A project for all budgeters!

[PattiPB]

Good for you with POR!!! My kids are near yours in age (10, 8, 6) and we LOVED staying there last year! It's a bit cramped, but if you're hanging out in the room, you're doing this vacation thing wrong!!! LOL!!!

Everyone (as usual) is giving you GREAT advice. Here are a couple of things I haven't seen you get yet...

1. Carry your beverages with you! Avoiding purchasing water/soda has saved me tons of money through the years. Any restaurant/cart will be happy to give you a cup of ice. I also do lunchables/PBJ for a lunch or two. My kids don't care, and it saves money for the important snacks...Mickey Bars!!!

2. Souveniers. This is one thing I've done through the years. Purchase a Disney T-shirt for each kid, then have the characters autograph it. I write something like "WDW Summer 2004" or "Stevie's 7th Birthday at WDW!" and once the characters autograph it, it becomes a much loved souvie. My kids love wearing them during vacation, and once we are home.

3. In addition to saving change, we started saving singles from a tip on this board! We have saved a small fortune since we started on 1/1/04 for our December trip, and we never noticed the singles missing from our wallets.

As for an exact budget, you've got travel (just gas) and hotel taken care of. Your only big items now are tickets and spending. You're doing great!!!

 

[canwegosoon]

Two words...Brita Waterbottles!!
Huge savings on drinks.

Split Breakfasts at POR..check out the meal Vocuhers post for other meals.

It sounded like you could drive...that's great.

Do Chef Mickey as a very late breakfast (10:30) for a Brunch. Eat a snack breakfast in your room that day.

If you think your kids will like to trade pins...buy a few on ebay for around $3 (instead of 6 at the parks)

Lots of great ideas here for you on the disboards. We Loved POR too ...the water slide is great!!!

 

[momloveson]

I'm with ya! We've got our vacation planned and paid for and I've got sick cat babies here. I'm frazzled because they're eating away at the budge (ooops honey...already spent that $$ on vacation!I'm just praying they will all be well (and adopted) by the time we leave.

Our Disney Vacation is going to be very different from our other vacations, but let me tell you how we've budgeted in the past.....

Depending on the number of days you are staying, a kitchen or kitchenette can pay for itself many times over in the food you can make yourselves. We were on a business trip for 5 weeks. We had a residence in kind of place that had a kitchen. WE USED IT! I was awesome to be able to have cold snacks and fruit in the fridge, and even make some simple meals (ie: spagetti, my famous Mac & Cheese, Soup, noodles). Even being able to pop popcorn in the room was great. We had waters and juices in the fridge too (but DONT drink the water they leave for you in the fridge....it will cost you between $3-$5/bottle...YIKES!)

Our neighbors went to disney with her brother and his family and they split a villa for the week. They ate at least 1 big meal a day there and it saved them a fortune.

One thing I'm doing on this trip is buying Dining Vouchers wisely. We have a few meals covered, but the bulk are not. We never eat normally on vacatoin anyway. Read some of the recent listings on the boards about using Vouchers correctly. I think that you can get caught up in them and end up spending more than you would if you did't have them.

The Unnofficial Guide to Disney 2005 just came out. Buy that book....or even borrow the 2004 version from the library. LOTS of information on what you can miss, what are good bets, what are must does.

Even if you just have a fridge in your room it can save you substantially (make note if they give for free or Fee. store bought juice and water is cheaper than the parks offereings. for example.