Do you divide up your money by each day?

[imgoingtodisney]

I know stupid question. Once you decide how and what you are planning on spending for each meal, etc do you make separate envelopes for each day? Or just keep it as a lump sum and just pull out that set amount? I know-I am a very strange lady.

[Grumpy'sMom]

I don't think your strange at all, but most people think I'm strange. I use envelopes and put each days budget in it, that would include food, maid tips, activities we have planned, etc. I also keep money in seperate envelopes for miscellaneous things such as tips for bellman, shuttle drivers, etc. I have done this on the past two trips, and it works excellent for me. I also tend to overestimate a little each day, which ends up covering things like snacks in the parks or sodas. I'm already getting my envelopes ready for my trip in May! ( I am slightly obsessive .:)

[Mom+4]

Last year I divided our food money into separate envelopes, took only the appropriate one in my fanny pack each day, and left the rest in the in-room safe. That way I couldn't be tempted to splurge and mess up the budget. However, by carefully spending on meals, I had enough left over after 5 days, to have breakfast at Chef Mickey's on the morning of our departure.

I don't feel like we scrimped on food, either. I had budgeted $100 per day for our family of 6 (DH, me, DD 2, and DSs 16, 10 and 4). We ate at mainly counter service places for lunch, and some off site restaruants for dinner (Red Lobster, Steak and Shake, Pizza Hut). We had breakfast in the room (cereal, pop tarts, donuts, fruit, etc.). The $100 was more than enough with some good planning. I had made a list of reasonable restaurants for each park, what they served, and general price. I carried the lists in my fanny pack, and pulled it out when we were ready to eat. That way I wasn't tempted to eat at wherever place was nearby, but rather had a variety of choices, and their locations, menus, etc.

I also divided the kids money into envelopes, and carried it for them (except the 16 year old's). They were able to buy what they wanted, and I would tell them how much they had left. It worked well.

Hope this helps. Have a good trip! We will be using the same system on our surprise trip in December :) :) :)

[Robin]

I am planning on doing this for our trip.

I will make daily meal envelopes and just take that with us each day. I am ONLY using Disney Dollars which I have been saving for a whilel.... I will take my credit card just in case but do not wish to use it. I have prepaid for the entire trip already minus car rental. I am also only giving my 3yo DD $10 Disney Dollars a day to spend.. when its gone she will have to wait until the next day.

[Rhonda]

I divide my money into envelopes for each day. And that's all I bring with me in my fanny pack - so I can't overspend! ;)

Also, in that envelope I put my itinerary for the day and any PS information.

[LeahA]

I never have done that before, but, that's a great idea!

Do you all pay cash for everything, even dinners, or do you charge, and pay when you get home?

[DiznEeyore]

Originally posted by Grumpy'sMom
I don't think your strange at all, but most people think I'm strange. I use envelopes and put each days budget in it, that would include food, maid tips, activities we have planned, etc. I also keep money in seperate envelopes for miscellaneous things such as tips for bellman, shuttle drivers, etc.

I do it exactly like Grumpy'sMom. I've done it for our past 5 trips, and it works very well for us, and helps us stay on budget. :D

[bigsis1970]

I have the envelopes all ready and marked .. Tips are pre-filled w/ cash and put away in the safe .. kids have $15 each in Disney Dollars for each day and I have the Food ones ready but not filled yet.. i am still trying to decide how to do it all Disney Dollars or part DD and part cash or use all Traveler Checks.. (right at the moment thinking $500 disney dollars and $250 traveler checks )

[nancycels]

i do it too!! my husband thinks i'm crazy! but who came home this year w/an extra $200.??
the lady w/the envelopes!! <g> of course if he paid for vacation we'd be paying off credit
cards for years!!! i prefer taking travelers cks so its all laid out and set! my kids are older,
and have been to dis so often that they buy very little..mostly just a t-shirt and some gifts
for friends.

[Kelly&John]

I thought I was the only crazy one! My husband blames it on my profession (CPA). It works great for us and we always have a little left at the end.

Kelly

[baileybrad]

We have done something similar to this and it drives my brother nuts.

