How much do YOU budget?

[ellochka]

We used to put $6,000/year into the vacation savings account when there were only two of us, but now we are putting $300/paycheck ($7,800/year) for three people. Our travel varies significantly by the year. We did not not travel for two years in the late pregnancy/baby days, so had a significant amount saved. This year, we are traveling a lot. Our three weeks in Russia were $5K in airfare alone. Our WDW+Miami trip in January will be $5,500 to $6,000 depending on whether we can get award airfare (where are you, 50K miles offer when I need one?)

 

[edk35]

Another DVC member here so our resort is not figured into the equation any more. However...we sometimes add in days at Shades of Green to extend our trips when we USE TOO MANY POINTS. However, their rates are sooooo good and even when we crunch the numbers with discounts, we come out ahead to stay at SOG vs. a mod or deluxe Disney resort for those add on days. We also EAT FAR LESS TS meals anymore.... but when we have DVC AP's...we do get the TIW card to save on those....and we can get 2-3 trips out of the AP's/TIW card. When we drive, we tend to eat out in town a few times because the Disney food gets to us after a while and the quality is not what it used to be.

A big chunk of our budget goes to the AP's if we are getting them for 5 of us. Our oldest son in college is not going with us next week....so we didn't have to get him one. He chose to go to the beach with friends this summer three times (a week each time ) and NOT go to Disney. .

I save money all year....I put it in a vacation acct. I also started buying Disney gift cards this year for the first time. I got the Red Card debit card from Target to get the 5% then I learned that you can save even more using the RAISE website. I plan on continuing to do this monthly from here on out. We don't spend near as much money as we used to. We rarely do the character meals anymore, or daily TS meals. We don't shop til we drop anymore either.

We also have to factor in boarding for our dogs. CHA CHING CHA CHING......that is a pretty good chunk of cash too. Disney is NOT CHEAP...but you can still have fun spending less money.

 

[threeboysmom]

I am budgeting $3000 for a fall 2015 trip for 2 people.

The "type" of vacation (deluxe vs. moderate) and length of stay and food choices/ressies will all depend on that $3000 amount.

In other words, I have $3000 to play around with - everything needs to fit into that set amount - it's like a jigsaw puzzle, lol.

 

[bettymae1121]

My projected budget for our planned Summer 2015 Disneyland trip is $2000 for a 7 night stay for 2 adults and 1 child (age 3). This is how it breaks down:

Air = $0 (free tickets)

Hotel = $0 (using points)

Ground transport between home/airport $135

Ground transport between airport/hotel $155

Groceries (breakfast in room water/beer/wine) $80

Meals $600 (1 counter service 1 sit down per day)

Park Tickets (2014 prices) $880 for 5 day hoppers

Misc. spending (souvenirs etc.) $150

 

[neatokimmo]

I have 5K to play with this year for trips for 3 people. I am right on that number with zero wiggle room (which means I have to try to get something cheaper for a buffer). We are doing 5 days in DC (Amtrak is cheap and we have a room outside of town but on the metro), a week in Hilton Head (VRBO rental), Disney (IF they do free dining in Feb), and getting Dollywood season passes (5 short roadtrips).

We drive everywhere and I am not really into eating out. I would be happy sleeping on a cot if it was clean and comfy. Not really into souvenirs either. I'd rather have one fantastic picture than a tshirt or trinket.

Edited to answer the original question lol The package online is pricing at $1541. Gas will be $250. We will have two cheap motel nights mixed in. Our extra 2 days of eating out are covered by our regular grocery budget. If they don't offer free dining or a promo to offset food costs we probably will wait until they do.

 

[wishesuponastar]

We budget about $4,000 for 6 days at POP for our family of 4 with dining plan.
That includes taking the Autotrain.

 

[TravelMommy]

$1200. Airfare
$1000. Park tickets
$200. Garden Grocer, for villa
$1400. budgeted for food/TS/CS & snacks
$200 souvenir' s
********************************************
$4000. before hotel,+ 2Bdrm Villa-BCV/DVC




***I am amazed at how cheaply a lot of people can do WDW, Driving is not an option for us and park tickets are what they are, we have decided if we do Disney again, it will be for a holiday and we may only do one park day, so we could save a lot there....

 

[*pixie*dust*]

I deposit money into a "Vacation Fund" with every paycheck. It averages to be $3250 per year. Some years I spend less, some years more. I pretty much look at what is in the account and make my choices based on what I have to work with and where I want to go. Since it is just DS and I, we can easily go to WDW for less than the annual budget, so the rest just builds until our next vacation.

