How much cash to bring for vacation?

[Minnie824]

This may not be the right place to post but...how much cash do you usually bring on your vacation? We'll be in Disney for 7 days/6 nights...DH & I like to use the room card feature and just charge stuff back to the room. Plus we're driving, so obviously we need food/gas for the drive both ways. Can anyone give me a rough idea of how much to bring? Oh, family of 4 also..DH & myself, and DDs aged 4 and 1.5. Thanks!

 

[Savin4Disney]

It is myself and DS (14) we are staying 6 nights/7 days. Our home flight does not leave till 7:30 pm so we will be there most of the day.

I have us on the dining plan and plan on bringing 500.00 in spending money.

200.00 Disney Dollars
200.00 Traveler's checks
100.00 cash

We do not plan on buying a lot of stuff. In fact I have told DS we are on a budget.

It depends on if you are on the dining plan or if you have to pay for food and how much you plan on spending on stuff to bring home.


We leave in 5 days!

 

[We-Luv-Disney]

Your plan sound familiar to our vacation last December. We also have a party of four, me, DW, DS 6 and DS 1.5. We budgeted $150 per day for everything, meals and snacks. At the end of our trip we were surprised to find that we actually only spent about $100 per day, so we spent the extra at DTD on souvenirs. Are you doing the dining plan? we booked are package this year with the dining plan, and have budgeted only $100 per day, which might be too much Including our travel days. I figure we will need about $70 in gas each way, so that leaves $30 for food and snacks for the road trip. Lets just hope there is not another shock in gas prices before December

 

[Minnie824]

No, we are not doing the dining plan...but last time DH & I went, we usually charged sit down meals to the room, and we have concierge for breakfast, so really we'll just need lunch and snacks.

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

We went for 9 nights in October. We had $500 Disney Dollars plus some cash for odds and ends. We were on the dining plan, and I had a credit card for stuff we charged back to the room. For some reason last night I decided to add up all we spent OOP. Bad decision!

We spent over $1000 for miscellaneous stuff! SHH! Don't tell DH!! We already had the tip envelopes for Mousekeeping and Magical Express filled before we left home, and I had an envelope with money for locker rental each day. So the huge amount of money we spent was mostly nickel & dime stuff that added up to a whopping total! To be fair, $150 of it was our share of an IllumiNations cruise, another $150 was dinner at Fulton's, and we spent over $250 on souvenirs. We also paid OOP for 2 additional TS meals, so that was another $120. The other $365 I can't quite figure out. It is some combination of extra tips, cab fare between resorts, airport stuff (dinner before departure, candy, magazines), OOP snacks & drinks at the parks, cash that DH and DS spent in the arcade, etc. I can account for all but about $90 with receipts. I am relatively sure I didn't just LOSE $90 somewhere - I think we spent it. Easy to lose track of $10 per day.

DS had his own money, I think $110, which was completely separate from everything else. He spent all of that, but that was why he had his own money. He did well making it last until the end of the trip.

I absolutely think we would have spent less if we would have had less on hand TO spend. Instead of using the Disney Dollars to pay off the room charges I just bought more stuff and left the room charges on my credit card. Naughty, naughty.

 

[Frantasmic]

We are on the dining plan and Magical Express.

We have alotted $25 per day per person for extras that they/we can spend as we want. Kids can save up if they want but won't get any more if they spend their amount in the day nor get an advance on the next day's allottment.

We also have $50 per day budgeted for incidentals (snacks not covered on dining plan, misc stuff, gifts, etc.)

 

[PatsGirl]

We're going for ten days and have the dining package. I arranged to have beer/wine/juice shipped to CSR for the room and have Tinkerbell gifts for my DD and friend each night. DD has $150 in spending $$ and I'm taking $300 (or $30/day). Other than tipping, I'm thinking the only money I need is for cocktails and souveniers right?

Brenda

 

[PattiPB]

Next month, we will be away from home for 10 days, including the Wonder, and WDW. We charge as much as possible for reward purposes. This is also our first time on the dining plan, so that changes our eating habits.

CASH:

$100 in singles---we bring this on every vacation for tipping purposes.
$400 in $20's---for incidentals including cart snacks not included on plan, $3 fridge magnet, converting into quarters for pressed pennies, snacks at the airport, lunch at the outlet mall, etc.

Total cash is $500. We anticipate up to $1000 on the cc as souvies, cruise photos, food not on plan, etc. If we go over that, we will consider ourselves over budget. Any amount under that will be converted to cash, and start our WDW savings plan for 2006!