Advice: Traveling with a family with lower income

[bexareaglecheryl]

Hello! My sisters/parents and I are going to WDW in November. My youngest sister has a considerable income difference than ours( due to the hubby's preference for sleeping until noon!). And we are not wealthy or well off by any means. My youngest sister and I have been saving for this trip for over a year(and gone without $ at the end of the pay period because of it).

The lower income sister's hubby is already complaining about how much everything costs! We're worried about the probable clash between buying treats/snacks and souvenirs in the parks when visiting together. Her daughters and the daughters of the lower income couple are friends and are roughly the same age.

What do we do about this? We don't want to cause hard feelings or see the little ones cry and whine when they don't get something when my sister is buying her children items because of their lack of funds. We are cutting corners on the hotel (ASM) so that we can have plenty of spending money and are trying to accomodate them on all other things. I have begun planning the trip so that they will know how much the meals, transportation, tickets, etc. will cost and will at least try to set aside enough money for November.

My youngest sister and I are also afraid that come October they're going to say "Oh my gosh, we don't have enough money!" Then we'll have that guilt to deal with and my parent's possible sense of duty to pay for their trip. They're already gifting each of their daughters $1000 for the trip.

My youngest sister and I are not sure how to handle this. Anyone have any tips/advice for us? I guess we would be a little more sympathetic to their side if my lower income brother-in-law were more serious about his business, but he stays up until 3am talking on his CB and watching tv and only works about 15-20 hours a week on his business. My sister works at a daycare.

I really appreciate your thoughts. Thanks.

 

[DisneyinDebt]

Ouch, traveling with family is tough enough, but money issues always put everyone on edge. I have a few thoughts since we had a vaguely similar experience with our inlaws a couple of year back. They weren't on the same budget we were on and they wanted to eat sit down meals and shop much more than we did. We also wanted the kids to split meals with us, the parents, and that caused some friction with the inlaws who thought they (the kids) should always get their own, full priced, meal. Finally, the inlaws thought they needed to pick up the bill everytime we ate which even THEY couldn't afford. We ended up stealing the bill at one meal and making grouchy faces at each other the rest of the day. Anyway, here is what I wished we had done in advance:

1) Plan your meals well in advance and know how much it will cost before you get there. There are great sites on the web that list current menus and prices so there shouldn't be any big surprises. Then, when everyone knows how much it will cost, make it known that each family will be paying their own bill. The first time you eat, if you eat sit down, explain the need for separate checks clearly to the waiter/waitress and hopefully family will get the hint for the rest of the trip.

2) Plan shopping for specific times, preferable apart from the other members of the party. Works better if you schedule it for the end of the trip anyway.

3) Establish in advance your budget, but still be sensitive to your sisters situation. Hopefully your kids are old enough to understand and won't be rude about it.

4) Try to follow your sisters lead. She is the lowest common demoninator. You can have almost as much fun on her budget as you can on your once you are at the parks. Think of the money you will save and then think about the next trip you can take withhout them! ( I love my inlaws, but we seem to have more fun withhout them)

Good luck! I am going with my mother in February and I think I will set the budget with her before we go. Thanks for making me think about this in advance!

DisneyinDebt (ps still paying off trip from two years ago!)

 

[dixielander]

I would start right now by talking over with your in-laws how exactly the park visits will be. Do you really want to stay right with them all day?

We've never been to Disney with another family, but we do go camping with others, and we always agree ahead of time that our families will spend time apart, doing whatever each family wants to do, and then have "together time" for dinners, hikes, campfires...

A great idea would be to split up for the mornings, meet at the hotel in the afternoon for a swim, (if possible), then either stay together for dinner, or for the evening; or meet at a certain point again during the evening for fireworks or parades...

The key is to have an understanding AHEAD of time, that you will not need to be "joined at the hip" during the trip.

 

[disneymom3]

My suggestion would be to give the little girls gifts of Disney Dollars for any of the occasions you would usually give them gifts for between now and then. Having some rather unsavory in laws in the past, my thought here is that then no one else can spend their spending money before they get there. Also, if the girls are at least 5 (I think--maybe 6) their mom could sign them up for Kidzeyes. This is an online survey site where kids earn points for answering questions and then the points transfer to $ when they reach a certain point. My DD had like $45 the last trip just from doing that for about 6 months. I think if the kids have their own money then dad has less to complain about.

