How Do You Save Up For A Cruise?

[joie1016]

Staring with week one, whenever that is, put a dollar away first week, 2 dollars the second week , 3 dollars the third week , 4 dollars fourth week, etc. In 52 weeks you will have $1364.00 in a year. Double the amounts for 2 people !!!:)

[iuki]

You're doing just fine - and it works for you. That's what counts.

 

In our case, we save enough money in our checking to cover the following month's expenses. Any excess amount is transferred to our savings account at the end of the month. This way, we have enough money to cover yearly expenses such as property tax, home insurance, car insurance, etc., and emergency expenses, including vacations, without touching our savings account.

 

However, like I said, what you're doing works for you, and that's what counts.

 

Have a wonderful day.

[bking]

We use several strategies, some of which have already been mentioned.

 

We save our aluminum cans and cash them in before our cruise. My husband even gets his friends to save theirs for him. He crushes them out in the garage (gives him something to do...) and that is pocket money for the trip. When our kids were at home, they helped and this was "their" spending money. It's not a lot but it IS recycling and "found" money.

 

Also, for our first trip, we were trying to pay off a few things so I couldn't put up what I wanted from the start of our trip planning. We got paid twice a month, so I put in a separate savings account $10 each payday for month 1, then $20 each payday of month 2, increasing $10 each month till I got to $100 each payday. By that time we were used to putting money in the account and I continued to put in $100 a payday until our trip.

 

Once for a trip to Disneyworld, we challenged each other to put up a dollar a day. This was in addition to saving pocket change for vacation, which we have always done since 1980 when we got married. My DH was better at it than I was so I sometimes had to catch up at payday.

 

We also have a plan at my husband"s job where we deposit money for out of pocket medical expenses before tax and then the money is reimbursed to you when you send in receipts during the year. Whenever we get these checks (like a $20 co-pay) we put that check in the vacation savings account. Since we already paid it out of pocket and it seems like "found" money. Of course, any small refund checks, 10% of any odd jobs my husband does, money I make from creating or pattern writing or test-knitting all go in too.

 

Hope this spurs ideas...

 

 

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[Swells1]

I worked at a limited service hotel a few years ago, and we had a lady who worked part-time as a breakfast hostess. She and her husband were retired, and she worked 1-2 days a week just for travel money. Not only did she save a few hundred dollars a week, but she also got a nice employee discount on hotels. (For example, my current hotel's nightly rate is around $200 per night, but the employee rate is $39.) :D

[StampedersFans]

We live within our means. We don't overspend. We have a bunch of credit cards like most people but only use a couple on a regular basis. We pay them off right away and 99% of the time we pay them off the day we use them. I have my online banking setup to automatically transfer $25 2x month to savings. That's $600 a year extra into savings. All our empties $ we take to the bottle depot goes into our cruise fund as well as anything we sell on the internet or local classifieds. We don't drink, smoke, do drugs or go out for dinner much and we save $ that way too! I save on groceries when I can and always only buy clothes when they are on a deep discount and buy quality over quantity. That way items last longer. We buy our american $ when the canadian $ is high and stockpile that in our safety deposit box. We travel light and enjoy our ourselves on our cruise and buy items we couldn't buy locally at home. My parents sometimes give us american $ in lieu of a gift for a birthday/anniversary/xmas and that helps us out too!

[Luvs2trvl]

This thread has given me hope that I can still go on my cruise next March. Since putting the deposit down there have been some unplanned house expenses that I've had to address, so my cruise fund is now a bit short.

But ya'll have inspired me to continue trying to save enough money for the trip - not only cruise but flight, hotel, pet sitter, etc.

 

Thank you! Going to start rolling my spare change tomorrow during football games.

[donnaandtim]

This is what we do. My family all have a part time job with a catering company. We work almost every weekend and some nights. Our youngest started when he was 13 doing dishes. Every time we get paid from this job we go to our travel agent and put it on our account. Our children now know that if they want something they have to work for it. We do a lot of weddings so our tips get changed into American money and that is our spending money. Our boss is wonderful all he does is send out an email stating what jobs are open and if you want to work we reply. We are able to take a vacation a couple of times a year. One time we called up our travel agent and told her that my husband and I booked off a week where are you sending us, she met us at the airport with tickets to Cuba it was wonderful.

