopefully get me about $3-4 each, too. Again, that'll go straight to the Disney fund.
And I'll start saving change. I already do, actually. But anyway, I'll save my change, and when the big jar is full, change it in, and deposit it to the Disney account.
On top of that, we're going to be putting away half our bonus checks, and hopefully $50-100 a month towards the trip as well. Twice a year, we get 3 checks a month instead of 2. Maybe on those two checks, we can add half to the account as well. Plus whatever is still needed will come from our taxes next year, and then half of the tax rebate this summer.
I think it might actually be fairly easy to wrangle, but we'll see. :)
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Comments: 28
Auntie M
I will try as much as I can to keep up with your posts!
How many points do you need to cash out at netwinner?
TY in advance.
Thanks everyone! I'm really hoping we can pull this off. If I can even contribute just $600, that would be great. Nick does a lot for us, and he's being awesome about letting us take this trip!
I priced a flight today. There's an airport just around the corner from us. Flying out of there to the larger airport in Detroit, then to Orlando is around $350/person. Then, I checked the price of driving to Detroit and flying out of there, and it's $100-150 cheaper per person. That's more savings than we'd spend in gas and parking. ;)
Then, the park & hotel & dining plans will cost around 2500.
Of course, those prices are not guarenteed, obviously. I'm planning to budget out 4500 total for both the resort package/tickets/etc, and the flight.
Where are you planning to stay on or off site?
Have you looked in to cost of dining plan -opposed to no dining plan costs?
We eat breakfast in our room, coffee maker is usually in all rooms (Disney's planning to add to their rooms asap), if there is no coffee maker I asjk for one, we rent a refigerator for 7.00-10.00 a day, if the room does not come with refigerator.
I stock refigerator with bottled water, iced tea, fruits. I hit Walmart or Publix on the way to the hotel.
Bottled water cost 2.50 & up, I realized 5 years ago, we spent purchased 24 bottles of water @ 2 for 5.00. 5.00 x 12 = 60.00. That is crazy!!
I bring 4-6 bottles of water, either in our tote bag or backpack. I freeze then in the refigerator & put them in a zippered heavy plastic bag (bedding came in this).
We'll have muffins & fruit, cereal and fruit plus juic & coffee for breakfast. I buy bottled water and bottled tea for the room also. I also have snacks for the room, and a few bottles of soda.
I try to be frugal when going to Disney, but still enjoy a great time.
With 5 of us, the cheapest room we can get is Port Orleans Riverside- some of those rooms have a trundle bed. They all come with a fridge at no additional cost.
I'm not sure if we'll be able to drive to a grocery store or not. I am planning to pack 1 whole suitcase or bag with just snacks and juice boxes. That way, when we leave and it's empty, we have a place for the goodies we buy while we're there. :) I want to pack so that all of our breakfasts except maybe 1 or 2 can be done in our room.
If we can get to a grocery store, I'll grab a jug of milk, plastic bowls, and cereal so we can have cereal for breakfast.
I also want to do the dining plan, which makes the other meals much cheaper, and gives us the ability to plan the cost of it out ahead of time. That includes 2 meals and 1 snack per person, per day, which will mean breakfast or sometimes lunch is the only time we would need to pack food.
Snack wise, though, I know that can add up, so we'll do 1 snack per day on the plan, and just bring in fruit snacks, granola bars, etc. :)
Fresh fruit would be a good addition, too, if we can get to a grocery store. We don't plan to rent a car, so it just depends on how close by a grocery store is, and how easily accessible it is through public transportation.
Flying out, try Airtran from DTW. We fly every year with them at $54 each way non stop. I was excited to score their business class tickets at $120 pp each way, cheaper than southwest was flying for our dates in November.
Good luck!
I also order water from Sams Club and have it sent to us down there. Then we arent buying it for $2-3 a bottle.