How much do you spend in Florida ???

[wayneg]

But we have just purchased our first house (with its night SE England price tag) and hefty mortgage to match so a big blow out just isnt on the cards for us.

I honestly don't know how people start out today with their first house. We are lucky living in a 3 bed detached with a payment of £180/month mortgage, could pay it off but we get more interest on our investments than what we pay on mortgage interest.
My brother lives in Wiltshire but he is doing a lot of commuting into London and spends a fortune on staying there, He went today to view a property for the 2nd time he is considering buying, 2 bed apt £650,000 How do people pay for these properties?

 

[dlf]

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Some of these posts have reassured me. We have $2000 to spend. Tickets and meals are already paid for so this is just spending on goodies, I was wondering whether it would be enough. We have got to pay for Wishes and Illuminations (only our share, splitting it with two other families) and taxi fares and I'm giving the boys a bit of cash to spend. I agree with Wayneg, I can't think why people go all the way to Orlando and then go shopping in Malls. I know things are cheaper but a day out of my holiday to get cheap goods is not worth it IMO, Disney time is priceless.

__________________
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The above is from a previous post on this thread:

As you have already paid for your tickets, there is no extra charge to see the fireworks (Wishes & Illuminations)

 

[misskrystal]

I think our last trip worked out at around £6,000 for the two of us. We had an amazing time, but our suitcases were a little on the heavy side coming back

 

[Tinks1984]

Me and my family have been three times before, but the 1st trip (back in 1993) was the one that stands out with me. My mum and dad did nothing to our house and saved like mad to take me and my brother.

We went thinking that it would be the 1st and last time we'd ever go, so when I asked my Mum just a few minutes ago how much we spent on that holiday, she came back with....about £5,000! And that was with my Brother going for free, as he was only young! We went with a suitcase packed inside another, in total we had three cases...and ended up buying a large expanding one whilst we were there, and came back with four jam-packed cases!!

We're Disney mad, so we brought back ornements, stuffed toys, I seem to remember a Buzz Lightyear making a trip back and two very large Mickey Mouse's that myself and my brother had as our 'hand luggage' (he even had his own luggage tag!!) on the plane, I sat on my Mickey's knee for 9 hours on the way home

Thinking back, it was an amazing time, the best best holidays that a child could ever wish for! In the future I can't wait to take my children back (whenever they arrive!) and let them experience the magic that I did as a child! But before that, I've got the job of taking a 'big kid' back to WDW next April, that would be a DBF who's never been and his only dream as a child was for his parents to take him to WDW, but never had the money to do so. Here's hoping I do as good a job as my parents did when they took me on my 1st trip...

 

[martinrmn]

How much do we spend? I suppose as much as we can afford. Although my wife and I do not shop for clothes in this country when we go to Disney we spend several mornings/afternoons trying to get bargains. As other posts have said when you compare prices in this country to US you'd be daft not to buy clothes. As a man I try and hold off buying clothes in UK and will wait until we travel to Disney. I think last year we were shocked to have only spent about £1200 on food and pressies including Xmas presents. Our son will be 7 when we fly this year so we will buy him clothes and some Timberland boots which are sooo much cheaper there.

 

[Obi Wan Kenobi]

Well, for Mr Customs and Excise who may be reading, we spend about £154 each on gifts.



Actually, we spend about £3,000 on general stuff, cloths, shoes etc, then a special holiday present. last year it was a couple of Breitling watches as we both adore them, so that was about $5,400 each.
Other times, its been jewellry, a camera (I hope to get the new Olynpus E-3 this time) or ipods, depending on what takes our fancy.

But its down to what an individual can afford. You don't spend what you don't have, its just not worth it in the long run. Spend in haste, repent in leisure...I would just be happy to come back with nothing but the rest and recreation away from the trials of everyday.

I know what you mean Wayne, about how kids these days can afford a mortgage. It does not seem to be getting any easier whatsoever.
(I HATE you by the way, £180 a month!!!!!!!!!!!!!!,
My morgage is £1,025 a month)

 

[wayneg]

I know what you mean Wayne, about how kids these days can afford a mortgage. It does not seem to be getting any easier whatsoever.
(I HATE you by the way, £180 a month!!!!!!!!!!!!!!,
My morgage is £1,025 a month)

We were lucky buying into the market when we did 18 years ago, bought the right house to renovate at £14,000 (spend almost double that on our car now ) spent £6,000 on renovations and sold after a year for £43,000 put that into a a 3 bed detached with a small mortgage. Anyone buying this house now would have similar payments to you.
We considered moving about 5 years ago, I had chance of a 5 bed, double gargage, half acre of orchard and stables but it wanted £40k of work doing it. I talked them down to £120k but I would not go above £115k they sold it to someone else a few weeks later. About 3 months ago it was back on the market £500,000
We decided our holidays were more important than a house that was bigger than we needed, finacially a big mistake in reality we have had 5 years of fantastic holidays.