[bitsey66]

We were fortunate to be able to book our cruise paid in full last November due to a settlement, but, as far as our spending money etc, we simply have a change box that we throw our change and $1 bills into, sometimes larger bills. We now have close to $1000 from that box since last November :D It will continue to be our "box" for whatever need arises. Vacations mostly!

[melody hounddog]

We were fortunate to be able to book our cruise paid in full last November due to a settlement, but, as far as our spending money etc, we simply have a change box that we throw our change and $1 bills into, sometimes larger bills. We now have close to $1000 from that box since last November :D It will continue to be our "box" for whatever need arises. Vacations mostly!

 

We have started doing the same thing with our leftover money.

[LadyTenorJD]

I need to get better about spending. The reason I get to cruise so much is because I live in a Florida and I am 40 minutes from the closest port (Port Canaveral), and three hours max from every other port in Florida. So no flying for me, unless I cruise from a different destination. For example, I cruised out of San Juan in July. It was one of the best cruises I've ever taken.

 

I am also a high school teacher, so I have a lot of time off to cruise, and I sometimes take a Friday or Monday off and do a weekend cruise. For my birthday, I'm doing an 8 day from Ft. lauderdale, and I am taking a week off of work. I usually hate to miss school, but it's my birthday and I was always in exams on my birthday when I was in college and grad school, so now I feel I have earned it.

 

Of course, I normally cruise when school is out, but it is obviously a bit more expensive then, so I plan in advance. Since I've been hit with the cruise bug, and since my buzzkill ex husband is not around to naysay, I've been traveling as much as possible. I have been shopping less, but I need to be better about budgeting. Divorce definitely threw a wrench in my financial plans, but I'm getting better about money. I have to, since I have several trips scheduled in the near futures (cruise and land).

 

Got a lot of ideas from this thread...thanks, all!

 

 

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RCCL Monarch of the Seas June 2011--Lost My Cruise Virginity

Carnival Miracle December 2011--Christmas at Sea

Carnival Ecstacy December 2012--34th Born Day Celebration

Carnival Imagination March 2013--Last Minute Getaway

Carnival Valor July 2013--Friend's 40th Born Day Celebration

Carnival Freedom December 2013--35th Born Day Celebration

Carnival Ecstasy March 2014--Spring Break

Carnival ??? August 2013--TBA

[avaross09]

Try saving some amount of money every year reduce your expenses, Make a monthly plan and a budget and spend wisely only on things that you need.

[Quixotic]

These are great suggestions and we also do many of them.

 

When I go to Costco, I use my debit card. I get out additional funds almost every time in cash and I squirrel those away. Adds up!

 

We have found that we do a really good job cutting back on day to day expenses if we have a specific trip we are saving for. Up until that point, it's all very abstract and we tend to blow money on this or that. We recently booked a cruise on Royal Caribbean AOS 2/9/14 sailing and now it's a daily discussion in our house "Oh we shouldn't eat out because we need to save for the cruise" ... "Oh we should think about how to use the existing food in the fridge to make meals because we have to save up for the cruise" ... "Oh let's see what's on Netflix instead of going to the movies because we have the cruise coming"...

 

So somewhat counterintuitive but we have found that always having a trip BOOKED causes us to behave more frugally. I get restless if we don't have "the next one" on the horizon. I have so much wanderlust! :p

 

We also will scale back birthdays and skip gift giving (or minimize) among the adults.

 

For years, we threw these huge birthday parties for our kids. The kids have the same birthday so my rationale was that we only threw one big party each year and could do more with it. Still, I would get carried away. Their parties ranged from $1,000 to $2,500 each year once it was all added up. Then a few years ago, the kids were talking about wanting to take a big vacation. I knew we didn't have the money for both at the time, so I let them choose: they could do a big vacation OR they could have a birthday party, but not both. No party, no gifts other than a small token from Mom & Dad.

