Discount Travel Coupon Code for Frugal DIY Mom Readers!

And so, we meet again! What a year!

It started out AWESOME with an almost-free trip to Disney World with my family of 11...as many of you may have read.  But, it quickly spiraled downward from there...

To make a long story short and spare you the details, I had major surgery in February, had a life-changing event occur at the exact same time...and had another major health scare that I am still battling today.  I am alive and thanking God for His goodness and grace through it all.  I am continuing seeking out specialists, but God is good and we have ruled out life-threatening!  Yay!

On a brighter note, I FINALLY was able to "retire" from physical therapy.  I was a therapist for 15 years and with this HORRIBLE change in the health care system, I felt that this was the right time.  So....

I am now an OFFICIAL travel agent! Yes, I have been researching, planning and booking travel for family and friends for years and years as "favors" to those who needed it. But, now, it is my FULL-TIME career!

Obviously, I am quite thorough in my research and I carry this quality through to my business.   Never used a travel agent before?  Here is an overview on how Custom Memories Travel works:

1. First, get EXCITED and hand over your WISH LIST!
2. Fill out my All-About-You Questionnaire so that I can get to know you better!
3. I will begin researching, planning, and building custom itineraries from the ground-up!
4. You pick your favorite itinerary and we refine it until it is perfect!
5. I book EVERYTHING for you...right down to your dinner reservations, if you wish!

For more information on How To Plan A Vacation with Custom Memories Travel, just visit the website or click on the link!

My goal with travel planning is to find VALUE for my CUSTOMers.  Please don't think that I am going to be able to get you a $5000 trip for $1000...that is not what I do and it is pretty much impossible if you don't play the credit card game, which we have covered quite a bit of.

I strive to find you GREAT vacations tailored to YOUR needs...at a price that reflects VALUE.  For instance, maybe that $5000 vacation will include a spa credit at your resort or a gift card to enjoy on your trip.  Many additional amenities may be had by booking with a travel agent instead of booking yourself.  Payment plans are also available!

I would LOVE to have you visit my custom travel website and take a peek for yourself!  There, you will be able to sign up for my Custom Travel Talk Newsletter that will feature travel tips, news and deals! 

You can also check out my new travel specialties including Disney Surprise, Blind Booking & Surprise Vacations!

OK, so the other perk of being a Frugal DIY Mom reader...a discount coupon code just for you!

This coupon code is good for $25 off your first custom vacation with Custom Memories Travel! Depending on the vacation, this will come in the form of $25 off your final payment OR a $25 gift card.  This will just depend on the kind of vacation and the time between booking and travel.

Your coupon code will be good through December 31, 2014.  This is the date that your Custom Vacation must have a deposit placed or the code will not work.  Are you ready for the coupon code?

Here it is...

DIYCUSTOM

I would LOVE it if you shared this on your Facebook page with all of your friends!  You may even get a bonus for referring! :)

So, start dreaming of your next vacation...and remember to plan it soon before the prices rise!

Thanks again for checking in with me...God bless!

Erin

My Almost-Free Disney Vacation: Part 5 - Food

One of my favorite things to do on vacation is to eat! Well, that's actually one of my favorite things to do ANY time, but we'll just roll with vacation for now! :)

We all know that everything at Disney, including food, is VERY expensive. And with a family of 5 to feed for 6 days there, I was looking for a solution that wouldn't break the bank.  If you are here for the first time, you may want to read up on the first posts of the series for a better understanding of this post:

"My Almost-FREE Disney Vacation Series (for 11!):

Part 1: The Basics

Part 2: Airfare

Part 3: Hotel

Part 4: Disney Park Tickets



Growing up, my family had just enough to get by. I never knew the sacrifices my parents made for us to have the "cool" once-a-year jeans for the beginning of school...or the spiral perm that I just HAD to have! Times were tough and even today, we sometimes have to sacrifice for our kids. But, it's totally worth it! When preparing for this trip for the WHOLE family to take (and we all love to eat), I realized that there were very few options for "discounted Disney" anything.  But, I didn't want to walk around the parks and say "no, you can't get that cheeseburger, get a hamburger instead..."  Well, maybe not that extreme, but you know what I mean! If you are caught up on our series, let's take a look at a solution:

