Saving for Disney

"Saving for Disney" has been a theme in our household for the past couple months. We decided that it would be a good year for us to go. We have never gone as a family and Large and Medium are 7 and will be 5. Small is 2 (therefore free), and we won't be having to run around with XS quite yet (well technically speaking, I will be, but hopefully being in my second trimester it won't be too bad). We figure it will be years before we could ever make a trip like this again. Financially, it is not such a good year though, since we just finished our remodel in June. So, we have been pinching pennies and saving as much as we can. We talked to the kids and told them that if we were going to Disney, then we wouldn't do any big Birthday Parties, but we would still celebrate their birthdays with family. They were on board. We are going at a non-peak season in November and we found an incredible deal thanks to a tip from my sister-in-law.

Not surprisingly, the best penny pincher by far has been our Large. He gets really nervous when we go out to eat and reminds us about Disney and makes sure we can afford it. It also shows up when you turn on a light in the house and two seconds later it is turned off, by Large of course, and he reminds us, "Did you forget about Disney?" He thinks that we are worried about having to buy light bulbs, not the energy wasted. He has been so sweet and really wants to contribute all he can. He has offered to sell his artwork, have a garage sale and donate any of his earnings to the cause. Up until this point, all of his money, besides a portion that he puts aside for donate, has gone into the Invest portion of his piggy bank, to save for college of course. :) He never puts money in Spend and until Disney hasn't put any money in Save. He says, "I don't need anything, so I'll just save for college." Barry and I would love to take credit for his responsible attitude, but we can't. Medium is quite the opposite. Although, he too has gotten into the "save for Disney" spirit. Hope Disney lives up to their expectations and they think it was all worth it in the end.

By the way, if you are looking for a good piggy bank for your kids, we love the Money Savvy Piggy Bank. We have a different color for each kid. We have taught them to put a portion in each slot, and the remainder can go where they want it to. It comes with a booklet to tell you how to explain it to your child and stickers to put on it to indicate what you are saving/donating/spending/investing for. I told Large that Mama and Daddy have to put most of our money in spend, because we have a lot of responsibilities, but he doesn't have any so he didn't have to put any money in there unless he wanted to. He asked what was the most important thing was. I told him at his age, probably investing for college and donate. So, he is saving for college, and asks me all the time if I think he has enough yet. :) I think we will have to open up an investment account for him soon, because his piggy bank sits on its hiney because the invest portion is so full. :)