 

At the time, the kids were 7 and 8. This was a HUGE decision for them and they took it really seriously. They debated it heavily. Finally after a few weeks they came to me and said they were giving up the party because they wanted the trip. And we haven't done another birthday party since! Every year I ask, and every year they vote for a trip.

 

We have LOVED the trips so much and the memories have been priceless. Now I tell everyone to skip the big parties which last a couple of hours and take that money and invest it in experiences a family will never forget.

[avgsuperheroine]

We're only about to take our second cruise, but I think we're addicted! I love that there's no worry about little expenses adding up.

 

We budget envelopes each week (dave ramsey plan) and have a savings jar. We can put left over money from our dining out, clothes, groceries, family fun money into the jar at the beginning of the week or end of the week. 1/2 of the money goes to our savings account, half goes to family fun! This helps me not feel like we're "only" saving for fun things. This is also on top of our 20% each month that goes to savings.

 

It still feels like a splurge, but I'm of the same opinion as others that I'd rather make memories and see new places than go to mcdonalds every week with the kids or have a new skirt.

 

Also, I sell designs on CafePress and Zazzle. I make a commission on each item that sells (50 cents to two dollars usually), but I've done this for five years now and make an extra $12,000 per year. I only work on it about 100-200 hours per year. No upfront costs except purchasing adobe photoshop for $79.

[smalltownmomwa]

I started a savings account just today for our next cruise. It is "scheduled" for 2022, but having an account will help me squirrel away $ & we will go the second we have enough. Good incentive!

 

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[mgm3430]

My husband and I are dual income, no kids, no car payment, and we have a decent amount of money left at the end of the month after bills and savings. We each get an "allowance" every payday that we put into our separate bank accounts, which he lovingly call Fun Money. When we have enough saved up, I'll book a cruise and we split the deposit. I usually book at least 18 months out so we have plenty of time to make payments and pay off the cruise.

 

I have a points credit card that I use for everything. When I book the cruise, I use that card, then my husband gets me his half of the deposit and I apply that to the credit card payment along with my own half of the deposit. I use the card for all our household expenses and in time I'll earn enough points for another payment, say $200. I do this throughout the year as I pay down the cruise using the awards points. When we get closer to final payment, I tell my husband what's owed and we split that using our allowance money.

 

I go to a 90-day website that shows nothing but cruise prices after final payment date. I would love to book one of these cruises but so far we always book early and pay it down slowly. I want to see if we can save up everything we need so we can book a cruise within a couple months of sailing and pay for it immediately.

 

We did a test drive with this theory by deciding to fly from Los Angeles to Chicago to take in a Cubs game next month. Sunday afternoon, after the Dodgers swept the Cubs, I got on the internet and looked up ticket prices for Wrigley Field. DH and I discussed it for a bit, then he sat down at his laptop and the two of us figured out the flight, a pre-flight hotel (we live 3 hours from LAX), a hotel in Chicago within the Magnificent Mile, public transportation from the airport to the hotel to Wrigley Field, etc. By dinnertime we had everything sorted out and purchased. Our allowance is paying for most and the points I've earned on the credit card is paying for the pre-flight hotel.

 

We now know we can do this very same thing on a last-minute cruise. The savings realized by booking last-minute are quite impressive! I'm not that interested anymore in having an exact cabin, so am willing to gamble a bit on what's left just before sailing. We need only save carefully and practice some belt-tightening in many areas of our daily lives. It's amazing how much I can save by simply cooking and using up those leftovers!

 

My husband and I earn enough that we can cruise a couple times a year, plus some quicky land vacations. It wasn't always that way, though. In the early years when the kids were small, we never went anywhere. No money! Looking back, I realize that my husband and I had hobbies that took up any extra savings we might have used for a vacation. Do I regret that? Yes!! To all here who use any extra cash for a family cruise or other trip, kudos! You are creating memories for your children that mine never got to enjoy.

 

One of these days we'll take all the kids and grandkids on a cruise. I'm really looking forward to making vacation memories with them, even if it's later in life.

 

 

Do you know the names of the 90 day cruise companies?

