How much do you spend on your vacation?

[Mickey'sApprentice]

Third, our DS eats like a bird...like I said, he's turning 12 next month and he seriously only weighs 65 Lbs - and that's if you weigh him right after he eats!! Since he is a "Disney Adult" for tix and food this is one reason why we don't do the DDP. We can eat much cheaper on our own by just winging it. We do about 2-3 TS meals during a week and the rest are CS. We avg. about $10 pp for CS meals. That way DS can either eat from the kids menu or the regular selections.

I know its OT, but my 11.2 yo nephew weighs 57 pounds and wears a child's medium shirt for ages 7-8. My sister has to force him to eat. His numbers falls off the weight / height chart for his age. We are all worried. What is your take on this? Is your son growing out of this??

As for WDW, I think my sis will buy the 8 yo an adult ticket before they buy one for the 11 yo.
(I know that is wrong on a few levels.)

DNephew loves healthy food too. Sis has actually thought about asking that he be taken out of the classroom when they instruct the kids about healthy eating.

 

[robinb]

Now I'm confused. Are we supposed to be bragging about how much we spend or bragging about how little we spend?
I can never get these straight.

I think this is an equal opportunity thread . Although it did kinda take a turn from frugality when the poster mentioned their stay at club level at the GF . And yes, I am jealous!

 

[Kickapoo Joie Juice]

Now I'm confused. Are we supposed to be bragging about how much we spend or bragging about how little we spend?
I can never get these straight.

I'm one of those people who loves to brag when I found an incredibly good deal or was able to do something for a lot less than normal... (I mostly hang out on the budget board, too, shocker.)

 

[tink'smom2B]

Now I'm confused. Are we supposed to be bragging about how much we spend or bragging about how little we spend?
I can never get these straight.

I guess it's whatever you want!
Really, I originally wanted ideas to see if we were going overboard or what! I need to go to Florida every spring. Winters in WI are awful! So, when they give the kids a 9 day break, I'm ready to go. I can see by other posts that going during Easter week is my biggest problem. We just can't pull the kids out of school though. We're too old-fashioned in that respect. I love all the great ideas I got out of this and am glad there are so many posts. It gives me an idea of where to cut back and what works for others. I think we could save a lot of money if we could have a character meal and pay for what we eat. But I suppose there would always be people who wouldn't eat anything. One thing we used to do to save a buck was eat only dessert in Cinderella's Castle. At 8:30 at night, no one wanted a meal anyway. Of course, we rarely saw the princesses, but now you can see them in Mickey's Toon Town. That was well worth the wait last time!
Keep those ideas coming!!

 

[BWV Dreamin]

I'm one of those people who loves to brag when I found an incredibly good deal or was able to do something for a lot less than normal... (I mostly hang out on the budget board, too, shocker.)

Yeah, well everytime I tell my husband "how much I saved" he reminds me that I had to "spend to save"!!

 

[circhead]

Yeah, well everytime I tell my husband "how much I saved" he reminds me that I had to "spend to save"!!

My husband does this too - he always asks me "how much it cost me to save Xdollars.

 

[Tink&PirateMama]

We're usually fairly frugal on our trips, but allow for a couple of big splurges! Last trip we ate counter service a few times, but otherwise, cooked all our food. Our only entertainment expense was park tix, souvies, and the BBB for the girls. We drive down, which costs about 170 bucks in gas. The food is only slightly more than our regular food budget, if doing counter service and more, I'd budget about 200 tops, and probably have a lot left over. I think we save a lot cooking our own food.

I'm currently budgeting for our September trip. It's a vow renewal, so it will be pricier than normal!! I won't list it here, as I doubt it'd be helpful to anyone unless they were planning a VR!

Our next trip, in January, will be cheaper- and this is where I think we'll really start to see our DVC savings. we'll be buying AP's to last us about 10-12 nights each January (we'll have it last for 2 years by doing late january the first year and early January the second year).

I figure that will be a cost of less than
700 in tix each trip (it's less than that)
accommodations free
200 in gas (on top of regular gas budget)
200 in food (on top of our regular food budget)
700 for (souvies, tickets to anything extra, treats/sweets)

That keeps us in our budget of 2k vacation budget each year, at about 1800.
I always like to be under budget because we something always comes up that costs money! But really, I think for near 2 week trip to disney world, that's pretty affordable!!

Also, we have a LOT lower bills when we get back because we don't have to heat the house as much while we are gone! So we do save a little

We're hopeful that in another year or two, we'll up our budget by about 600, and we'll add on a few nights in st. augustine to round out our trip (we love that town!) Won't be this year with the VR though!! Even on a budget that really adds up!!

 

[thelionqueen]

Here is what I tell everyone that asks me how I can afford to go to Disney 2 time a year, every year. I penny pinch until my fingers bleed copper Every single day I focus on saving $5-10 in any way I can, be it groceries, rebates, gas, etc..literally everything. By doing that alone I have an "extra" $3000+ per year that is not accounted for in our budget; almost like "free" money. Some days I save more and some less, but in general we have $3000 to work with. So with that "saved" money and an additional $3000 (actual out of pocket not including DVC) we get 2 12+ night trips per year-how can you NOT go?
Below is my breakdown of costs of our trips

Tickets - $0 (thanks Walt)
Lodging-$0 (thanks DVC)-btw cost of DVC is not included.cough..cough
Food-$1200 ($100 per day-usually 12 day trips)
Souvies-$400 (thanks Walt) LOVE to shop
Recreation-$200 (surfing, parasailing, mini-golf, etc)
Airfare-$1000 (4 people RT from Denver-sometimes less sometimes more)
Rental Car-$300-worth every penny

Total for 4 on 12 night trip- $3100 and that does not include tickets (free) & lodging (DVC)

 

[PinkTink63]

I wish I could say that! I just paid out much MORE than the average WDW trip costs me!!!