We have several envelopes a dining one, an emergency one, a grocery one, if driving down a "road trip food" one (this one especially kills my brother), a gasoline one, etc. I know that we could just charge most things or use traveler checks but this seems to work for us. We charge our rooms or use our DVC points but for most of the other things we stick to our "envelopes". The Dining envelope has the money divided up by days with a post-it note attached to each day with a paper clip. We take a "days" allotment out with us each day and each evening attach the receipts and write down what we spent on the yellow sticky for that day. It is probably pretty sad to many folks but my spouse humors me and goes along with it. It is kind of fun at the end of the trip when you have money left over and can start planning for your next trip with that money. Did I fail to mention we keep our vacation money in one of those large plastic Coca Cola bottles and put the money we don't spend in our bi-weekly budgets for groceries, gasoline, etc ., into the bottle to use on future trips. It is kind of demented and sad but it works for us. I know we could put the money into an account, etc. but it is just a wacky thing that we do. We have over $700 in the bottle for our Oct. 20 trip coming up. It is almost like "free money" to us. Good luck on your planning. I work in Project Controls so maybe that has something to do with it. We do occasionally charge some things at the shops but try and keep these to a minimum. We aren't really big souvenoir people. But if we do see something that we like we will buy it, within reason.

[gucci]

We returned a week or so ago and what we did was a follows.

I took travellers checkes for the safty of it and kept them in my room safe. Each morning on my way to the bus I cashed 200$ in travellers checks and that was to do us the entire day, every night we returned home with cash and put it in an envelope marked extra. and every day we still cashed 200$ in checks. at the end of the trip we had almost $1100 dollars in the envelope and went for a very nice meal and a mega shopping spree. we still arrived home with $400. It worked great for us.

[KaraJade]

I was thinking of trying something like this on our next trip. This past trip, I put just about everything on my checkcard, which was very convenient. Each night I totaled up the slips to see how much I had left over from what I had budgeted for that day. The whole envelope idea seems to work very well and now that I've been, and have a really good idea of how much we'll spend, this might be our best bet.
If its your first time to disney and you're not sure what you're going to spend, using a checkcard or credit card isn't a bad idea, it really did help me keep track of WHAT i was spending money on, how much, what I tipped, etc.

[disneefamily]

Disnee Dad says.............................................. .......I have never posted a negative comment about anything, but I have no clue about what you are talking about!! Putting food dollars in an envelope for each day?? Are you saying, it's late in the evening and I want food,but we ran out of money so I can't eat?? We have a strict food budget, for the entire trip, and when we are ahead we splurge, and when we are behind, well we have never been behind. Someone has to tell me what point I am missing!!! I budget everything, and I can't figure what you are doing!. Help me!

[imgoingtodisney]

Disneedad - its 530am and Im laughing at your post! I just took the time to doublecheck my money envelopes and needed to make some changes. Too many disney dollars, not enough cash. You're absolutely right! "If you're hungry you mean to tell me I cant eat?" My husbands exact words. We always come out ahead too but I like seeing the extra money pile up day to day.

[disneyjunkie]

Wow, it's good to know I'm not the only one who does this! I did this on our first
trip last August and to plan to do it again next August.

The only thing I did differently was to add money left from one day to the budget for the
next day. I think next time I'll save all extra money for an extra special treat on our last full day.

[imgoingtodisney]

Im planning on charge our admissions to Sea World on checkout day so if I save enough up before we leave Disney I'll pay for Sea World with cash instead of charging.

[Mercy]

gucci... I like your idea, cashing the travelers check and taking all the left overs for each day and putting it in a separate envelope. Of course, that is assuming that there will be leftovers...LOL! Was that your first trip to DW, how did you like it and when are you going back...heheh!

[porkchop]

I thought I was the only one. I am driving down in 2 weeks and taking 4 days to drive. I sit up every night and plan each day driving and each day at disney. I am staying at the sheriton vistana and we have a full kitchen. The first thing we are doing is going shopping.I think the envelope idea is a great one.I know I have enough money for this trip to splurge, but if I can save some money without giving up any pleasures Im going to do it.

[Tiggerkeeper]

I used the envelope system for the first time back in May and actually came home with money (for the first time)!! I'll never do it any other way! It sure made everything easy to keep track of and when I was saving up once an envelope amount was saved it was sealed and stashed away. Sure did make saving easier too!