So you've seen how we got our $5 flights from the Southwest credit card deal.  Now for those of you that have gotten cards recently, you may have noticed that you were bombarded with tons of other credit card offers soon after, from various banks.  The Southwest card is through Chase and  shortly after I was approved, I received another offer from Chase for the Disney Rewards Visa card. This was a "no annual fee" card, so I immediately investigated the rewards.  Basically, for every $100 you spend on the card, you get 1 "reward dollar". Then, you turn in your "reward dollars" for Disney gift cards. 1 Reward Dollar gets you $1 on the Disney gift card. You also get 10% off a $50 purchase at Disney Stores with this card and a few other perks. But at 1% cash back, I wasn't really interested...At least not until I saw the offer they gave me!

You see, when you see ads on TV or online for card offers, these are most often offers for the "general public". BUT, in the mail, you often get "targeted" offers, special ones just for a target audience. So, being a Chase Southwest cardholder, I received an awesome one!  Normally, the sign-up bonus for this Disney card is a $50 Disney gift card after the first use of the credit card. But my offer was a $200 gift card after spending $500 on the card in 3 months! Sign me up!  Wowee! 

Now, I had $200 to spend on food at Disney. OK, so I knew that I still didn't want to eat out EVERY meal at Disney for a few reasons: 1.) We had recently spent a day in Disneyland for my daughter's competition and it took a LONG time to agree on a place to eat, order the food, wait for the food, find a table, eat the food and get back to the part of the park you left off at. 2.) We weren't even hungry for 3 full meals that day.  Our family is a "small snacks all day" family. Our meals are small, so did we really need to plan all that time just to eat? For us, it would waste time. 3.) I didn't want to "plan" out all of our meal times. We are more of a "eat when you are hungry" family when we are on vacation. We always have snacks and drinks on hand to tide us over until the next meal.  For a nice "sit down" meal, you usually have to plan way ahead. No thanks. 

So, I knew that we may be able to swing this park food thing for roughly around $200. Now, what to do about the snacks?

I'm not sure about your kids, but getting them to sit and eat breakfast when they know they are going someplace fun is a challenge.  Our kids aren't generally very hungry in the morning, so I knew this was a time when we could eat at the hotel.  If you have read Part 3: Hotel of this series, you will see we stayed at the Walt Disney Dolphin. They had a variety of places to eat right at the hotel, PLUS, there was a nice refrigerator in our room. SCORE! In our vacation world, refrigerators rock!  So, I began to make a list of the breakfast foods they love.  We didn't have a microwave right in our room, but we did have one that we could access in the buffeteria! Another score!

OK, so maybe you are thinking, "I don't want to have to worry about making food, bringing food, storing food, etc. I just want to eat."  By all means, you can certainly do so.  However, I just want to share how much TIME this saved us as well. And, having snacks helped kill time in the longer lines for the rides and during the theater shows that little kids may not attend to very well. Our snacks were a necessity! I'd urge you to consider it if you have young kiddos:)

Now, I will write about ground transportation in another post, but I want to let you know that with our private transportation from the airport to the hotel, we were able to stop at a Publix grocery store for 20 minutes for FREE! :) This allowed the whole family to buy any items they needed and bring them to the hotel for the week without lugging all of it on an airplane. AWESOME!

Here is a list of some of the items I purchased at Publix:

-3 cases of water
-Gallon of Milk
-Bread
-Bananas, Oranges
-Cold Cuts
-Gogurt and Yogurt cups
-Cheese Sticks
-Bagels
-Cream Cheese
-Roaring Waters Juice Boxes
-Chips, trail mix
-Mayonnaise 

The store was much more expensive than at home.  But I still stayed under my $50 budget...right at $49 total! :)

And here is a photo of the food that I packed into a carry-on suitcase. Now, remember, I use LOTS of coupons, so this costs well under $25.  Some of the items included:

-Ritz, Goldfish crackers
-Peanut Butter
-Tuna Fish Pouches
-Box of Shredded Wheat Cereal
-Coffee Singles
-Cereal Bars
-Protein Bars
-Pop Tarts (hubby's fave)
-Applesauce To-Go
-Hickory Farms Cheese (non-fridge till opened)
-Candy...I needed candy.
-Fizzies (to turn water into soda...not paying $3 for a soda for the kids!)