 

[mimomlile]

For my DS, 8, and I to take an extra spur of the moment 5 night trip in September:

Airfare from MI: $122 (miles paid for most of the tickets but paid extra for seats, baggage)

Gas to airport, parking: $160 ( I own a gas guzzler and will be using the super close big blue deck parking right at the airport if I don't have DH there to help/protect us ;-)

Tickets: about $150 (upgraded to DVC discount APs from planning to buy 6 day hoppers for Jan 2015 trip with DGma)

MNSSHP: $120
Costumes: $30

Food $600 (about $320 of that will be from Disney VISA rewards and about $150 from normal grocery expenses).

Souvenirs: $200 ($50 to DS in the form of a Disney gift card before we go)

My son just mentioned one day how much fun MNSSHP was and how he wished we could do it again some time. Say no more... Now your speaking my language!! All I need is a vacation buddy and I'm off. We usually end up spending much more on airfare, but I checked the flight miles and happened to have enough to go over DS's long weekend off of school plus the AP thing made it sound too good to turn down! We didn't have a lot of choices for (DVC) resorts last minute, but a wait list for AKV Jambo came through, so we could cancel SS (one of my least favorite DVC resorts.

 

[3PrinceMom]

For my DS, 8, and I to take an extra spur of the moment 5 night trip in September:

Airfare from MI: $122 (miles paid for most of the tickets but paid extra for seats, baggage)

Gas to airport, parking: $160 ( I own a gas guzzler and will be using the super close big blue deck parking right at the airport if I don't have DH there to help/protect us ;-)

Tickets: about $150 (upgraded to DVC discount APs from planning to buy 6 day hoppers for Jan 2015 trip with DGma)

MNSSHP: $120
Costumes: $30

Food $600 (about $320 of that will be from Disney VISA rewards and about $150 from normal grocery expenses).

Souvenirs: $200 ($50 to DS in the form of a Disney gift card before we go)

My son just mentioned one day how much fun MNSSHP was and how he wished we could do it again some time. Say no more... Now your speaking my language!! All I need is a vacation buddy and I'm off. We usually end up spending much more on airfare, but I checked the flight miles and happened to have enough to go over DS's long weekend off of school plus the AP thing made it sound too good to turn down! We didn't have a lot of choices for (DVC) resorts last minute, but a wait list for AKV Jambo came through, so we could cancel SS (one of my least favorite DVC resorts.

Where in Mi are you from? DTW is a safe place. No need to park on the big blue deck. Have hubby drive you to and from airport to eliminate that expense.

 

[Angie789]

I budget $5000.00 per year for vacations. If I blow that on one vacation (Disney), that's all we do that year. If we go other places, I can usually, not always, get two vacations out of that, or at least one week vacation and a long weekend somewhere.

This is our philosophy, too.

We have $6K in our annual budget for vacations for our family of 4, so we start there. We maximize credit card points, so we can almost always get airfare and rental cars for free (and sometimes hotel rooms, depending on where we stay). We've spent significantly less than that for the past two years (2013 was a week at WDW, 2014 was a 4 day trip to San Francisco & a week long Caribbean cruise). We are doing a super expensive vacation in 2015 to celebrate my parents' 50th anniversary - taking all 6 of us on week long cruise on the Disney Fantasy. That will use up the entire 2015 budget, plus all of our "leftover" money from 2013 & 2014!!!

 

[mimomlile]

Can't have hubby drive me because he is going to work. :-( We are about 2.25 hrs north of DTW.

 

[tzeitel]

Like you said - it varies per family. Everyone has their own priorities, family size, distance from WDW etc. I usually budget between $3-5K for an 8-10 day trip during the off seasons (which used to mean Oct but now not so much).

For our Disney (WDW and DLR) trips I budget $50 per adult per day for food and $30 for DD. Some days we do not spend that much but it balances out with other days when we go to a nicer TS for dinner. We are not breakfast people so that helps. I do reward sites for gift cards to different restaurants on property and discounted cards for others.

Flights are around $250 pp. We do not have a credit card so the miles we earn are from actual flights and so harder to accumulate that way I do keep an eye out for discounted gift cards and reward sites that have Southwest gift cards.

While I would love to stay at a deluxe we have a Pop budget which works out because we love the Pop! That runs around $800. Last time I found that booking through Ebates and Travelocity I was able to get cash back for our stay.

For tickets I go to Undercover Tourist or when Orbitz has their big sale for activities. Last trip I bought from Orbitz through Ebates and got an even bigger discount - I got 3 adults, 5 day tix (no hoppers since we tend to stay in one park the whole day) for $840 from Orbitz and then got $84 back from Ebates. It was such a great deal we got 3 extra 5 day tickets and have them saved up for our next trip.

