After a marathon day of scrapbooking, my vacation from two years ago is complete!! Yipee.

Umm...can you tell I was a little motivated to get this done. I do have another vacation coming up, in case you haven't heard.

Financially, my checking account has about had it, too. We now have $65 to last until Monday. We should be okay. Cars are fueled up. We have pop for DH. We have food for all meals!

Now, I do hope I have enough toilet paper...I'm not kidding!

I hope we can avoid spending the next three or four days and use some of the money to see a matinee movie. It's been about 3 weeks since DH's has had a day off. I think he'd like an outing. As would the rest of us!!

Should we see Night at the Museum 2 or UP?

I just transfered my net ebay proceeds to our checking account. The amount $11.32! I only sold two small items.

Disney World Savings = $1,326.00

All those small amounts have really helped!

Duh. Why didn't I think of this before?

We are paid twice a month. I just realized about 2/3 of the money we use for gas, groceries and incidentals can be used to supply meals and fuel while on vacation!!

I usually set aside $700 two times per month to cover those variable expenses listed above. Since we will be on vacation 10 days, I figure I can use at least $465 of that money towards vacation. Yipee!!

I can't add it to the fund, until I receive it, which is a couple of days before our trip. I'll update it then!

In my last post I mentioned that I had some roller skates on craigslist. They have been listed for a couple of weeks. Today, after I mentioned it in my post, I received an email inquiring about them.

The best news: The woman just picked them up and paid me $35 cash!!

I'll add this to the Mickey stash.

I will also add this to the Ebay Challenge money. Here's the update:

June Total = $35.00
May Total = $197.75
April Total = $22.22
March Total = $83.13
February Total = $66.50
January Total = $4.95

Since DH's paycheck is pending deposit for Monday, I decided to start paying some bills and saving some money!

There is enough left over to add to the Disney World savings. I have a whopping $453 to save!! But....

I actually used some of the saved money recently to buy us some new shoes for vacation. Five pairs of shoes and three pairs of socks came to $165. So....

I now have $288 to add to the ticker as new savings. The new balance is $1280 saved so far for our Disney Vacation in early July.

I only have two more pay periods to save from, but I know we will reach our goal of $2000. Amazing considering we only decided to go in April!!

We earn points on our debit card purchases. I was able to redeem enough points to get $25 cash back.

That should show up in my account tomorrow. I will add this to the Disney World savings.

New Total = $992

We are almost halfway there!! Most of the savings for this trip won't be added until mid June and early July...just before we leave! But it will happen.

Today is pay day. I have some more money to add to our Disney Vacation fund.

I added $328.

Yipee!!

New vacation total = $965.75.

The goal is to have $2K by the time we leave, but I think I'll exceed that. Whatever we don't spend on vacation goes to the home equity loan!! As a result, I have an incentive to save as much as possible.

P.S. I found $1.25 in my purse. I've now added it to my vacation savings!

This is the first month in several that I'm only making the regular payment on our home equity loan.

Regular payment is $118.01.
Principal portion was $75.72.

New HEL balance = $6,923.28

Hey, I'll take it!

We're in a much better place than we were at the beginning of the year AND I get to go to Disney World on CASH!!

Just a reminder: Normally, I wouldn't even condone a vacation, especially one of Disney proportions while in debt. However, DH may be deployed overseas in the next year, so I feel that an exception can be made.

Happy memories and family time: priceless.

Don't worry...we're still going!!

While we got a great military rate for the Disney properties, we decided to stay off site this time. I cancelled our reservation with them this morning. We're saving $116 in actual room cost.

The new reservation is with Marriott Courtyard at $99/night and we get free hot breakfast. We also get queen size beds. The double beds on the Disney property we stayed at last time were so small, DH and I split up and each slept with a child just to have room!! Oh, and we get a $25/night credit towards the on site food court. We would have easily spent $20-$25 on breakfast at the Disney property. Yikes!!

I could get an even lower rate at Marriott, but then the breakfast and evening food credits go away. I figure the credits are worth at least $45-50/day and the lower rate is $26 less...so better to keep the higher rate with what is included. Time is valuable when you are at Disney, too. Breakfast on site is very convenient.

I expect to have some money to add to our savings tomorrow...payday!

The garage sale is officially over. Thank goodness. Two days gets to be long!!

Today I only brought in $31.75...

Total for two days $197.75!!

I'm thrilled. I didn't think I had enough to clear $100, but I made it close to $200.

I'm putting all the money to the Disney Vacation Fund! The new total there will be $637.75.

The garage is cleaned up, but now I have bins to go through. I still have a few possible ebay items, the rest will be donated to charity.

Sometimes the money stuff seems to come from all directions.

Today, I had to call FedEx about a charge on one of our checking accounts. A charge that was not legitimate for $17.80. I saw this charge pending late last week, however, our bank couldn't do anything about it until I spoke with the merchant. FedEx was helpful and is in the process of crediting our account. Seems that a hotel we stayed out a few weeks ago, sent a package to another guest with a similar last name...charged our debit card rather than theirs. Oops!

I mentioned yesterday that I was entertaining changing our hotel reservation. Well, I went ahead and made the reservation. We will be off Disney property, saving money on the room, breakfast and dinner. Yes, we'll have to pay to park at the theme parks ($12/day), but the savings offset this significantly. I will cancel the other one later in the month, once I positive that I'm sticking with this new reservation.

Today, I'm preparing for a garage sale with a couple neighbors. I need to price all my stuff. The lower the better...so as to move it all out of my basement!

I just got wind of a great hotel deal outside of Disney property that would provide us free breakfast AND $25/night resort credit towards food and drink. The savings is $352 to $470, depending on the property!

The question is if the rest of the family will go for it. There are pros and cons to both. I guess it will be a debate at dinner tonight!!

Has anyone stayed at the Marriott Village in Lake Buena Vista and on Disney property that could give an opinion? The last time we went we stayed on site, so I know how that 'feels'.