Do you have a separate Travel/Disney savings account?

Iralyn

Mouseketeer
Joined
Apr 24, 2014
Curious if you have a separate Travel or Disney savings account where you save money specifically for travel? Or do you save specifically for Travel/Disney but track in another way?

At the moment, I don't have a separate account for this purpose but thinking it might be motivating to do so.
 
I have a Disney Visa and when I book the room at Disney (we have AP) I pay most of it up front. I pay the card down pretty fast (about $250 a week) then pay the rest of the trip when the card reaches zero. I then pay it off again well before our trip. I then use it to book any DAH, CLFP+ or parties and once again pay it off before our trip. I take cash ($2-3000) for the trip and secure our charges with my Disney Visa but I go to the front desk the day before check out and pay the bill off. That way the only charges we have when we leave is from what we do on our last day. This past Christmas we used our Disney Rewards card (we had about $700 in rewards) and let our girls buy a bunch of souvenirs and we got a few things for ourselves. I prefer to do Disney this way so everything is paid for before we go.
 
We do. I take all the cash back we make with our Citi2 card and the cash back we earn in the 5% categories on our Chase and Discover card, and put it all into a high yield online savings account. I pay the card balances off each month. We also have the Disney Visa which we use here and there, but the cash back is better on our other cards.
 
I have all my savings go into a high interest savings account, but I have a spreadsheet that tracks every deposit and withdrawal. The spreadsheet also divides the savings into different savings goals, including one for vacation. That way I know how much I have saved for each goal.
 


We have a separate travel savings account that we automatically deposit into each month! It’s really helpful for keeping track of what we have available for travel without dipping into funds we need for normal stuff.
 
Yes, we too have a high interest online account, that we auto deposit into weekly. On years we might not go to Disney, we use it for an alternative vacation.
 
Not really. I use my Southwest card for everything and pay it off every payday. I use miles to get to Disney so that helps.
 


We have money that we set aside for travel each month. Most of our money is in the same high interest online checking account and we track it using YNAB. Not having multiple accounts to keep track of helps reduce the work of shifting money around within our budget when necessary.
 
We did for a while. But my husband is very money mindful. He would rather pay as much extra every month to the mortgage and then just pay for travel expenses as they come up. His idea is it is better to pay down a ton this month and then a little less the following month when an expense comes. He has our emergency savings in a separate MM account and keeps a certain amount in checking, but everything else rolls into the mortgage at the end of each month.
 
Not really. I just budget and track spending like an obsessive fiend, and any leftovers that don't have a job in the main budget and extra "found" money that isn't figured into the budget (bonuses from work, credit card cashback, income tax returns) gets put aside for Disney (just in the regular savings account). I use credit cards for everything and earn miles for our flights and a free(ish) night on our arrival night hotel (MCO Hyatt). Resort is paid in full long before we head down as we rent DVC points 11 months in advance. I usually buy tickets from Undercover Tourist well in advance with my "found"/extra money...especially if I hear about a price hike on the horizon. If I'm adding extras (like Hoop Dee Doo and Star Wars dessert party for the upcoming trip) I wait until I have the money saved up (I get bonuses from work in December and June and tax refund in February, so usually that's when I make the add-ons).
The only thing left to pay for our June trip is dining and spending money while down there. I have $150 on a Disney gift card leftover from previous trips. I've "prepaid" for dining and spending in the past by going ahead and purchasing a couple of discounted $500 Disney gift cards in the past. I also get them for gifts from friends and family (not the $500 ones, LOL) and add/combine them on my online Disney gift card account. That's as close to a dedicated Disney savings account as I get.
 
My credit union requires you to have a savings account in order to have a checking account. It earns basically no interest, so I don't use it for my main savings account. I turned it into my vacation account, and I stash all my "extra" money from things like Swagbucks, credit card rewards, interest, etc in there.
 
I do a separate high interest savings for travel in general, deposing into it each paycheck. We just booked a cruise summer 2020 and the deposit came out of that.

I’m enjoy financial planning so I like it separate. Main reason is when I want to see liquid assets I don’t include the travel account. Even though technically we have the cash in account, I don’t consider that money we have saved as I know it has a specific purpose to only spend traveling.
 
Curious if you have a separate Travel or Disney savings account where you save money specifically for travel? Or do you save specifically for Travel/Disney but track in another way?