I also brought dish soap, plates, baggies, sandwich boxes, small water bottles, plastic utensils, wet wipes and 2 insulated lunch bags.  These were all necessary for travel to the parks...well, not the plates, I used them at the hotel to MAKE the lunches!  I also had small food storage containers that sealed well to make the tuna fish in and take there without leaking.  Also, we put ice from the ice machine in them to keep things in the lunchbox cool until lunch! :)

So, you can see, we were pretty decked out with breakfast and snacks. I tried very hard to keep it as healthy as possible. And, success as far as my definition of "healthy". No danishes, donuts or 

sugary cereals for us! Very tempting, budget-wise, though. :)

The Execution:

I was SO excited to be able to enjoy the parks with my family! I didn't want to spend all morning getting 3 kids ready and then making lunches.  I had the most people in mine, so it took the most planning for the next day as far as getting everything ready. Each night, we would wash baby bottles and had the kids choose their lunches for the next day.  We'd get them ready, put them in the fridge and then just grab them the next morning!  I also made up baggies of snacks for the day as well. Each of the two bags had a kid lunch, mom or dad's lunch, water and snacks. My baby got her own diaper bag of goodies, still! :) It took a bit of planning each night and we were dead tired most of the time, but when we heard "I'm hungry" in line for the Toy Story ride, we were glad we did it! :)

Did we overspend?

OK, so I spent under $75 on food from home and Publix and had $200 for the park food. TOTALLY enough! In fact, we still have over $30 left on the card. Yeah. That was AFTER our "let's get ANY foods we want in Epcot to try!" It was SO much fun to get ANYTHING we wanted. Honestly, we were NOT that hungry at Disney. Way too much to do!  I am SO very glad I listened to the advice of others and did NOT purchase the dining plan. It would have taken WAY too much time to get the value out of it that we would have paid for after researching prices and what we actually ended up eating !  I  would recommend the dining plan to people that don't focus on budget, want the luxury of not having to plan, and have a bit more time to spend in the parks. 

Conclusion:

If you are concerned about budget, I highly recommend bringing or buying your own food to supplement your meals at parks.  Even if you want a burger there, you don't need to buy the fries and soda that go with it if you have other snacks and your own drinks that you bring. You will be surprised how much money you can save!

We had so much fun just enjoying each other there that food wasn't really our focus. I don't think that booking a fancy dinner at a restaurant with all 4 kids would have been relaxing or worth it...maybe when they are older. We enjoyed sitting in the rocking chairs outside the Country Bear Jamboree and watching the road show while we ate our own lunches on the front porch...the kids loved it!  And, we were much more relaxed as parents that we could say "yes" to those special food items like ice cream and candy apples at the parks!

Do you have a way to save money on food at Disney? I'd love to hear it! Comment below!

Don't forget to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest! Save money & share life with me every day!

How To Have Successful Outings With Children

I'll never forget the day a good friend said to me, "we hardly ever leave the house with the kids."  My eyes must have been as big as softballs...she must've noticed and began to explain how the 2 children were "difficult to control" out in public.



Have you ever felt that leaving the house with your children in tow to do some shopping or go out to eat was just more trouble than it was worth?  Have you ever felt like the whole world was staring at you when your child began to misbehave in public? I will never forget...

As a mom of 4, I have had those times where I felt "out of control" of the situation with my children in public and felt like I was being judged as a "mom" by everyone around.  In fact, I felt so guilty sometimes from my children acting out that I asked for the advice of a pastor at church.  I felt that I was somehow failing my kids because I wasn't always in control of them and they dared to defy me in public.