TK

[gucci]

in answer to your question mercy we had a fantastic time even tho we were there during the attacks. We have decided to return every second year dis asmu this year wanna do boardwalk in 2003. Just a reminder to some as well you always have your room card if it gets to the point you are hungry and have no money left you can then go to the check out the next day and pay for it from your extras envelope. If we hadn't done it this way we would have been in debt up to our eyeballs. But we were able to go on a disney vacation do everything we wanted and this was all only planned 5 mo before we left. we came home with cash and not even a penny in debt.

[SlightlyGoofy]

I have a sheet of paper for each vacation with columns for the date, plans for the day and then on the far end I have columns for motel/food/gas/other with the amount budgeted. I then have a line underneath where I post what we actually spent each day so I can tell if we are on budget or under or over. We always come home with some left over as I plan for 'things to come up'. My theory is that if you watch what you spend you can stretch your money to fit in MORE FUN!!

Slightly Goofy

[baileybrad]

DisneeDad, if you don't understand it, then you are not one of us and you may have just eaten too much on the "day" that you "ran out of money". So to answer your question, so I can't eat? The answer is "no soup for you". You would just have to wait until the next morning when that day's envelope is cracked open.

Seriously, this is just a very simple way of tracking money budgeted and spent on a trip. Obviously, there is some flexibility in any budgeting system. What obviously works for many of us and leaves you "missing" isn't for your family. My question to you is with your "strict food budget" if you ever did run out of "food" money before your vacation ended, would you be unable to eat. One other thing, if you are never behind under budgeting system, is it really budget or just a large chunk of cash?

Those old envelopes tell me at the end of the trip whether I can lower my "daily" amounts on our future trips. I just have to take the chance of my little ones having no dinner if I budget too low on a future trip.

This is not for everyone but just another option in planning a WDW trip.

[Poohbear123]

I Keep a Spiral Notebook and before I go, I write how much I can spend on each meal! I usually go over 5-7.00 per meal, and if I have any leftover, I put it in the Souvenier area. Last year, I came home with 140.00 of my money! Once, on a 3 day trip, I only spent about 60.00 on food for those 3 days!

[KaraJade]

disneedad...... I think the idea is this. Last trip, we were on a pretty strict budget for food, but didn't want to have to eat at the food court for all our meals. I had a very strict idea what we could spend each day. Every night I had to sit down with all of my checkcard reciepts, to total them all up and see if I am over/under for the day and for the week so far. If I'm over, thats fine, but there goes my souveniers budget.
With the envelopes idea, instead of having my money in my checking account, its in envelopes. At the end of the day all I have to do is count up the leftover money to see how I'm doing.
If I personally did it this way, I'd still have at least a minor amount in my checkcard's account, which I carry everywhere, so that If I ran over at that moment, I wouldn't be stuck.
Wow I'm making this sound a lot more complicated than it is! :) Hope that helps though :)

[crazyforpooh]

for our Christmas trip.

I found this worked very well on our last trip and in fact I use this method on all vacation trips. It helps to keep within budget and possible come home with some $$ in your pocket or extra $$ to spend before leaving for home.

I also have a envelope a day for our DD this is her money to spend as she wants.

Do you also make up all your mousekeeper envelopes too? We do.

I just hope I'm budgeting well for this Christmas trip. $200 per day for a family of 3, $20 per day in DD envelope extra on our Busch Gardens and IOA day because we have never been before.


OH I can't wait till 12/20.

Laura

[cboudre1]

I didn't realize so many people did this. I withdraw $200 from the ATM machine every other day. I split into 2 envelopes. What I don't spend from that day goes in the next day's envelope. If I run out then I put it on the credit card or charge it to the room. That way I know how much over budget I am. I use to put travelers checks into envelopes but now I use the ATM machines instead.

[Tigger's Friend]

We do the Envelope-system as well. Once I have booked the trip Mom & I start our envelopes. By the time our trip rolls around we have prepaid the whole thing. By having the envelopes filled ahead of time it is like the trip is "free". We have one for Tiffany Town Car, one for Tips(includes bellhops and maids) and one for spending money. For spending $ we set aside $100 per day for each of us(Mom sets aside cash, I go the route of travelers checks). The spending $ is for everything- gifts, meals, shows, etc. Some days we spend under the $100 so for the other days that we go over there is the money to do it. We never scrimp and we always come home with money. In my opinion, envelopes are the way to go. :D