We don't do too many souvenirs - DD usually gets a plush, I get an ornament and maybe we get a couple of other little things. Not more than $200.

We live 2 hours from the airport so we stay overnight at a hotel and leave our car there for free. That is usually around $70-80.

I do count any meals we have going to/from the airport in our vacation budget. Plus doggy sitter and any other charge that relates to the vacation.

 

[goingtowdwwithkiddos]

wow I feel like an over spender so my vacation budget for summer is 10,000 there are 5 we do go in summer now kids are older. We stayed last time and will 2015 at por as its the cheapest and we go for a week/8 nights as travel days are only for travel. My budget includes plane, entertainment and food. We do stay cheap but love TS so have 1 or 2 a day we will eat breakfast in the room and have food delivered from garden grocer but gosh my family is expensive lol

 

[lauradis]

Planning is the pre-fun part for me.

Yearly vacation budget is around 6,500. $250 a pay.

Disney budget planning is backwards for us we normally go every other year sometimes every third year.

Pick where we want to stay, how long, price that out as soon as real prices are released. which is about 17-18 months out. book the package with 200 hold. hope for a discount.

For this next trip dec 1-9, 2015 we are staying at all-star movies, 2 rooms preferred, 4 adults, 1 child, reg dinning plan, 8 day hoppers, memory maker.
Grand total 5,959.16. my part of that cost for 3 adults is $4105.88.

This time around we started saving all our change and recycling cans on top of the 250 payday, since last oct 2013 we have bought 500 in disney gc. with change and can money.

So this next trip looks like

resort package 4105.88
3 plane tickets 780.00 (260 each I hope)
leaves me with 1600 for everything else( probable more the way we keep buying gift cards)

 

[natfrac]

How much we budget for Disney, like many others, depends on what other vacations we may have planned. Our next WDW trip will be an expensive one. We're not planning on going back for a few years, so upgraded to a Boardwalk view room and are flying first class. For two weeks, we're probably going to spend about $10K. For a typical two week WDW trip, I budget closer to $7K. Both budgets include a dog sitter and transportation to/from Celebration dialysis for DH.

 

[dhardawa]

I have three of us, two adults and a child. I usually spend about $3,000 on our Disney trips. We go during free dining and I keep getting southwest credit cards for points/free airfare.

 

[fabfemmeboy]

For my family (two adults), it comes out to about $1500-2000 per trip. We stay at value resorts and neither of us are TS people, so that helps cut down on costs (and lets us spend more time and money in the parks which is what we prioritize over the more romantic or luxurious vacation elements). As a rule I allot $100 per day for food and other spending money, and by the end of the week that's exactly what our spending has averaged to. This year it'll be slightly over because we're also doing a day at Universal (my partner is Potter-obsessed), but we also got a few deals here and there so it should still be less than $2200.

 

[OnlyDisney]

I work backwards. I price out the vacation and then save until I have the money to comfortably go on that vacation.

We do the same thing.

I'm saving for our 3rd trip at the moment (we live on 1 income). This next trip will be with family staying offsite in Windsor Hills, either a condo if it's just DH parents with us or a house if his sister's family joins us also.

Our portion is based on 2 adults and 2 kids under 10 for two weeks.

Tickets 1423
Rental house 1100
MNSSHP 275
Parking 120
Gas 500
2 nights hotel for driving down and back 225
Photopass 149
Food 1000-1300
Misc 600

 

[kathy884]

We have three of us in our family. We save $600 a month for vacations. That does not include an obligatory trip out east to visit relatives each year that costs us about $2400. That's a separate budget item. That's a $200 a month separate budget item.

Anyway that gives me $7200 to work with. Usually we do one big trip a year that's not Disney that costs between $5000 and $6000. Favorites we can do in that budget are Puerto Vallarta, MX (springs break is a great timeframe for that) or Estes Park/ Rocky Mountain National park.

My Disney trips then are usually a very low budget mini trip with just me and DS. DH doesn't // I'm doing one of these in December. My parents are picking us up, so no rental car cost. They did a timeshare trade (great offsite condo) , and we'll stay five nights (no cost). We are using frequent flyer miles, so total cost of flight was $10 (2.50 charge per flight). So the big expense is tickets: One day Disney for two at the MK ($200), one day US/IOA park hopper ($300), one day SeaWorld ($140) // Titanic attraction I drive. Food and spending just $100 per day for two and $50 per day for two on travel days ($500 total) == total budget 1150. Works out perfectly. We usually do this annually or something similar.