Well, you either don't pay into it all year...or you are in an entirely different tax bracket then some of us!!

 

[PinkTink63]

Kayak.com will do that FOR you!!!!!!!!! You don't have to go to all of these websites all the time which is very time consuming! They even provide the links to the sites where the fares were found or to the airlines themselves so you don't have to hop all around! It's awesome! There are sliders where you can select your timeframe for you flights so you don't get bombarded with flights that don't meet your times & you can select non-stop only and that's all you'll get. I've found that some of these other sites really ignore your preferences but Kayak does not. They also provide a link to a chart that shows what each airline is charging for checked bags. The alerts also have a little graph that shows all the ups & downs that the price has taken. And yes, you can also be flexible with your dates (or not) for these alerts.

I wouldn't rely on kayak.com alone! Although, it is pretty good, it did not catch the drop in the airfare I purchased just recently. My airfare went down for less than a day and I just happened to check it that day and grabbed it before it went back up! I never even received anything from kayak.com. There aren't even any non-stop flights from PDX to MCO this year!!

 

[PinkTink63]

We are in the same boat . My DD turns 10 before our next trip but there is NO WAY she will eat adult food at WDW. She's a fussy vegetarian who would not touch most of the adult vegetarian meals at WDW with a 10-foot pole. The difference in park passes is fairly minimal from 9 to 10 but there is no reason for us to pay $40 per day for her on the DDP when she's still going to eat kid's meals! Thank goodness for the TiW card.

Just for you to know, this was a concern of mine a few years ago when my son was eleven I think?! I expressed my concern about this with MS, because my son didn't even weigh 70lbs., and she told me that we could pay for a child for him but that he would have to eat off the child's menu at all times. We decided against it for a couple of reasons, mostly because we didn't want any hassles! He does eat more now and is up to a whopping 93lbs. as a freshman!

 

[Anal Annie]

I know its OT, but my 11.2 yo nephew weighs 57 pounds and wears a child's medium shirt for ages 7-8. My sister has to force him to eat. His numbers falls off the weight / height chart for his age. We are all worried. What is your take on this? Is your son growing out of this??

LOL...he sounds just like my DS!! I will PM you!!

 

[starbox]

I know its OT, but my 11.2 yo nephew weighs 57 pounds and wears a child's medium shirt for ages 7-8. My sister has to force him to eat. His numbers falls off the weight / height chart for his age. We are all worried. What is your take on this? Is your son growing out of this??

I'll add that I've always worried about my scrawny little DS - he gets mistaken for his little sister's twin all the time and he was in little boy size 7/8 for about 4 years in a row. He eats, but he just never gained weight (or height).

He turns 13 at the end of this summer and when I got down his shorts, we realized that he went from a size 7/8 to a size 14 in ONE season!!!!!!!!!

It's been really fun replacing his entire wardrobe. (NOT!)

(Of course, DD is two years behind, so she'll probably hit the little girl growth spurt in the next year and they'll be mistaken for twins again!)

 

[Tara]

Well, you either don't pay into it all year...or you are in an entirely different tax bracket then some of us!!

No, my husband did independent contractor work for the first time ever last year. It was only for about 4 months so we didn't do a quarterly payment but just put the money aside to pay the tax bill. Usually we get a small fed refund and owe the state some money (on purpose, if we end up with a state refund we also have a big fed refund and I don't like that). So yeah, we mostly paid in all year but the tax on that 1099 income adds up fast, and even though I adjusted my withholding, it wasn't enough to make a difference.)

 

[Anal Annie]

I wouldn't rely on kayak.com alone! Although, it is pretty good, it did not catch the drop in the airfare I purchased just recently. My airfare went down for less than a day and I just happened to check it that day and grabbed it before it went back up! I never even received anything from kayak.com. There aren't even any non-stop flights from PDX to MCO this year!!

My Kayak alerts only come once a day - in the mornings. They don't re-send them every time there's a change and since the fares rise & fall throughout the day you have to actually log in & check it periodically throughout the day if you want to watch every single movement. But if it changes radically over night you will at least see it in the mornings. Now if you don't check it EARLY enough it could go back up too before you see it. I've had that happen to. Or like once I saw the price & verified it but wanted to discuss it with DH first. By the time I went back to book it later it had gone back up. It's like trying to watch the stock market. If you see a good deal you have to be ready to grab it!!

 

[allboyzz]

We are a family of 5. Last time we went to Disney we drove down there. We were there for 5 days. We stayed at the Shades of Green. We purchased discounted tickets at SOG. And we still ended up spending over $3500!!!

This time we are driving down there. We will spend about $160 round trip for gas to drive down there. We have free hotel stays that we will use to stay in a hotel on the way down to Orlando and on the way back home. We are using the Quick Service Dining Plan this time. We are staying at the Port Orleans Riverside. The dining plan and hotel will cost us $1288 for 5 nights. Our (only 4 of us..my husband is active duty and his ticket is free) tickets will cost $500 for park hoppers. So in all we should be able to do this for a little over $2,000. We are going to limit the extra spending as much as possible. We will probably give each of the kids a set amt for souveniers.

Anyway, I'm getting very excited about our upcoming trip. I'm so thankful to Disney for offering the discounts to military because otherwise we probably would not be going on this trip....