Kath2003
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Feb 13, 2006
- Messages
- 7,683
We do the trips on a budget:
Basically because we make all these savings, our holiday runs at VERY little - under £100 pppn all inclusive including plenty of cocktails and spending money. Because we make these savings on the holiday, we don't sacrifice much in our everyday lives: we live comfortably. That said, we don't have what others would consider 'essentials' like Sky TV, DVD rentals, magazine subscriptions, expensive lunches, we don't smoke, we use public transport if it is cheaper, takeout only once a month, we base our food shopping largely around the deals on offer, we turn EVERYTHING off when we are done using it etc. so those things alone easily claw back the £50-80 a month each we need to pay for our holiday each year. I guess the little things can add up - for example I would NEVER by household products like shampoo or washing powder etc. unless they were less than half the normal retail price.
I've done Orlando before where we flew direct, hired a car, did Disney, stayed in a 4* or 5* hotel...I'll happily admit there were perks. But those perks to us aren't worth what they would cost us - waiting up to 10 minutes for a bus, for example, isn't worth ~£15 a day in car hire plus gas plus parking. We take cabs when we need to and our total transport costs STILL wind up less than the parking charges alone. Staying at a Universal Hotel would be lovely, but the extra £150/night REALLY isn't worth it for us.
Because our trips cost half what we would pay if we went for what we thought would be a bit 'nicer', we can go twice as often. And I'll take twice over marginally nicer any day
I suspect our trips will become more infrequent as we have greater financial commitments (e.g. a larger house) or as we need to replace major items of furniture or get a new car, though. If we had kids, trips would be out of the question but thankfully we don't!
- we connect which halves our flight costs (£340 in the school holidays). This is adds around 3 hours to our journey time, but saves us around £50 per hour
- we base the length of our trip on the flight costs - e.g. this year we cut a day out and saved another £100 on our flights
- we stay in moderate hotels (3* - usually £40-50/night) and we shop around for the best deal
- we buy super-advance everything. That means no refunds and no changing our mind, but saves us a LOT of money.
- we don't hire a car (last year our daily transport costs were $3 each - including cab rides whenever we fancied it) which saves us a LOT (at least £200 on a two-week trip, plus $12 a day in parking)
- we shop around for travel insurance (<£25 each for a two-weeker)
- we have family who can give us a lift to the airport or we use public transport booking well in advance!
- we combine our holidays with visiting this family, spending only the petrol we would use on a standard visit anyway
- we don't do Disney - only Universal. This saves us over £100 each.
Basically because we make all these savings, our holiday runs at VERY little - under £100 pppn all inclusive including plenty of cocktails and spending money. Because we make these savings on the holiday, we don't sacrifice much in our everyday lives: we live comfortably. That said, we don't have what others would consider 'essentials' like Sky TV, DVD rentals, magazine subscriptions, expensive lunches, we don't smoke, we use public transport if it is cheaper, takeout only once a month, we base our food shopping largely around the deals on offer, we turn EVERYTHING off when we are done using it etc. so those things alone easily claw back the £50-80 a month each we need to pay for our holiday each year. I guess the little things can add up - for example I would NEVER by household products like shampoo or washing powder etc. unless they were less than half the normal retail price.
I've done Orlando before where we flew direct, hired a car, did Disney, stayed in a 4* or 5* hotel...I'll happily admit there were perks. But those perks to us aren't worth what they would cost us - waiting up to 10 minutes for a bus, for example, isn't worth ~£15 a day in car hire plus gas plus parking. We take cabs when we need to and our total transport costs STILL wind up less than the parking charges alone. Staying at a Universal Hotel would be lovely, but the extra £150/night REALLY isn't worth it for us.
Because our trips cost half what we would pay if we went for what we thought would be a bit 'nicer', we can go twice as often. And I'll take twice over marginally nicer any day
I suspect our trips will become more infrequent as we have greater financial commitments (e.g. a larger house) or as we need to replace major items of furniture or get a new car, though. If we had kids, trips would be out of the question but thankfully we don't!
and Matt (40 mins) 
and i'm really looking forward to that 
. 
Hate them GCSE's and A levels( but can't risk taking the kids out of school) but at least I've got them addicted. 