Now, before I go any further, I must say that my kids are generally well-behaved. At this point in my life, I had been feeling the pressure of today's society to be a "perfect" mom. To be the mom that can do anything, go anywhere and be anything she wants to at the drop of a hat. Ugh. Society. Full of lies and unobtainable expectations.  I was a good mom and I knew it. But somehow, I felt inferior. Maybe you have had a similar experience?

Anyhow, what I finally came to find was that no matter how "good" of a parent I was, there were still going to be those days where the kids would have melt-downs, cheerios were going to be thrown at passers-by and I would have to scoop one child up into the grocery cart with the other while I chased another around the store as the ice cream melted and the milk got warm. That's just life and I wish I could say it was always easy, but NOPE!

With that being said, there ARE some things you should do before your outing that will give you a better "handle" on behaviors and allow your anxiety to be somewhat relieved when it comes to outings with your children.

1. Prepare your children - Even I tend to become anxious when having to suddenly rush off unexpectedly - can you imagine how a child - who craves structure naturally - feels every time they are told to put their toys away and to get their coats on? The behaviors can start before you leave the house. So, try to prepare the child a few hours earlier if possible and explain to them what they can expect to do on the outing.

2. Consider timing - Whenever possible, try to plan your outings with your child's nap and eating times taken into consideration.  If you plan on grocery shopping at noon with your two children who usually nap at 12:30, chances are you are setting them up for failure right there.  It is ideal to have full tummies and rested bodies when heading out the door.  If that's not possible, at least have some snacks handy and plan to keep your trip as short as possible.

*On a side note, I have always been in the habit of taking my kids wherever they need to go at whatever time we have to go.  This includes during nap and feeding times.  Obviously, we have melt-downs. But doing this from their birth may have helped them adapt better to situations on-the-go than always planning every outing around nap time.  I think people fall into the trap of planning their lives around naps and eating times, especially first-time parents.  This "training" worked for me, but we know all kids are different. It is just a suggestion and may not work for all kiddos. *

3. Take necessities - I'll never forget the time I took my newborn daughter to Walmart for a prescription and forgot the water to mix her formula with for her bottle.  I quickly remembered when she started screaming at the top of her lungs while we walked around the store waiting for the script to be filled. I had to sprint with her to the opposite side of the store to get a case of water, then I had to buy the water and mix the formula before she stopped crying and screaming!  I was stared at as if I was running around naked and dancing like a monkey! I might as well have been!  Well, needless to say, I never forgot to restock the diaper bag again...at least until 7 years later with my newborn at Disney World. Ugh. So, whatever your child needs, double-check that you have it!

4. Plan for discipline - I feel like sometimes the poor parents that are in the "Oh my gosh, my kid is screaming and I don't know what to do" phase at the store...yeah, we've all seen them...sometimes they seem like they just don't have a plan for discipline.  I see mom's go from warning after warning to screaming, spanking and eventually leaving the store after the behavior has carried on for 1/2 an hour or so. I feel so badly for those moms.  They NEED to be at the store, obviously, but they just can't get the kids to behave. And, yes, there WILL be times that you can do NOTHING to calm them down. OK.  But, a plan for discipline is SO critical for a child whether or not you are at home or on an outing.  Here is my plan:

   a.) They get a warning.
   b.) They get one more warning & told the next consequence.
   c.) They get to sit in the corner, one minute for each year of age.
   d.) We leave the store. Or, they lose a favorite activity/toy.

You can make your own plan, but the key is CARRY-OVER!  Follow the plan at home, follow it at the zoo, the store, your friend's home, the library...wherever you are. Children will not know what is expected unless it is reinforced over and over again.

I'll remember putting my daughter in the corner for the first time at Target when she had just turned 2.  I got so many "you are a horrible mom" looks from this one older woman.  But I would have also gotten that same look if the behavior continued any further.  The behavior eventually stopped and my daughter was SO shocked that I disciplined her like that in public. Your child will eventually catch on!

5. Teach behavior - I hate to say it, but sometimes children have just not been taught how to behave in certain places.  How many of us have seen kids knocking products off shelves or taking toy balls out of their bins and tossing them at people in the store.  Then you see the parent(s) just laughing at them and letting them carry on?  I TRY not to judge, but boy is it difficult!  Bottom line, teach your children how to be respectful of other people and their property.  That's not to say that all behavior is lack of proper parenting, but it is how WE as parents react that determines how long and often the behavior appears.

