We love to eat at Disney TS restaurants, but not enough to pay the extra that it would take to upgrade from the DDP to the DxDP. (We also don't want to schedule breakfast or lunch, which we would feel compelled to do if we got the DxDP.) For our family of four on a two week trip, the DxDP upgrade is $1500 extra.
Instead, we do exactly what you're asking about. For about a third of the price of the upgrade, we about 40% more (OOP) TS credits. We get 14 TS credits (each) on our two week trips, but we schedule about 20 credits worth of meals. Then, I go through the menus and figure out which ones are the worst value. (Make sure you factor in the number of credits - Signature restaurants are often a poor value.) Those are the ones we pay for out of pocket.
If you're going with children under 10, keep in mind that the places that are the worst value for adults and the places that are the worst value for children are often different. For instance, CRT is one of the worst values on the DDP for adults and one of the best for kids while Le Cellier is one of the best values on the DDP for adults and one of the worst values for kids. You'll save even more if you look at the adults and kids separately. You'll have some meals where you pay OOP for both, some where you pay OOP for adults and use credits for the kids, and some where where you pay OOP for the kids and use credits for the adults. It's a little more work to figure out and keep track of, but it helps stretch the money even further.
For adults, the worst value (and best to pay OOP) are usually breakfasts, lunches, and signature restaurants. Character meals, buffets, and many of the nicer restaurants (particularly at resorts at Epcot) are usually the best values on the DDP.
For kids, the worst value (and best to pay OOP) are usually at the regular restaurants (where there usually $7.69? fixed price kids meals). Character meals and buffets are usually the best values.
Here's my basic gameplan:
1) Book all the ADRs we want, 180+10 days out. Count up the number of credits to see how many need to be paid for OOP.
2) Go through the menus on AllEars.net and figure out how much each of those meals would cost for both adults and kids. I pick what we would likely eat (often the most expensive) and round the total to the nearest dollar.
3) Go through the kids meals and adult meals separately and mark the ones that are the cheapest per credit, which we'll pay for out of pocket.
I use a Word document I created that has everything we need on a double-sided sheet of paper. On the front, it has a table with our schedule for each day, which park we'll be in, the hours, breakfast, lunch, dinner, and anything special for the day like parades or fireworks that we don't want to miss. For each meal, I mark how many CS or TS credits we'll use and the OOP estimate (in green if it's one we actually plan to pay OOP). (I keep all of the prices listed so I can adjust in case our plans change.) For TS credits, I also include the reservation#. On the back, I have cheatsheets for each park -
best snack deals,
best CS deals, PhotoPass locations, FastPass locations, etc.
One big advantage of doing some OOP to supplement the dining plan is that you can get FULL advantage of the dining plan and still go to some of the cheaper places that you want to go to without feeling like you "wasted" credits on them. It's the best of both worlds. It just takes a little planning.