[gr8life]

Do you know the names of the 90 day cruise companies?

I think the one you are looking for is: vacations to go dot com, but anyway if your price drops on a cruise your TA should give you that discount; also inform you of upgrades/upsells.

 

Here's a money making tip: Work the elections :). Yes, your town/city has municipal/general/presidential elections. Those people at the tables when you come in to vote are not volunteers and you could make up to $400 per day (3-4 elections per yr that adds up) :D call your city clerk for details. I have friends that take a VAC day off from work to make a little extra do-re-mi. It's also great for moms and retirees.

[frugalKansan]

Priorities are the biggie. For me vacations are my priority. I don't have any payments except house payment. I even wash my clothes inside out to save wear and tear. When possible I buy used clothes and shoes through eBay. I drink only water or occasional wine. Only home cooked food, do everything myself. I shop best airfare prices on Kayak, rental cars through Hotwire and hotels through Priceline.

 

 

Carnival Destiny jan 2010

Carnival Liberty 9/28/13

Carnival Victory 10/5/13

Carnival Sensation 3/9/14

Carnival Sensation 3/13/14

Carnival Sensation 3/16/14

[Michelle25490]

I am saving money on lowering my standards; My dream cruise is a Transatlantic on Cunard's QM2. Sadly, being a solo traveller I can not afford this. There for I am now just a couple of weeks away from booking my first cruise in the Mediterranean.

Also going in November instead of the Summer saves a lot of money. Last is I am not booking a flight to Venice with the cruise-website, but I book my flight myself, which also makes me able to save money.

[cbell21219]

People are missing the easiest way to save that doesn't cost you a dime. I use my Arrival Card for EVERYTHING except for car and house payment. Just by doing that I have a free $400.00 in Travel expenses every year. Then I have a automatic withdrawel of $3.00 a day and $25.00 a week put into a savings account. I am able to afford two full week vacations a year with this. Plus, if I ever use my debit card ( which I try NEVER to do, cause Debit cards are the dumbest thing you can carry in your wallet) it takes another $1.00 per transaction and puts in it in the savings account.

[cdnphotogirl]

I have never cruised before (first one in Jun 2014) however I do travel on a regular basis. Last year, I traveled to Washington DC for 5 days, the east coast of Canada, Maine and NH for 3 weeks while this year I am going to Vegas for 5 days and a month long trip to Europe for my mother and I. While I am not paying for my mother's cruise as it is an 80th bday present from her daughters I am paying for everything else on the trip as my portion of her present.

 

I am lucky, I am single, have NO debt and a job that pays me VERY well. Currently, I get 4 weeks of vacation a year and try to travel to Europe every other year for 4-6 weeks each time. I put a minimum of $1000 per month into a separate account although my regular deposits are closer to $1250 per month.

 

Also, here in Canada we have a $2.00 coin called a Twoonie. I do not spent this coin however you have to make the commitment not to spend the coins no matter how much you need that $2.00 coin. I put them in a bank at home. It is amazing how quickly this money adds up, I can put anywhere from $10 to 28 every day or two into the bank. (I now have two sisters, a nephew and a number of friends saving this way.) Last year, I paid for my trip to Washington including flight, hotel and all spending money with my twoonie savings as well as all my Black Friday spending money.

Edited January 17, 2014 by cdnphotogirl

[notentirelynormal]

Okay, I admit I didn't read all the responses but here is how I paid for my first few cruises.

 

When I went to the grocery store I wrote the check for an extra $5 but if I was feeling extra rich I wrote it for an extra $20. Cruise fund. Recycle money. Cruise fund. I lend someone $5, cruise fund on repayment. Turned in the extra soda cans. Cruise fund. Whenever the money was extra it went to the cruise fund. If I lent a co-worker money and he paid me back. Cruise money.

 

Now, well, now I just charge it :D.