At the moment, I don't have a separate account for this purpose but thinking it might be motivating to do so.


I use my income tax refund to go to Disney. Usually once we arrive I just use my debit/credit card for park purchases. I decided this year where I don't want the "norm" money mixed with the Disney money, so I opened a new express checking account just for our Disney trip. It's tied strictly to using a debit card. I haven't activated the card yet and I won't till a couple of days before our trip. I have all the Disney funds in that account now and I'll keep pulling $150 out of my pay till May to help with our spending money. I know I can use my magicband for in park purchases, but that $100 hold has me hesitant to "adding" my debit card information to the Disney website when I purchased the room, tickets and Memory Maker. If I had a Visa or MC then that $100 hold wouldn't bother me. But this is my actual money and I have a specific amount to use and I don't need $100 of it "locked up" till AFTER we come back home. Seeing that "Disney" account whenever I go online to check my normal checking account is VERY motivating and exciting! :cool1:
 
We have a separate saving account for vacation funds, direct deposit $100 a week. With the extra overtime I have been doing for over a year now part of the extra gets transferred to the account. We only set our budget for vacation by the 40hrs, then maybe add an extra like room celebration or dessert party if the funds are there. We still carry our regular account card in case of an emergency, but don't use it so less risk of info being stolen.
 
I used to have a separate vacation savings account then rolled most of my separate savings accounts I had going for different goals into one account with Ally and track it on Excel. I don't put a set amount in it each month so I don't autodraft, the funding varies. I make the payments on a CC though when ready to book, and shift it over from savings when paying the card.
 
I have a savings account that is ONLY for vacation purposes: airfare, hotels, and entertainment costs like park tickets or event tickets.
Disney is a big part of the "plan", but that $ does get spent elsewhere also.
 
I have three accounts.
  1. A general vacation savings account
  2. An account just for covering DVC dues
  3. One for my rewards money; which goes toward dining, tickets and any extras.
The money gets moved around between those accounts sometimes. Like last year, when my brother used his DVC points for a vacation for siblings and spouses. I ended up renting out my DVC points, which more than covered my 2019 dues. So the money that I had put aside for dues ended up in the general fund. I also raid #2 and #3 whenever a good deal surfaces for Disney GCs. So, I guess you could say that I have a 4th savings “account” and that would be my stash of Disney GCs.
 
I have several...

One is the "Vacation Account". This is an online account (Ally Bank) that earns about 1% interest. It is a MMA with ATM access and I get 6 transactions (deposits or transfers) per month with unlimited ATM withdrawals. This account receives $75 every 2 weeks from my paycheck and the money is used ONLY for vacation-related expenses. The money is direct-deposited from my paycheck and I never "see" it so I don't even miss it. This has been the best way that I have found to save for my vacations. I found an amount of money that will be substantial enough to provide a decent boost to the vacation budget, but it is not enough that I will need it to get by each month.

I have a second account set up with EmigrantDirect. I really should move it to Ally too, but I have had it for 10 years and I just haven't gotten motivated to move it yet. This account is for my DVC maintenenance fees. It only earns a measly 0.50% interest, but it is a regular savings account so there is no limit to how many transactions I can make. It is an online account so there is no ATM access. I deposit $110 every month into it and then whenever there is a good deal on Disney gift cards, I will use the money in this account to buy the gift cards to pay our DVC dues when they are due in January each year.

The third account I have isn't really exclusively for vacation money, but that is mostly what I use it for. It is my "plasma fund". I have a SAVINGS account with Ally Bank. It is an online account that earns 2.2% interest but there is NO ATM access and it only allows 6 transactions per month. Every time I accumulate $300+ on my plasma debit card (which, at $90 a week, is about once a month), I transfer the money into this account. Since I try and donate plasma twice a week, I can earn a decent amount of money. I try to save it towards vacation expenses, but I really call it my "fun money". DH donates as well and we both agree that we are allowed to spend the money on whatever we want without judgement. Once it's gone, it's gone. Since there is no ATM access, the money is not easily accessible so I cannot "impulse" spend with it.
 
Curious if you have a separate Travel or Disney savings account where you save money specifically for travel? Or do you save specifically for Travel/Disney but track in another way?

At the moment, I don't have a separate account for this purpose but thinking it might be motivating to do so.

Yes, we do a separate vacation savings account. It makes it easier to be motivated to save and know we have all the money before the trip.
 

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