I can’t go through 160 comments rapid fire, but I’ll say 5-10% is worth it to me. I’m spending $5000 minimum on a trip to Disney. 5% of that is $250. In my every-day life, I can do a fair amount of things with $250. So that’s how I think of it. It’s pennies compared to what we’re spending on vacation, but it’s half of my monthly food budget, or a month of chiropractic visits, or an emergency room visit, or more than a month worth of tuition for my son’s school, etc.
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this is very funny. Thank you for sharing this story!
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child’s play
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Sometimes I’ll leave a thread and 2 hours later it’s well over 160 new posts
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fair enough, but in this case a lot of the comments are loooooooong
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I do agree that here is always a cost-time benefit analysis going on when doing any sort of savings game. Including time it takes to learn about any one method. But in the case of 5% off gift cards at target, is the easiest thing in the world and takes very little time, so why not?
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Cruises are a lot more expensive now! $1300 might cover one of you.
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I roll with Carnival during off peak times and unfortunately can’t do more than 5 or 6 days bc of my animals. But in a few years, I’m hoping whatever is in that jar will cover the fare, or at least a large chunk of it. We tend to spend a lot on board so it’s nice to have something like a bucket of coins cover the cruise. The next cruise I want is $2800 for 2 though 
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This is a fun discussion.
For me, with Disney, I definitely love the “thrill of the chase” when it comes to finding discounts. I use my Disney Visa almost exclusively, and was able to rack up $1500+ in rewards over the span of a year. That paid for our Suite at AOA (minus deposit) and about 4-5 days worth of meals. I do use my discounts available to me as an AP for food and merch. The way I see it is they get enough of my money, so I don’t mind taking the extra minute or two to pull my card out to get a discount.
I did try at one point doing the whole Bj’s gift card thing, but I found that the discount wasn’t enough of a savings than if I just used my Disney Visa.
I did however buy the cards for my DVC dues this year, using my capital 1 rewards, So I saved about $50 or so buck with the discount + the “cash back” I earned- I’ll probably do this next year, but as far as buying them for trips I don’t find it worth the hassle.
I am always stalking deals for flights. Every few weeks I’ll check my flights and change them if they go down.
And finally, when booking a cash room I jump right on top of any discounts they release. I don’t care if it saves me $20, its fast and easy usually for me to change my booking.
Now… in life, its a bit different… I’m not a “coupon person”. I mostly buy generic things but will pay more for better quality. I am getting a little to a more comfortable point in my financials, but I do also have to really start thinking about saving something for College for DD9 for when she’s older… so there’s that.
mostly, Disney gets enough money from me, So any chance I can get some of it back, I do.
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My family hits up Disney World every two years. Every payday, we pick up a $50 gift card at Target, which over those 2 years saves us $130. Game breaking? Nope. Do the savings cover my churro expenses? Abso-freaking-lutely.
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Like many others have said, my cutoff depends on two things:
- Is it easy?
- How much time does it take?
If pulling out a different card will save me 5%, I’ll do it. Easy, and takes no time at all.
If it requires a spreadsheet (and don’t get me wrong, I do love a good spreadsheet), an 8 hour call on hold, and a series of reminders to fill out applications, send in rebates, or cancel things in the future, it would have to be mega savings, and even then, it’s probably a nope for me. Time is money, and I’ll probably forget to do all the extraneous stuff required to make the savings worth it anyway.
If it’s somewhere in between, I weigh the time and hassle against the payoff. Checking and rebooking cheaper flights…that’s usually easy enough to make it worthwhile for our family of 4 if it’s going to save $100 or more. And DVC rental is 100% worth it for us (even with cancel for any reason insurance added on, it’s still waaay less expensive than paying for a regular deluxe resort room) - super easy and takes only a small amount more time than booking through Disney.
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It’s super easy to have a Target debit card and save 5% on gift cards. I don’t have to leave my couch to do that. I can buy the electronic gift cards on the app.
I use a TA who spends time on the phone getting me room and cruise discounts. Costs me nothing.
Both of these are worth the savings I get, no matter how small or big. I look at it as, will this get me a grapefruit beer in Epcot or pay for the Mixology class on the Fantasy…
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Who doesn’t 
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This is me!
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We paid about $1300 for our 3 night Disney cruise out of San Diego in January!
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And you got your money’s worth as I recall! 
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This is one we agree on but I do understand where my family income is allows for that. I remember being young and hungry (hence why I switched college majors from math education to math) as I sat drooling at a bbq poster in my apartment laundry building knowing all I had in my apartment was ramen and bread and peanut butter. And then pennies mattered so I can understand making that effort. But it’s probably like @darkmite2 said, in proportion to what you make per hour if you break it down. If I’m gonna put an hour into saving money it’s gonna save me more money than I make in an hour. I do use the Disney Visa card (I just paid for ABD on it and cannot wait to get those points loaded on my rewards card!) but like you said that’s easy. I also have a United card and I just booked my flight to Japan on those points. I got that card to use those points to visit my brother in NZ so I probably won’t use it now I have the Disney one and don’t have to fly United (aka Air NZs partner airline). But again easy. I did book VGT on our cruise room and that saved is about a 3rd of the room cost. It was over $1k per room and we had two rooms. Booking ABD early saved us $500*6 people so 3K and even more than the last people booking who paid an additional 2k pp on top of that. So things worth several hundred dollars or more, I’d jump through a few hoops like you. But less than $200 wouldn’t be worth it to me for sure. I don’t know exactly where the line is and it probably depends on the amount of time and effort involved.
Some of the ones I don’t do are Verizon sends me those $5 gift card options every month and I totally ignore them. My hubby was on the phone with me when I called them about something like adding international and when they offered he made me sign up knowing full well that’s not worth the 10 minutes it takes to claim it to me. Lol
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Just booked Grand Flo resort villas which are literally the same rooms as the resort for like 50% of what Disney charges. That’s hundreds of dollars of savings for a long weekend. I will do this every time for deluxe. I noticed some of them don’t really save you money when renting and then I’d rather have the Disney flex but for $300 a night less I’m in.
This bothers me btw. At Vero Beach last year, the card on my MB is my Disney Visa so why can’t they figure that out and give me the 10%. I didn’t want to run up to the room cuz I had been at the beach and didn’t take my card so I didn’t get my 10% either. The woman thought I was nuts but it wasn’t worth the 10 min up and down to me for $20. But I think Disney should be smart enough to know what card is on your MB and give it to you anyway.
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This is actually one of the reasons I loved buying a Tesla combined with not spending an entire effin day in a car dealership where they attempt to upsell you everything and sneak things into the deal. I once gave the guy my price and he came back and in the paperwork signing session asked me if I wanted to add the extended warranty for no extra money. That little f%*!?er already put that price in. I’m not stupid. So if I can just make some clicks online like I did with Tesla they’ve got me as a repeat customer!
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