… or almost any vacation you want to take!
Hello readers. It’s been a while without a new post. So, why haven’t I posted? It’s simple, really – I’ve had no reason to. I haven’t been doing anything differently in my routine. I’m pretty much just running Swagbucks now. Perk has recently made some changes that have made it even less worth it for to run as a Canadian so I’ve stopped that completely. The 4 Swagbucks video apps available to Canadians have been my biggest source of ‘beer money‘ lately. But this post isn’t so much about HOW I’m making money online as what I am using it for.
WALT DISNEY WORLD VACATION!
A picture of Cinderella Castle I took on my first trip to WDW
I’m going on a family vacation to Walt Disney World in June. Any vacation can be an expensive endeavor and Walt Disney World definitely is no exception. It’s expensive to stay there, it’s expensive to get into the parks, souvenirs can be pricey and you STILL need to buy food. I haven’t figured out how to buy Disney Park Tickets or resort stays with beer money, but I’m working on other ways to use beer money to help lighten the financial load of this vacation. Read on for some ideas!
First of all, if you aren’t already using Swag bucks go sign up with them and then come back here. If you are new to swagbucks check out my first post on swag bucks, as well as my more recent one focusing on the video apps.
OK, now that that is out of the way this is what I have been doing to prepare for our trip. I wanted a new pair of shoes for the trip since the average visitor to Walt Disney World walks something like 10 miles a day, but didn’t really want to spend money on them since it would just cut into the vacation fund we are saving up. Plus I have a few pairs of decent shoes already and really didn’t more. I just wanted really good walking shoes. So I bought a pair using Amazon.com gift cards. I got the GoWalk 2 and I’m really liking them so far. I’m also planning on buying some glow in the dark toys, a portable cell phone charger, spare camcorder battery’s and so on for the trip. Here’s the thing though, amazon has alot of stuff. Almost anything you might need on any vacation can probably be bought from amazon. The money you didn’t spend buying it can go straight into boosting your vacation budget!
My goal between now and our trip is to save money on dining at Disney World. I haven’t found a way to get Disney gift cards as beer money for a Canadian user (but keep reading for a tip on that for any American friends out there), but I did find gift cards on Amazon.com for two restaurants we planned on eating at any way! Rainforest Cafe and T-Rex if anyone was wondering (advanced dining reservations already booked!). So my goal is buy $50-$100 of each gift card before the trip and save that food budget to use on souvenirs, or maybe just roll it into the cost of character dining with Jedi Mickey and friends! You can also get Starbucks cards, and although that isn’t my cup of tea (err, coffee?), if it yours there are now three Starbucks locations at Walt Disney World, so be sure to stock up on those cards as well. Now if you aren’t vacationing at Walt Disney World then this tip can work even better for you. There are a wide range of restaurant gift cards available either from swag bucks reward store directly, or from amazon. So check out where you’d like to eat at your destination and then look for available gift cards.
As a Canadian I ran into a shipping issue when looking at the gift cards. Amazon.com won’t ship them to Canada. With a little research I soon found a solution. Walt Disney World allows guests staying at their resorts to ship items there. They will hold them for you to pick up when you check in. Some people even ship their luggage and groceries! You can find helpful information about this here.
Things just aren’t always easy for a Canadian like me.
Other tips and ideas to make beer money help with your vacation:
-US swag bucks users can apparently get gas cards! Perfect for any road trip (would really help with our forty hour trip to Disney in a motor home…)
-look for hotel and airline gift cards
-don’t forget to check for Shop and Earn when booking anything online. This won’t help you before the trip, but it can give you a head start on your next one!
-if you can’t find ways to pay for your vacation with beer money, then you could always opt to use it for as much of your regular expenses as possible (like groceries) and put what you would have spent into your vacation fund instead.
Special hint for US readers that I promised earlier
As I said, I can’t figure out a way to get Disney Gift Cards in Canada. But you folks South of the border can! You can get Target gift cards from Swag Bucks, and most other beer money sites out there, and then buy Disney Gift Cards from Target. I’m also told that if you sign up for a Red Card you can save 5% on the Disney cards! Note: I can’t personally confirm this works. So you might want to check with your local Target store before redeeming a bunch of Swag Bucks for it. Now, if only Swag Bucks would let me redeem for target I would drove down and try it out!
Tony's Beer Money 