budget for family??

[foxymum]

we are wondering how much money you all take when you go away & how you take it, ie cash, travellers cheques etc, we are first timers to Florida & very inexperienced travellers having had just 2 abroad holidays in 15 years!!

anyway we are staying in a condo & have 14 day Ultimate Disney tickets for 5 of us, us our DD 14, DS 9 & Ds 4, we are also wanting to go to Seaworld, we are planning to eat sometimes in the condo to save money, but please could you give a few opinions on if this was you family how much money would you take?
obviously food, shopping, souveniers, parking, all this to consider, we have child seats sorted so dont need to worry, we also have friends that live out there & another lot of friends who will be out there while we are who hold AP's & can get us into Seaworld half price, please any help would be great

 

[2Tiggies]

Hi Foxymum!

This question comes up frequently but the responses vary so widely that there is unfortunately no difinitive answer that can be applied to everyone. I have been quite surprised at how much I have read people spend per day and equally shocked at how little others manage to get by on and not feel the least bit deprived for it. Hopefully a few pointers will help you to determine what is right for you and your family.

First of all make a list of what you have paid for before you arrive, like tickets, accommodation, etc.

Then take a look at whether you want to eat a meal in the parks every day and if this is going to be sit down or counter/quick service food. You can click on the top of the DIS page (not on the forums but on the main page) on the dining tab and pull up menus and prices to give you a fair idea. For cross reference, another good site is allears.net. They keep menus up to date.

You are staying offsite. This means no dining plan, BUT it means you can cut your costs drastically compared to a family staying at Disney onsite, simply due to being able to buy food from a suprermarket and eat at your villa for some of your meals. Offsite dining is also cheaper than at Disney and you will be able to take your own packed lunches and snacks into the parks at Disney. They DO allow it with the only restriction being no hard sided coolers (like who wants to lug that around all day?!) and no glass bottles of any description or any alcohol.

As far as souvenirs and spending money for non essentials, I see you have 3 children. I have found that giving my daughter her own spending money and making her responsible for her budget makes a big difference in how she assesses her must-have items. I have done this with great success since she was 5 - not without intervention, but it works a treat and also stops the nagging for things.

Perhaps you could start by listing your daily expenses that you do know of first - anything you can't pay upfront, like petrol, parking, tips, etc and from there you could work out what is a realistic budget overall for your trip. Then take that amount and divide it by the number of days you are spending there.

 

[dixonsontour]

I'd try to make a list of everything and add it up.

We are staying at disney with DDP so we'll need less spends. I've budgeted for

Tips
DD's spends
walmart shop
petrol
shopping

Planning to take $1000 for 14 nights - got $600 so far.

We usually take cash and in the past have drawn money out as needed on our nationwide current account card but they now charge. We've had a pre pay card aswell in the past - fairfax I think. We also take a credit card.

I do prefer cash for budgeting purposes - dividing it up daily works really well.

But please have a credit card for emergencies or easy access to cash.

In 2007 on the last evening of our holiday I strongly suspected DD had chicken pox. Our insurance company told us DD had to see a Dr which cost us $250 immediately and yes as she did have it so we couldn't fly home.

As it was our last evening we were down to less than $100 cash and without our cc would have been in real trouble.

 

[Pegasus928]

All good advice so far.

It may also help if you read some of the trip reports that people have done. Many of them put in how much meals/drinks have cost them when they go to off site restaurants. It may also give you an idea of the sort of the things you may end up doing but adn't really thought about yet.

Not a great answer but the question really is a 'how long is a piece of string' type one as everyone is different and has different needs.

 

[Jordanblackpool]

I agree some of the comments on here, I would make a list of the things you think you will spend money on and then add them up. Id take into consideration transport, food/drink daytime, food/drink nighttime, souveniers and then anything extra.

The best peice of advice I would give you or anyone travelling to Florida(or abroad) is take a credit card. 99% of time you will not have any need to use it, but there may be the occasional case or emergency where it makes better sense to use this. Dont put all your shopping on it though!

 

[wayneg]

As above, everyone spends differently but for our 2 trips this year our spends went like this.
Easter Offsite dining average £100/day
August offsite 4 nights then onsite 21 nights free dining plan average £40/day

This included all food, snacks, petrol, tips, gifts & in Aug over $200 for internet access but no parking at the parks as we have AP's(or onsite & free)
This is for 3 adults.

Everyone takes their spending money in different ways, we just use a fee free (Post Office) credit card for everything, only use cash for tolls. Usually a better rate than exhanging and easier to do.

 

[foxymum]

thankyou all for your great advise!!
thats fantastic you can take packed lunches into the parks as i was under the impression you couldnt! my 3 are alwayd hungry so thats great, & drinks too as our boys are constantly drinking, for our 4 yr old we will definatley get to know the route of all the toilets before we do the parks!!

i had an idea of £100 per day so will try to keep that in mind & yes i do have an empty CC as we have to present this when we hire the car with Dollar.
yes i agree i do prefer cash aswell & then you keep a track of spending.
ooh im excited!!
thankyou all again & im sure i will be along again in the next 8 weeks with another question!

 

[dixonsontour]

I thought grocery prices were on a par with uk - obviously some things cheaper but for budgeting purposes if you budget what you'd spend on a UK shop you'll be fine.

Don't forget parking fees as you are offsite - $14 a day mounts up.

Food will be your biggest expense. My best tip is to mix things up so some days cheap meals eg takeaway pizza, cooked chicken from publix and salad and some days meals out. You are fine to take food and snacks into disney.

Sign up for restaurant email coupons just before you go and pick up the coupon booklets which are at the door to restauarants. Use them - everyone does. We had BOGOF meals at tony romas, village inn and perkins last trip from email coupons.

 

[foxymum]

thankyou Dixonsontour, we have got a Magic card which i think you can get coupons or money off in a few places, yes we will definatley be mixing up food Mcdonalds & eating in the condo to cut back what we spend, i would rather spend on clothes out there than food!!

yes the parking thing is a bummer too, but hubby is worried about driving aswell so i did say we could maybe get the bus for a few days till we settle in? do you know how much the busses are?

 

[dixonsontour]

Sorry i'm not a bus expert - one will be along in a minute, i'm sure.

If you are paying for a hire car i'd use it - so much easier to come and go.

 

[wedreamofdisney]

Hi,

When we vistied France for the 1st time DH was a bit worried about driving on the 'other' side of the road but found it really easy!! Your DH might find the same once he has got there and had a go.

On the budget front - we have 3 weeks 1 week of free dining which we are budgeting $100 a day ( 2ad 2ch) I know this is a lot, but we like to shop

The other two weeks $200 a day - again we are led to believe that this is a lot, but this is our 1st time and we want to make sure we have enough!

We have budgeted seperately for parking @$14 a day

We are also in an apartment with full kitchen so we will probably eat there on an 'if we can't be bothered going out basis'

This is our 1st time so we will know more when we get back.....its all a bit of a guessing game really at the moment