To Sum It Up:

I've basically found that children will behave how you EXPECT them to behave.  If you hop in the car expecting to have a horrible experience, you probably will.  Your children will feed off your negative energy.  However, if you think to yourself, "I am going to have fun with my kids today and they may melt down...but I am prepared," then chances are, the "bumps in the road" won't seem like mountains and won't frazzle you as much...especially if you have prepared!

So, the next time you want to do something with the kiddos in public, I challenge you to take these steps and see if it helps! Remember to put on your "calm" face, or things will fall apart quickly!

Do you have any tips for parenting or taking kids on outings? I'd love to hear them!  And here are some Kid Crafts and Kid-Friendly Recipes for you to enjoy as well!


Don't forget to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest! Save money & share life with me every day!

My Almost Free Disney Vacation - Part 4: Park Tickets

Welcome to Part 4 of "My Almost FREE Disney Vacation" Series. If you haven't read the other parts, here they are to catch you up!

My Almost Free Disney Vacation:

Part One - The Basics

Part Two - Airfare

Part Three - Hotel

If you haven't been with me long, I began this hobby just one year ago this week! This "hobby" is what I call "The Miles and Points Game". It involves using the bonus points that credit cards give out in order to travel for free...by spending virtually little to no money on the cards!  See the other posts for more details!



So, we have covered the airfare and hotel for all 11 of our family that took this vacation. For my immediate family of 5, we spent $40 total on airfare and $120 on the hotel for 6 nights. Still under $200!  Now comes the tough part of the bargain - Disney World tickets...for 5 days!

As you may know, there are many places to buy your Disney World tickets and they come with a variety of options. You can get Base Tickets (one park per day), Park Hoppers (multiple parks per day for a hefty fee), add-ons, etc. Base tickets are the cheapest and allow you to go to any of the 4 parks on any of the days, but only one park per day.  Ticket prices recently went up in February 2014, ours were a bit cheaper last year.  I LOVE undercovertourist.com for finding the cheapest tickets!  Check out the prices there.  If you are going without points, I'd buy your tickets there, they are very reliable - some of my family got their tickets there for this trip!

OK, back to the point. Now, I mentioned that I have only been doing this a year now. I have read and read and read about this, but my family was still somewhat skeptical at the time.  They were excited about getting their hotel and airfare for basically free, so they weren't too worried about paying for the Disney tickets. Therefore, they did not seek out another card for that purpose. (Hence, buying them at undercovertourist.com) BUT, I am adventurous and have stellar credit, so I wasn't worried and figured I'd go all in!  We decided on 5-day base tickets (one park per day) since we had 4 kids and figured they would be napping in the afternoon.

I was researching cards that could be used to reimburse travel expenses with points and came across the AMEX Blue Sky card. At the time, you could earn 30,000 bonus points after spending just $500! CRAZY! The offer now is just 7,500 points, bummer. With this card, you purchase anything that is coded as a "travel" expense and then you trade-in increments of 7,500 points for every $100 you want to reimburse from your card.  No Annual Fee.  Hmmmm...the wheels were turning.

But Disney tickets aren't exactly a "travel expense", right? Then...the light bulb went off. Or "on" I should say!  The credit card erases anything that codes as "travel", right? Well, what if I bought the Disney tickets at a "travel" agency!?!? 

Applied, approved!  And hubby? The same!

So, since 30,000 points translates into $400 in reimbursed travel expenses, that was a total of $800 that we could get reimbursed! SCORE!

And guess what...it worked! We needed 3 tickets because of the ages of the kids and each were between $270 and $290ish. I forget the exact total...   Anyhow, we used our AAA membership and headed there to buy the tickets!

On one card, we bought 2 tickets for a total of just under $600. We used all 30,000 points to get reimbursed our $400!  Then, the other card bought the last ticket for just under $300.  Because the ticket was not an exact $300, we traded in 15,000 points for a $200 reimbursement. We could have traded in an extra 7,500 points to cover the 90-ish dollars, but didn't want to waste any of it since we knew that we could use it for other expenses in the future.