As far as them not having enough money to pay when the trip rolls around, I guess what it comes down to is how much you want your sister and neices to go on the trip. It is just a matter of deciding if you feel like helping them out is enabling hubby to continue his ways or not. And if your parents feel they want to help out sis, if they can afford it then it really shouldn't matter to you. I am not saying this to be mean, but they are adults and need to make their own decisions and it really is their business, don't you think?

Good luck with this. It;s a touchy subject! We are travelling with family in March and are not looking forward to some of these same issues.

 

[seashoreCM]

If you are on the lower end of the economic scale relative to your relatives or travel mates, take comfort with my expert advice.

"The lesser economic party is not obliged to reciprocate on a home-and-home or one-for-one basis. Should the greater economic party feel miffed at not being invited back every time, then there is no way that good relations can be maintained and therefore you should not feel bad if you try and fail to patch things up."

Back to this specific Disney trip. Making things go smoothly is mainly the responsibility of the greater economic party. This would include pretending to be on the same economic level as the other parties, including not buying lavish gifts for their own children when the other parties are present. When everyone at least pretends to be on the same lower economic level, then everyone can pay for their own meals with no problems.

Choose less upscale restaurants, too. This will inhibit overspending. Only if your more affluent relatives have a long established history of treating the less affluent ones every now and then to something extra without expecting much in return, then you may take them up once in awhile for a more upscale meal on them.

Other useful hints:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/family.htm

Slightly off topic: Why should any two or more familes travel together and worry about scheduling some time to themselves? Why not travel separately and plan occasional or even frequent get togethers?

 

[jann1033]

I am a little confused cause I can't figure out if you are all adults living independently or some still live with your parents..but

I HATE it when my more affluent parents fight with me everytime we go to pay for something. it is really demeaning and makes you feel like a loser..occasionally as a treat is one thing but no one likes to feel like they can't pay their own way. I would love to go to WDW with them but will not because of that. maybe your sis feels that way also

if you are all adults then i'd say go your own ways sometimes and buy your kids stuff then and have them keep it in their room to play with. if not you may make your sister feel bad that she can't afford the same things and hurt her kids also. also teaches your kids something about how to treat others as far as meals go, same thing. if the whole group really wants the "ecomonically challenged" family members to have fun go places they can afford with out making a big deal about it.

just mho

 

[NotUrsula]

We deal with this every time we do anything with my family; as they all have quite a lot less than we do. Oddly, though, we find that they are the ones who spend in front of our little one, putting us in the position of always being the bad parents who end up saying no. They don't do these trips as often as we do, so on those rare occasions, they tend to splurge on things we don't bother with.

We travel *often*, and we also constantly take our child to cultural institutions. Because we do this so often, we have a "no shopping" policy for trips and outings; if we didn't, our whole house would be full of gift-shop souvenirs. We want the memory of the experience to be the point, not the tchotchkes. A big part of the reason that we have the money that we do is that we are careful with it, and since travelling is such a big part of our lives, we don't make a habit of splurging much while travelling.

On a big trip like WDW, DS is told what his spending allowance will be before we leave. At age 6, it is normally $20 for the entire trip. (This does not include his food; we pay for that when we eat.) We allow shopping ONLY on the last day of the trip, unless there is a special event where the merchandise will only be available at that time (something like Star Wars Weekends, for instance.) Restricting shopping to only one day, or only the last hour of the day, is a very effective way to curb spending, squelch whining, and maximize ride time; you don't waste time in gift shops when you could be moving on to the next ride.

On thing we NEVER do, however, is buy snacks in the parks. Ever. No exceptions. (This isn't just a WDW rule, it applies at zoos and such, too.) He knows better than to even ask. Any snacks we eat are carried in with us, but that isn't much, maybe some pretzels and a bag of M&M's--we just seldom eat between meals. We also don't buy bottled water in the parks; we carry Brita bottles and refill them from the fountains. We do buy drinks with meals, which we normally eat in sit-down restaurants.

I guess where I'm going with all this is that if you give up the idea that a trip is a time to spend much more freely than usual, you won't have as many conflicts, because no one will be throwing money around and constantly stopping to shop. I also agree with all the other posters who advised separate checks and limited "everyone together" time.

You might try gifting the whole group with Brita bottles; that will keep water costs down for everyone. The worst complaints you will ever hear from the sticker-shock crowd are gripes about the price of bottled water in the parks. (There is ample fountain water, but it tends to have a rather off-putting taste and smell, which the Brita will eliminate. An unfiltered water bottle won't do that.)

