Disney Spending Habits

[enchantedpixiedust]

Hi Everyone

I am looking at my budget for the upcoming trip and it made me start thinking about souvenirs/spending money. It's been a while since I've been on vacation where I could freely buy stuff without counting pennies but I think barring a disaster I might be able to this vacation (to a point of course). I have a weird thing w/ me though - if I'm having to really watch what I buy I find a million things, when I don't I hardly can bring myself to spend $$. Is anyone else like this?

I was just wondering what everyones spending habits were at WDW...do you go nuts & buy a ton of stuff, big stuff, little items, etc?? Is there pretty much one thing you focus on like pins, snowglobes, clothes, etc? It seems like I end up buying a ton of little things I don't need that end up adding up to a big dream item that I couldn't bring myself to put the $$ out on. Does this make sense??

Anyway, was just wondering!

 

[MomlovesDad]

Hi Enchanted! We just got back from WDW. Hehee, I am just like you! I had $100 to spend on souvies for me and dh, and I think I bought 1 thing - a Splash Mtn. note holder at the World of Dis Store on sale for $7 (1/2 off). Oh - make that 2 souvies - bought the Uncle Remus book too, for $14.00 or so!

The kids each had $100 also to spend. They ended up having the most fun trading pins and finding the penny presses. I think I may try to find a couple of press books online because they didn't buy one. But anyway, if you have kids, you can find many of the same pins online that are in the store. They start at $6.50 n/i tax in the store, and I won 2 on e-bay that the kids searched high and low for in the stores, for $4.50 each n/i tax. Shipping was very minimal - I think I ended up paying $6.05 for one, and $6.99 total for the other. You can't beat that! If you don't by before hand, the lanyard starter kit is the way to go! The only other souvies that the kids bought: ds - pez dispensers, dd - Brer Rabbit and Minnie small stuffed animals. That's it!

I did end up buying things for other people, but I ended up buying them at the outlet mall, at the Mikasa store. I couldn't find anything "Disney" that I thought they would like, save a Snow White doll for my mil.

Hope that helps!

 

[barbeml]

I know what you mean! When I don't want to spend any more in a given month, I see tons of "must have" stuff. But give me a big fat gift certificate and tell me to buy what I want, and I won't find a thing!

On my first trip to WDW I bought everything in sight. Now that we go every year, DH and I focus on buying a piece of art or a poster, and some Kona coffee beans.

Barbe

 

[dizagain]

Me too! On our last (and first as a family) WDW trip, the girls each had saved up $100 in Disney Dollars. That was PLENTY for them! I only bought three Christmas ornaments and a t-shirt. DH didn't buy anything at all even though I tried to get him to get at least a hat or something. I know next year when we go back I'll hit the Christmas store again, but I'm sure I won't go crazy...I'm just cheap that way. I AM going to spend more and stay on property in a moderate, though - big step for me!!!

 

[HenDuck]

I usually just budget an amount for spending $ and then try to stick to that amount. Lucky for me, I usually overbudget for everything because I'm so paranoid. So I usually come home with money.

Since we just went to DL in April and bought lots of stuff for ourselves and friends, this next trip in December will be a budget trip. We are not bringing back gifts for everyone, just the people who will watch the house while we're gone. My DS will have his own spending $ and I am going to limit myself to one souvenier or $50 total souvie budget. I am interested to see if I can come back with money this time!

What I have found is that my favorite souvies are the pictures that we bring home with us (whether we took them or the professionals did), so I won't skimp on the film/developing budget ever!

 

[newchic99]

We didn't spend that much on stuff. We each got a tshirt and a keychain. We also bought a set of pictures from Rockin Rollercoaster.
We had decided before hand that we were not going to bring home a bunch of stuff that we would never use or look at again.
I was just happy to be at Disney!

 

[snookhams]

I am a bit like HenDuck I have a habit of overbudgeting, as our holiday (vacation) is normally 3 weeks long the first half is mostly spent worrying that I will have enough money for the second half and not return to the UK destitute. So the last few years we have started a new system that seems to work for us we have a reserve fund for emergencies of say $100 and then we have our overall spending money for example we start off with $500 so therefore we divide it by the number of days and we have $23 a day and every couple of days we recalculate so say after 5 days we have spend $65 we then have $27 a day and so on. I know that this sounds complicated but it works best for us and we tend to hold off buying any major items until a couple of days before we fly home that way we make sure that we have enough funds.

