Our $35 Disney Trip

We did it! We went on our first trip to Disney that we "paid" for! Just us adults (plus baby). And it only cost $35 plus food and transportation.

We stayed at Port Orleans - French Quarter for 3 nights and got 2 days park hopper tickets

Our first Disney trip as adults was the grand prize Tim won at his company Christmas party in 2017.

Our second trip was a Christmas present from Tim's parents later that same year and again this past year.

Typically our budget allows for us to do a long weekend at the beach once or twice a summer but we were determined to get ourselves to the most magical place on earth for our 11th anniversary!

How did we afford the most expensive place on earth? It all started when I was talking to a fellow Disney Adult who added me to a facebook group, when I joined it prompted me to input my email to subscribe. After reading a few of these I saw they all pointed back to purchasing her book, Disney Within Reach: meeting the mouse without breaking the bank. I didn't want to pay $20 for it but found it on Facebook Marketplace for $6 shipped! It didn't take long to realize it was very outdated. So much has changed with a new CEO and reopening after covid.

I was able to glean the concepts from it and find ways to apply it in 2023.

CASH BACK OFFERS

More or less this is what we did. The biggest thing I learned from this book is a few cents here and there add up! She talked a lot about specific deals with credit cards, I don't even know if these are still even valid but I understood the concept. I got the Amazon Prime card that offers 5% back on Amazon purchases. It rotates on percentages back for other categories but we've been steadily earning about $30 back each month for putting our gas, groceries and amazon purchases on it! I'm sure others may be able to earn more.

I also have 7 receipt scanning apps. I take pics of paper receipts and link my email for digital ones, I get about $3-6/mo from each. More when I buy their sponsored items.

Another offer we took advantage of was opening up a new bank account. The one we chose had a $400 offer for opening up a new account and setting up your direct deposit to go into it. Now it was a pain and we did switch back, but if you're willing to put in the time to do it it can be an easy way to make extra money towards your next trip!

One website is a little unusual but we earned about $500 from it! Inbox Dollars

There have been a few random ways too, selling things, recycling old phones or jewelry etc. We hope to continue to work on these as much as we can to get back to Disney as soon as we can!