Overall, we spent a total of just under $300 for our 3 tickets for 5 days!  Not too shabby! :)

So, again, I have done LOTS of bargain hunting for tickets and there is absolutely no one I have found that can beat undercovertourist.com.  And they are reliable. I can vouch for that!  But if you are trying this out, consider a travel card that can reimburse anything coded as 'travel'.

Conclusion:

When looking at cheap or free travel, you kind of have to think "out of the box" when maximizing your budget. I thought ALOT about how to get outside of that box! And EVERY bit of energy, time and chaos was totally worth it! I can't WAIT to tell you about it!

Did you like this post? Share it with someone who may be able to use it. Or pin it for later if you are planning a trip to Disney!

And check out the other posts about Disney to get you started on saving on other things there!

Don't Screw Up Your Cash Back Redemption Like Me! Ugh!

 

This post is for anyone that has a CASH BACK credit card and uses it for the actual "CASH BACK" feature like I do. Or at least, I DID until I found out that I have cheated myself out of 50% of my earnings with it! AARRRRGGGG!!!!



The card I am going to feature is my FAVORITE "cash back" card. It is the Capital One No Hassle Rewards Card.

***WAIT!***    If you don't have this card, please don't stop reading! This information is beneficial for ANY cash back card you may have! I am using this one because this is the easiest way to teach you how to navigate any card that you may have, it may save you the costly $500+ mistake I made two years ago!

Now, before I get into details, there are a few things you need to find out about your cash back card and redeeming your rewards if you don't already know them by heart:

1. How are your cash back points/miles earned?  Do you get 1 point per dollar spent, or do you get 2/$ at grocery stores? Do you get 3 points for your first $1500 in purchases?  These are the types of questions you need to ask yourself. It is SO important that you know how your cards will best be utilized. It is also important to know HOW MUCH you have spent in order to earn those points you are redeeming...we'll get into that in a bit.

My Almost Free Disney Vacation - Part 3: Hotel

Welcome to Part 3 of "My Almost FREE Disney Vacation" - The Hotel.  You can check out the other posts if you haven't already!

Part 1 - The Basics
Part 2 - Airfare



To recap, my family of 11 had not been on vacation together in 17 years...back then we were a family of 5! I never knew how much my hard-working parents sacrificed so that myself and my siblings did not lack for anything growing up...until I had a family of my own. Our last vacation together was Disney and I can remember my family saved and saved so that we could go! We stayed in a budget hotel with a pool and took the free shuttles to the parks. We brought our own food for lunch and drank water at the restaurants when we did eat out. I had no clue that we weren't "rich" because they made us feel so special!

So last year, I decided I would find a way to get our family of "10" (eventually 11 when our daughter was born) back to Disney...with a little more "luxury" and a lot less money! Our definition of "luxury" is staying close to Disney in a beautiful hotel and having a few meals at the parks! ;) If I had not discovered this way to go, we all would not have been able to afford it!

OK, ok...how did we get an almost free hotel?

My "Almost FREE" Disney Vacation - Part Two: Airfare

 

So, if you have read Part One of "My Almost-Free Disney Vacation" posts, you may have the idea of using credit card bonuses to pay for vacations. Now, before you say, "But getting credit cards hurts your credit score, Erin!"  Yes, it can IF you don't know what you are doing!  I will say that I have always had "Excellent" credit my whole life, even today.  Excellent credit is the only way you can get most of these cards. Almost one year later, my score is just 3 measly points lower than when I began after one year and after opening up 8, YES 8, new credit cards in 6 months.  And that is because one of my cards just closed last month due to inactivity of one year. I can't spell it out here, but most of  the stuff I heard about credit cards was just not true! Yes, your score will rollercoaster week to week and after you apply for new cards. But, there are many ways to find out how you can change credit scores and boost them! I suggest learning about that FIRST just to be clear, don't just start applying for cards!  This post is simply about how I got to Disney for "Almost Free"...with an excellent credit score still! :)

So, just to recap part one:

The Main Idea: Many banks will get you to sign up for their credit cards by designing an "offer". You may see different "offers" for credit cards on TV or on the web, or in the mail.  Many (the kind we are interested in) will have wording such as "you get X amount of bonus points when you spend $X amount in X months."  These "bonus points" are generally in ADDITION to the points you would earn on the card for spending "X" amount.  Then, you "trade-in" those points for airline tickets, gift cards, hotels, etc. Great deals are to be had!