PS: One other thing you might want to do to avoid the gimmees, especially if you plan to do night events like parades and Fantasmic. Go to a party supply warehouse and buy a gross of glow-stuff. The one souvie DS always really lusted after were the glow-goodies at parades and night events, and though he tried hard not to ask for them, they really were a huge temptation to get into trouble over. So, I went to a party warehouse and bought a box of the segmented necklaces, I think it was $20. Now anytime we go to a night event, I put a couple in my bag, and he can have them if he wants. (With one child, my box has lasted nearly 2 yrs., including events we do at home.) How well this works depends on the ages of the children, but younger ones are very happy with the diversion they provide.

 

[WDWisTheBest]

I especially agree with the water issue and the use of the Brita bottles for water.

 

[LoriMistress]

My dh and I had barely enough money to survive for a week for our honeymoon in November. Though, I think the best way how we saved money was bringing snacks and bottled water to the park. By bringing chips, Goldfishes, etc. bottled water to the parks, we saved on snacks on the way.

Bring cereal, snacks, bottled water, etc. for your trip and that will save you at least $20-50 a day for food for youreself and the kids. Than you can use that to spend on other things like a nice dinner, or gifts.

As for gifts for others, there are several ways to cut back. Just take some good pictures of Cinderella's Castle or Ecpot, etc. and just give them a picture for a gift...if not, giving them some Mouse Soap (that the ASM) gives out could be a nice gift as well. Or a better gift would be a penny crusher mashine. It cost 51 cents and it will be a cheap gift for other people waiting back home.

 

[robsmom]

As I have been thinking about what you wrote, I think the real key issue is your feeling that your sister and brother-in-law have brought this on themselves by not working hard, etc. If you felt this was just bad luck of something that had been delt to the, I don't think you would have as much of an issue because you would be in a position of sympothy rather than potential resentment.

I am also in a position that i have more cash flow then some other members of my family, but in our case, it is circumstance and choice. My sister, for example wants to be a stay at home Mom and I choose to work. Her husband has a very good job and works hard so they have everything that they need just not as much cash say as we do with 2 incomes. When we are together I usually let her lead as far as what spending we do. She is good also because if she really wants to save money by bringing food (to the zoo or some other outing) she will call me and say "I am packing sandwiches what do you guys want to eat". That way we are not buying lunch in front of her kids. I will usually then say, I will throw juice boxes in my bag or something like that. As someone above stated, I have learned that my son can live without the treats and gifts and it is probably good for him to hear no sometimes.

So my suggestion is two fold. similar to above, I think you have to lean towards spending at the level of "the least common denominator" but I also think that maybe you could look at this from the angle of the kids of your sister who has little money. Are they responsible for the economic situation created by their parents? Since they are not, maybe you would feel better about your parents or even you helping them out a bit. The disney dollars as a gift idea is excellent but also maybe it would be o.k. for your parents to buy her kids a few things at the parks if you really wanted all the kids to have something. I don't know what your parents situation is and if they could afford a few more dollars but I think that you have to try to think of this trip as for the kids and put aside the issues with their parents for a few days.

 

[gypsydoodlebug]

Consider buying some souveniers before you leave using Disney Deals. It's the same stuff and they have a lot of bulk items (six Cinderella mirrors, five Belle nail polishes, etc.). Then pull stuff out for your sister's kids as well as your own. You'll all save money in the long run, and nobody will care in the end. If you want to take your own children shopping one evening, go to Downtown Disney and the World of Disney and let your kids go to town. Then they won't have to lug stuff around at the parks. Or consider calling merchandising once you get back and ordering stuff you saw and wish you'd gotten.

Good luck. I know this is weighing heavily on your conscience. Just remember this trip is supposed to be about FUN!