 

[jann1033]

this past trip we saw tons we just "had" to have for our first grandbaby ( due end of July, can hardly wait !) so we went a little "overboard" in that catagory!...and hubby who never buys anything suddenly found lots to buy.. we usually spend about 100 each including things for those at home..this time we doubled that do to the a fore mentioned little one and hubby's must have characiture, wallet, ectectectectect. I find most of things i "really"want while at wdw gather dust once i get home so this time i just bought myself a pin from our resort and one from ak.

 

[fam4jc]

I too am anal and always over budget on spending money. what we do is that my dh gets the food money (cash and tc's) and I get the fun/suviener money and the girls have their own money that they have saved. I always stuff away a couple hundred for "emergency". I usually bring that back with us and start my next dis bank with it! This trip we counted money every night to be sure we were on track for the next day's plans. We took the day's money out of the safe in the morning and off we went. We budgetted for ice creams, and extra water/sodas, snacks, etc. When we go we want to be able to do what we feel like doingwhen we feel like doing it, within reason. This trip DH did DiveQuest and loved it. We hadn't ever done anything THAT extra before (126 bucks). But we had saved specifically for this trip, so we spent it , well most of it. I think we came home with, dh 200, and I had around 240. but we took 2200 for a nine day trip. We each got one special suvouiner and I bought stuff for my office staff. It was a great trip and I loved going with plenty of money. I could have spent thousands more

 

[crisi]

Adult stuff I have no problem passing up if I have money to spend or not. Its a little harder with kids along. And my husband is different, he'll buy a ton of little stuff (and a ton of big stuff).

But it sure all looks more attractive when you can't afford it. To some extent the moment you can afford it you stop thinking about "getting" it and start thinking about it as "owning" it. "Yeah, cute, but I'd have to dust it, and where would I stick it, and my drawer is overflowing with tshirts already."

I do have a few major purchases from Disney - including an animation cell. Possibly the most expensive souvienier....

 

[tmli]

My first visit I went crazy, bought so much stuff we could barely fit it in the car on the way home. I think partly because I never dreamed I'd get to go back again. Now after 4 visits I tend to buy special items. One trip it was my first and only snowglobe. Last trip I actually didn't find anything. This next trip I plan on starting my charm bracelet collection.

Every trip I buy a beach towel, s&p shakers and notepads and pens for every day reminders. I also buy new fridge magnets. We collect and trade pins as well as collect pressed pennies. We have about 150 pin traders for our next trip that I picked up here in Canada.

My ds always wants the light up twirly things that he doesn't touch once we get home. So I've started saving them in our vacation box, so the first night he asks for one at WDW I pull it out of my bag.

I think whether you buy lots or not there is something that feels real good about knowing you could if you wanted to.

 

[nrsldy]

WHEN WE GO I HAVE A LIST OF ITEMS I LOOK FOR, T SHIRTS, PINS AND CHRISTMAS ITEMS. MY DS LIKES PRESSED PENNEYS. WE ALWAYS GET A FAMILY PICTURE. AFTER THE FIRST TRIP WE DO NOT BUY AS MUCH. WE HAVE A SURPLUS STORE HERE AND I CAN FIND ALL KINDS OF DISNEY ITEMS THROUGH OUT THE YEAR. WE ARE GOING THE FIRST WEEK OF DEC AND I ALREADY HAVE OUR CHRISTMAS T SHIRTS.
TRACY

 

[frannn]

I buy tons of stuff (mostly from the outlets) for my kids (especially when they don't come), and other family members who like Disney stuff. We try to wait until almost the end of the trip to do shopping at DTD, so we can think about what we really want from the things we see all during the trip. We always get the new monorail accessories, tshirts, and pins. Somehow, we (ok, I) manage to spend at least 500-700 on souveniers. DBIL watches the dog for us, so we get stuff for him, DMIL gets a bunch of stuff, etc. I usually find great bargains at the outlets, and I wear my Disney stuff all year round. I bought a Disney watch last year that I love to wear, tons of scrapbook supplies (that is a work in progress), lots of t's for DD1, and DD11 gets at least one villians doll per trip. When I get the house in order (ok, we've lived here about 4 years, and I still have some unpacked boxes) we would love to set up a room entirely devoted to WDW. We do a smaller version of this during Xmas-have the train and monoral set up, with one going around the tree. We only go to WDW once a year, so I surround myself with Disney "stuff" for the time we are not there....just wish I could get it organized enough to enjoy it all. I know it sounds like a lot to spend, but it really is not difficult to spend that much, even at the outlets.