[Gunner22aa]

While I am but a couple of months from joining the ranks of the retired my wife continues to work as a nurse and intends to for some time. I have a good pension and we have both accumulated a fair amount of money in our retirement savings accounts. Kids are long gone and doing well on their own, house has been paid off for years and other than our monthly living expenses we have no debts. Half of my income is banked as is all of hers. This will continue after retirement. Financially we are blessed so that when we want to cruise or take another form of vacation the money is always there. Believe me when I say this wasn't always the case. The kids grew up thinking a 5 star was a trailer at the campground as opposed to our tent!

Edited January 17, 2014 by Gunner22aa

[melody hounddog]

While I am but a couple of months from joining the ranks of the retired my wife continues to work as a nurse and intends to for some time. I have a good pension and we have both accumulated a fair amount of money in our retirement savings accounts. Kids are long gone and doing well on their own, house has been paid off for years and other than our monthly living expenses we have no debts. Half of my income is banked as is all of hers. This will continue after retirement. Financially we are blessed so that when we want to cruise or take another form of vacation the money is always there. Believe me when I say this wasn't always the case. The kids grew up thinking a 5 star was a trailer at the campground as opposed to our tent!

 

Very inspiring. Thanks for sharing. Now I want to pay my house off early!!

[qqwer123]

Our vacations are pricey and we have to book a year ahead due to the fact that our two youngest kids 16 and 12 are special needs so they have to go to a respite home with medical staff. For a 2 week vacation it is over 2 thousand just for that but that part of it is well worth it. The kids have a caregiver for each one of them and they get to go swimming, shows, all kinds of fun and they love it. It is like a vacation for them as well.They hate flying so taking them is out of the question. Our youngest has downs and severe autism...she is loud and people on planes do not like that as they do not understand. She is safe and comfortable and very happy at respite.

Getting back to topic, I always wanted to take a nice vacation but hubby is money wise so we made a deal. We used our income tax for the last ten years to pay off everything including our house. Now we put 500 a month into our fund. I also collect airmiles so our flight from Canada to Florida was only 440.00. Before hubbys mom passed away a year and a half ago she told us to enjoy life and travel because you never know what is around the corner. Our first cruise was last Feb and it was some of the best money we ever spent. We buy simple items for each other for Christmas, b-days as well. The cruise is our gift to one another. After 34 years of raising our 7 children-paying for schooling, paying for 4 weddings either by ourself or half- we really appreciated our trip. We are now all in for cruising and will take one two week vacation/cruise a year. I would not go into debt for a cruise but the savings spent on one is sooo worth it. It just refreshes a person to deal with life so much! I would recommend it highly. We did however learn from our first cruise that you do not need to buy a bunch of junk and I will stay out of the salon. I went twice and got sucked into over 500 bucks of services that I could of done better myself...lol-Had to wait until I was 52 before we had our first kid-free vacation...Some companies like Sears also have plans where you can pay interest free ahead of time over a year or two for a cruise as well. We have some friends that did this and there is a small charge of about 75 for the plan but they booked ahead by a year and paid for the whole holiday by the time they sailed...I think they said it was about 390 a month and they just had to bring some spending money. Whatever works for your budget is the best way to go. Hope this helps out a bit...cheers!

[kimlovesfl]

My husband and I were hit hard by the recession a few years ago, and had not taken a vacation since August 2007, when my niece got married. We used to travel a lot back when DH made loads of money, but barely made enough to survive for the past few years. I now work 3 jobs, my husband works 2, and I decided last spring that we were going on a vacation come hell or high water. I looked at cruise prices, found a price I liked for an itinerary I liked, booked it, and made payments out of every paycheck, even if it was only $20, until it was paid for. I also pre-paid our gratuities because I did Select dining, pre-paid for the parking, and my husband purchased a soda package before we left. So much of our vacation was already pre-paid that I didn't even spend $300 for 5 days, including lunch and activities in port.

 

Tomorrow I am going to AAA to look at Mediterranean fall 2015 (never to early to think about it), and I will use the same strategy-payments with every paycheck. I work damn hard, and although I still don't make a lot, I refuse to go without vacations again, even if it means a couple of nights away in another wonderful city in Florida.

 

I wish I was one of those people who could go on several cruises a year, now that I am hooked, but we just don't have the time.