 

[BELFAST_BOY]

Well, for Mr Customs and Excise who may be reading, we spend about £154 each on gifts.

 

[Obi Wan Kenobi]

I know what you mean Wayne, my first house, a three bed end of terrace was £4,000, I sold it for £21,000 then when I got married we bought a house for £97,000, a big big hit on our savings and monthly payments, but it meant that when I started my buisness I had the collateral in the house to use as coverage for the loan(s)
In the end we sold it for £349,990 and moved into the house we have now.
It seems that through the years, the house has got bigger, but the costs have risen to match!
In the end, we end up in the same size plot regardless and at least with holidays the familiy has great memories.

 

[scottishsue]

Hi everyone from sunny Florida !!

5 days into our holiday and we have gone through $400, just in spending money (and not including meals etc).

Some admittedly was golf stuff though.

BTW great to see you back complete with signature again Obi !!
Just been to Sizzlers for dinner and a few beers.

 

[PoppyAnna]

Hello from Windsor hills!!
We come home on wednesday, I have approx 200usd in my purse to last us.
We came in may and spent a fourtune on the trip and spent more on clothes, shoes and presents. I think the trip cost us over 6000GBP. This time our flights, townhouse and disney tkts cost us 2100GBP and we only changed up 800GBP for spending money.
We've had an equally good holiday, if not better. We were in Epcot last night in the Japanese shop and my eldest bought a paper fan for herself and one for her sister from her own money - they were 2.99usd each but the lady asked us if she could write their names on them in japanese to personalise them.......that's a better souvenier to us than some of the Disney tat!
We have put about 130.00Gbp on the c/c on christmas pressies and DH bought some timberland shoes he likes that are 60usd here instead of 80gbp at home! We have bought some disney souvies too but just not as much.
We worked hard in our 20's and are fortunate not to have a mortgage now in a high market. Like Wayne we could move way up the housing market but we chose a life instead. Our children only grow up once..DH took a lot of flak from his family over this 2nd trip this year as he resigned his job before we came away. They thought is was decadant as they don't know our full financial situation.
We would rather have enjoyable lower cost trips abroad (not just florida) but more of them!
It really is up to the individual family, everybody is different.

 

[Obi Wan Kenobi]

Hi Sue,
Sounds like you are having a fantastic time.
Not too many beers now! (well, OK, you are on holiday )

 

[wayneg]

Hello from Windsor hills!!

Sounds like you are having another great time
Hope everything is OK at Windsor Hills, we stay there for 8 nights next Easter, 1st time in a condo.

 

[PoppyAnna]

Sounds like you are having another great time
Hope everything is OK at Windsor Hills, we stay there for 8 nights next Easter, 1st time in a condo.

Great time being had! Windsor hills is nice. They are building another phase at the mo, it's oh so tempting!
I'll PM you the low-down when I get back if you like. The Sherberth road short cut is fab!

 

[wayneg]

Great time being had! Windsor hills is nice. They are building another phase at the mo, it's oh so tempting!
I'll PM you the low-down when I get back if you like. The Sherberth road short cut is fab!

A PM when you get home would be great. Yes used Sherberth road lots of times when we have stayed at Best Western Lakeside(Sheraton 4 points lakeside, Laquinta lakeside) how long before it changes name again?

 

[Disney owl]

too much but we had a great holiday!

 

[Beep]

We came back from a 3 week trip on Sunday and spent $2300 with about another £100 on the credit cards. That included meals, petrol, few presents for our friends in Delaware, paying for DDP for 2 nights - everything that we spend money on whilst we were there.

Not at all bad for 21 nights!

 

[paulfoel]

Well, for Mr Customs and Excise who may be reading, we spend about £154 each on gifts.

Anybody ever have any hassle off customs when they arrive back in this country?

Most of the time theres never anyone there but once we did get asked why we had 5 huge bags for three of us !!!

 

[Booknut]

Great time being had! Windsor hills is nice. They are building another phase at the mo, it's oh so tempting!
I'll PM you the low-down when I get back if you like. The Sherberth road short cut is fab!

Glad you're having a fab time! Have a safe trip home!

Am glad to hear all this great stuff about Windsor Hills, we are 99% sure we're going to stay there next year in a condo, would love to know about this Sherbeth Rd shortcut, does anyone have a link with a map of this area?

BTW, i'm shocked at how low all your mortgages are!!!! We're saving up to buy and our rent alone is £1k!!

 

[wayneg]

Am glad to hear all this great stuff about Windsor Hills, we are 99% sure we're going to stay there next year in a condo, would love to know about this Sherbeth Rd shortcut, does anyone have a link with a map of this area?

BTW, i'm shocked at how low all your mortgages are!!!! We're saving up to buy and our rent alone is £1k!!

It is great having low mortgage payments, downside is it usually means you are getting old

links to maps
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&h...823,-81.582069&spn=0.032258,0.05785&z=14&om=1

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&h...81.586232&spn=0.016129,0.028925&t=h&z=15&om=1