 

[enchantedpixiedust]

Wow, thanks for all the responses. I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one. I think I tend to buy a lot of stuff like frannn - I love to be surrounded by it all year. I'm a sucker for notepads, pens, etc that I can use at the office year round. I would like to walk into the Art of Disney at DTD one day and buy some exciting piece, but I have to get over my cheapness first.

 

[Naisy68]

Well, only having been to the World twice, I'm not sure that I have established a pattern yet. I know that in 2000, I bought a small WDW photo album which makes a great souvenier. We also bought t-shirts for all of us. We did the same in 2002 except I didn't buy the photo album, I now wish that I'd bought one for that trip. My problem is that I always want to bring something home for my students and my parents, etc. I think for our upcoming trip we will buy a photo album and t-shirts for all four of us. As far as anyone else, we'll just see. I do have a larger souvenier budget for this trip. I know I'll be buying a t-shirt for my cousin who will be feeding our pets for us.
I'm also one of those people that can't spend the $ when I do have it, but when I don't, I find lots of things I want to buy.

Happy 4th of July Everyone, Renee

 

[disneysteve]

We are avid Disneyana collectors - I've collected for over 25 years. I've also been a dealer of Disneyana since 1986. So visits to WDW used to be part personal/part business shopping for me.

In recent years, the quality and selection of merchandise has really gone downhill. The number of truly unique collectible items has been small. Years ago, I used to spend hundreds and ship home cartons of stuff. Now, we barely buy anything. Maybe one or two nice items each trip and a couple of little things - pins, shirts, etc. My DD collects keychains so she'll pick up a couple each trip. Last visit, I got a nice pilsner glass from Mickey's PhilHarmagic for $14.

I miss the nice bisque figurines - they switched to resin a while ago and while the pieces are much more detailed plastic just doesn't have the same appeal to me as china.

Disney has a habit of overproducing everything which makes it less appealing to collectors. They sell more to the general public, but they turn off folks like me who would happily drop hundreds or thousands on souvenirs if the merchandise was there to attract us.

 

[enchantedpixiedust]

I have to agree with Steve on the mass production. I also hate now that the same merchandise is almost everywhere, it seems like there are so few specialty shops now that have items the million other stores don't.

 

[disneysteve]

Originally posted by enchantedpixiedust
I also hate now that the same merchandise is almost everywhere, it seems like there are so few specialty shops now that have items the million other stores don't.

Disney actually did this on purpose and I think it was a huge mistake. It took all the fun out of shopping and exploring the shops. We used to visit EVERY shop on property including all the theme parks, all the hotels, even the shop they used to have at the gas station at MK. Now, we bypass most shops because we know they all have pretty much the same stuff. One visit to World of Disney and you've seen 95% of the merchandise available on property.

 

[PatriciaH]

I agree about the mass produced items as well-cheap looking. I will get a few pins and maybe an item of clothing on our trips. Sometimes a cd or book. DH and I have been trying to weed through all of our junk. We have sold a lot at garage sales and on Ebay and I have no desire to be surrounded by tons of stuff again! The only expensive Disney things I kept were my book collection (lots of out of print and rare books) and my "Disney paper" collection of magazines, maps, annual reports, old brochures, cast magazines, etc.. I love looking at these things over and over and they do not collect dust like snow globes or figurines would in our house.

 

[kfeuer]

Originally posted by enchantedpixiedust
I have to agree with Steve on the mass production. I also hate now that the same merchandise is almost everywhere, it seems like there are so few specialty shops now that have items the million other stores don't.

I completely and utterly agree. I remember maybe 10 years ago they had a villains shop in MGM. I loved that place--it had stuff you didn't see everywhere. I miss those interesting little kinds of shops.

To answer the OP's question, I have to be so miserly to get to Disney in the first place that I have a hard time turning that off when we're there. As a result, I don't buy that much at Disney. I tend to buy a few little things (often at Epcot in the World Showcase) to remind me of our trip. Last year I got a cool looking plastic ice cream scoop from Germany that always reminds me of our trip when we use it--it cost around $5. Probably my favorite all time souveneir is a multi-colored glass lion from Africa (got it in Animal Kingdom). I just don't go for lots of t-shirts, keychains, etc. That's the kind of stuff that clutters up a house and ultimately ends up at a garage sale (so we can go back to Disney )