 

[kendeann]

we are in about the same boat as you. we both worked fulltime jobs, $65,000.00 per yr. til our 2yr. old was born, the cost of day care, just did not weigh out, so i am a stay at home dad. hard work, i feel for the stay at home parents NOW, but very rewarding.
anyway my sister inlaw has a timeshare thing at the boardwalk, goes to disney at least 3 times a yr. has tons of cash.
we on the other hand go 1 time per yr. stay at ASM. We have never spent over $3,000.00 airfair, food, hotel, food ect. on the whole trip. Our yr income is around $30,000.00 for a family of 6, we use our income tax refund for disney, save what we can all yr. we have a great time, so far have never gone with the sister-inlaw. we bring our camcorder everytime, My sister-inlaw waches our tapes, I am sure she is not saying it to be nice, but says think we have more fun than she does.
sure the rooms are nice at the boardwalk but even if I had money to burn would not stay there. At ASM the courtyards & gift shop much easyer to get to, i could go on & on.
With a Dr.'s note can get a frig FREE, Do the grocery stop, get water, snacks, pop, .
You just have to realize have live within your means, feel free to e-mail us, at kendeannjohnson@hotmail.com

 

[dsnycrzy]

Well, well, well. This is one big ocean because I am in that boat too. Last year was the 1st year all of us went to WDW together and of course me being the one with the bigger income, I got the heep of ALL the bills.
January I told everyone we were going to WDW mid August, so get your money together. Well my sister with 4 kids decided to let the kids aunt on the father side claim her kids and she was suppose to buy their park tickets with that. I paid for Amtrak being the deal was to good to pass up and the money is due 7 days after you book. Well the aunt said she couldn't get the money and we found out later she did and lied so I said I'd buy park tickets but everyone still needs to save spending money and the third of the hotel cost. Meanwhile my younger sister w/o kids works a little p/t job but buys every expensive boot and jersey she sees, was told the cost of her park tix up until mid- july when I caved in and decided to buy her tickets but told her also she needs her third of the hotel and spending money. Well by the time travel day came I had to pull the hotel $1,200 out of the bank and handed my sis w/ kids $300. Do I regret it? Not at all. We all had fun. All the kids love my younger sister and was glad she was there. And all the kids were happy to be together. Would I do it again? For the kids--I would. Although I would not pay for my sister w/o kids due to some issues that happened while we were there last time (stealling). My point... the kids will love the experience together and try to help your sister out she seems like the only one working to try to hold her household together. Maybe sneak money into her pocket book when she isn't looking (I also did this a couple of times to my sis w/ kids), it's funny anyway to see the "how did that get there"look on their face anyway.
Remember, it's time to make memories not misery. have fun

 

[dsnycrzy]

just forgot to mention: I got every one the same things but different colors from the dollar stores and discount stores.
I got everyone boogie boards, googles, glow glasses and crayons and coloring books for the train for the dollar store and I got everyone (even the grown ups) shirts from the DS during that sale they had in june ir july. I picked up pins, buzz, mickey and eeyore little fans and those spinning light toys (and hide these until we got to fastamic). I even printed out some crossword puzzle from somewhere on these boards and we played racing games and stuff and the winner got disney dollars. Just a few ways to have everyone have disney souviners without breaking the little ones hearts in the processes.

 

[bexareaglecheryl]

Thank everyone so much for the great responses. I have talked to my younger sister about all the great ideas and she has agreed on the giving of Disney Dollars for birthdays/Valentines/Halloween, misc gifts to the lower income family this year. We have also agreed that I will be the 'Money Monitor' during the year so that I can keep the buzz in middle sister's ear about saving for the trip. Unfortunately, my BIL is self-employed so he was unable to have extra $$ taken out of his paycheck. That's what we did last year and we are expecting a huge Disney refund from the IRS.

Thanks again for all your great insights as well as ideas. I love the DIS'ers. All of you are terrific!
BexarEagleCheryl

 

[dizagain]

Hey! Just wanted to repeat what a previous poster said: Kidzeyes.com is awesome! My girls joined last year and each pulled in about $40 for their spending stash. We also did the Disney Dollar thing for all special days - everyone got in on it, including aunts, uncles, g'ma's, etc. They each had about $120 to spend and brought some home. I must say that I do believe in indulging a bit on vacation - my family worked HARD for over a year to save for the trip. The girls still love and talk about their goodies from the trip.

We are going next year with the in-laws. They have WAY more cash to blow than we do, and sometimes they forget that. For instance, they are filling my girls heads with the idea of swimming with the dolphins while down there. Well, I have stressed to MIL that if she wants them to do that particular thing, she must pay for them because I cannot throw that into the cost. I feel we will all be ok as long as they realize that we will be doing a castle breakfast and two big other meals and the rest will be cheap, cheap, cheap! They may do as they wish! I also feel that it's ok for Grandparents to spend on the kids and us occasionally - mine always did, and my parents are following suit. I can't wait for the day when I get to do that too!!!

Have fun, plan, and enjoy the special time with the children together!