Our Goal: Get the bonus points by meeting the spending requirement and using the bonus points to pay for the vacation.  We also want to meet the spending requirement by actually spending as little as possible if we are not able to meet those requirements by paying the bills we already have using this credit card.

Tutorial - DIY Mouse Ears - Perfect for Disney!!!

OK, so if you have ever been to Disney anything, there are “Mouse Ears” all over the place! The temptation to buy them or the opportunity to hear “I WANT THOSE!” will surely arise if you are like the majority of Disney-goers, especially if you are on your first visit. So, here is what I did before my family went on a Disney Cruise and before our trip to Walt Disney world…I made a total of 14 of these babies! I didn’t want to shell out $15+ for each pair, but we needed them!

Here is how to make your own Mouse Ears on a budget! You will need:

How To Save Money Shopping Online!

 

So, with the holidays fast approaching, I thought I would do a post about saving money by shopping online. Did you know you can save LOTS of money by shopping online? I don't mean just with coupons, but by using online coupon codes and certain credit cards? Well, you are about to learn! :)

 

So, here are a few things to know before we start:

 

• PRICE - Sometimes the actual price will vary between in-store and online AND between online retailers. Plain and simple.
• COUPON CODES - There are many coupon codes that you can use

My Almost-FREE Disney Vacation!- Part One, The Basics

 

Well, I really have my mother to thank for all of the information I have learned about vacationing for close to nothing! She had seen a spot on a TV show about how using credit card bonus points can pay for a family vacation with little to no cost!  Of course, she asked me if I already knew how to do that...and honestly, I had NO clue. So, my adventure began - and I'm hooked!

Now, before we begin jumping up and down at the thought of close to "free travel", I must say that this is NOT for everyone. Credit is a very important asset in one's life and it is not to be "played with" at any cost if you are not in control of your finances already! I think it is worth saying again: CREDIT IS A VERY IMPORTANT ASSET IN ONE'S LIFE AND IT IS NOT TO BE "PLAYED WITH" AT ANY COST IF YOU ARE NOT IN CONTROL OF YOUR FINANCES ALREADY!  That is my disclaimer because it is SO true!

With that being said, if you are STABLE in your finances, have EXCELLENT credit and a willingness to learn, there are many possibilities for frugal travel! I first started learning from my "buddy" Drew with my favorite blog TravelIsFree.com.  I read his blog for hours at a time and I think I caught on fairly quickly. He has been a tremendous help, so I will give him many props! :)

I am NOT by any means and expert, so I will not be giving out all the nitty-gritty details about my trip planning, but I will start you with some basics. I would direct you to Drew's blog to fill in the gaps!

Warning...side note about WHY we are going on two vacations in two months!)  So, basically, the first trip I am planning is to California for my daughter's national pageant. *GASP*, did I just say the "p" word? Yep. My 6-year-old is National American Miss NY for the Princess Division....and I am so proud!  Just some background: NAM pageants do NOT allow make-up or swimsuits to be worn for competitions! They also deduct points for clothing that is not age-appropriate. AND, just to be clear how it is not based on money, we did not sell ANY advertising! She did a Christian dance in the talent contest and won FIRST place! She also mentioned that "following Jesus" was important to her future during her introduction portion. And...she STILL won! :) So, we are off to Anaheim!  Then it is off to Florida for a family vacation 2 months later. ***OK, side note over***

So, you can see that I HAVE to be as frugal as I can...my daughter only got $350 toward her travel cost...the rest is on us! :)

      **My "steal" last year - $1500 total for 4 for a 7-day cruise on Disney Fantasy, balcony!!!**


Here are some basics about the "credit card game":