How much spending money do you take?

[lenshanem]

A thread on the theme park board got me wondering...

Since us DVCers already have our rooms taken care of and I would guess many of us have APs, not to mention our ability to store food in the rooms and the fact we're mostly veterans of the "World"...

How much do you typically take for spending money and for how many adults / children and how long?

We usually eat breakfast in the room, counter service for lunch and a PS each day typically for dinner. We're two adults and two kids and we take around $1000 for seven nights. Now, this is never enough and we almost always end up pulling out the debit card and usually have just enough in our pockets for the drive home. I have yet to find that magic number that we need to save up for.

I do admit we don't spend that much on souvenirs, either. Maybe around $200? Our girls don't really beg for everything they see and we've been enough to not feel like we gotta buy everything we see. I'd guess we each buy a couple things for ourselves. We already got Pal Mickey, light spinners, hats, spray water bottles, ponchos, etc. We just pack them up and use them all again.

 

[timC]

I don't pay much attention to how much cash I have in my pocket... as long as I've got plastic! ... at WDW, we charge almost everything to our room. For the four of us, we usually spent about $200 day.

 

[jbwolffiv]

We too rely on plastic. I am never really sure how much we end up spending. I always feel if you are on vacation that money should not be an issue.

 

[Kadorto]

Sounds like we need someone to post a poll....where's greenban?

 

[laceemouse]

Agree with Tim, we charge everything to the room. The only exception is some of the push carts will not take the room keys, dumb. We have 4 kids and our eating is generally like Shan's family, except for the occassional character breakfast. Our last two trips we have paid a lot of the room charges with our Disney Visa bucks. We moved about a year ago and charged carpet, appliances, ect. so we racked up quite a few bucks.

 

[lllovell]

I put everything on our room or use my Visa to get the Disney Dollars (which at some point on the trip I use as well, but often I forget they are there - which means another trip to spend them right! )

My children are smaller, but hubby is a big eater, so I think we spend about $150 a day total on food and other stuff. We avoid most of the buying of "things" by reminding our boys that our last stop is ALWAYS at DTD where they can get whatever they would like at the Lego Store (with some creative steering by mom and dad lol or else I would have to buy that lifesize BobaFett )

 

[Maistre Gracey]

We also charge most things to our room. Of course, certain things are cash only. We bring a stash for bottled water (can't live without the Dasani), valet tips etc...

Now, as far as how much I PLAN on spending for room charges is a different story. I always budget more than we will spend. That way we always come home feeling rich!

MG

 

[lenshanem]

We also have developed the ritual of going to DTD as our last stop before heading out. Plus, we get 10% off with our AP!

 

[Laurabearz]

Im not sure. We eat breakfast in (unless doing CRT or PSB), and we have PS's for lunches, then do what ever for dinner. Sometimes we cook (ugh, much rather eat out all meals all week but DH likes home cooked meals)

The girls have their own spending money, around 50 each, that they have earned and they have to pay for all their own Mickey Bars and other treats, as well as any toy they may want.

I have a self imposed $200 shopping limit for pins per trip. But I am scaling back this trip, becasue I have a million pins and NONE of them are out on display. I really have to get the ones I have up, before adding more to the piles.

We tip on the high side, and always valet....

All told we probly average between $200 and $300 a day.

 

[magicmouse2]

I found that we spent less charging everything. if there are dollars in the wallet there are dollars to be spent. As DVC members we will now have breakfast in our room, so that saves a bit. I budget $150 a day for our family.
Sometimes we will have a lavish meal - $200, sometimes we will have dominos pizza - $15....I found that buying 1 weeks worth of groceries from Publix was not worth it - we still ate at counter service lots (pixie dust sprinkled fries) and through lots of stuff away. Snacks such as salads, fresh fruit, cheese, chips, pizza and corn dogs plus family sized desserts and multi pack sodas were the only things worth stocking up on. (Oh and quality white wine and beers.)
If you have cheese and bread you can always make toasted sandwiches - yum! I am a souvenir buff too. Yet my home is getting too cluttered now. Pins are my downfall, as are watercolor paintings of the resorts and parks. Next trip we are taking our sodas into the parks in a foldable cooler and buying a locker. We can easily spend $30+ a day on sodas....
Also our next splurge is fancy meals. Kids are old enough that we darel leave them at kids clubs now...and DH and I deserve some romance after 14+ years of bringing up the young uns...

 

[slk537]

We have found through experience rather than budgeting that $1500 on the room card seems to get used and about $200-300 additional in cash, another debit card, etc. always disappears.on a week trip. We are a family of 3 (DS is 3.5 now) and while we do buy groceries for breakfast, soda, snacks, etc., we also eat out at counter service, snacks, some character dinners, etc. We have really found that while we still buy way too many of the light spinners, candy/toy souveneirs, and (I am almost embarrased to admit) DH always picks up something for me from the fine jewelry section. But lately, trips have been moving more from spending on things to spending on memories. Instead of buying more shirts and gifts for family at home (let's face it, DS's cousins only want so many WDW T-shirts, etc) we buy two nights to MVMCP, Wishes Fireworks cruise, more character meals, etc.

On our upcoming trip, we hope to try the Family Magic Tour, Illuminations Cruise (God and WDW-PLAY willing!) and more of the marina boat rentals, etc. We also plan to take advantage of the DDE card (Yayyyy!!!) and eat at more of the sit down restaurants.

I should add that we put money away throughout the time between trips and try not to have the admittedly practical "every dollar we don't spend, we take home" attitude. Yes, we spend way too much on some silly things, but we have a magnificent time, lots of memories, and it's just where we like to spend our extra/vacation money. Several years ago we had a very, very economical anniversary trip at WDW (The economical part wasn't planned, but DH was laid off from a horrible job one week before we left) and I think in the back of our heads, we never want to relive that.

 

[Coach Rick]

I prefer to not even think of it. I think of vacations like I do hobbies. If you start adding up what you spend on either you will never do it. That said, well of course you have to have some idea. We are not over the top on anything we do. We prefer eating at walk up counters, and PS maybe once, or twice a week while there. I have found a great little saving device, and that was the food vouchers. Much more control of spending that way, although I really over bought them this past trip, but I am sure I will use the rest of them this March. I easlily saved $200 on meals for the 5 of us. There are three adults in our family, but my 14 yo DS should really count as two adults, which would bring us to 5 adults, and one bird (my 10 yo DD). One good thing about my DS is that NO food goes to waste. No back to the question. Since most of our meals are covered, and paid for with FV before we even leave Rhode Island, I would have to say the only cash we use is roughly $75/day for incidentals. I know that doesn't sound like alot for a family of 5, but then I guess I am cheap. Of course I would have to put the rest of the family into that category, because they never ask for anything, and it's not because they think I would say no, but because they truly don't want for anything. They are just happy to be there.

 

[G00fyDad]

I do admit we don't spend that much on souvenirs, either. Maybe around $200?

If you are going over $1000 and only 200 on souveniers, where did the rest go?

 

[goldilocks_63]

We average about $100 / day, for 3 of us (me, DH, and DD-6).

Hope this helps, Goldi

 

[tinkgrl]

Hi,

I take $100 to $200. Mostly for fun!!!

Allison

 

[G00fyDad]

I guess I am no basis for comparison. My DW, DD10, DS2, and I are all taking $1500.00 each to spend. (The trip, tickets, air fare, and rental car has been paid for already.) We just wanted to make absolutely sure we dont run out of money. Anything that is left we are putting into the kids college fund.

(side note. No, we are not loaded. Both my wife and I work. Hard.)

 

[elfbo]

DH and I budget 50$ per day on food and 50$ each on souvineers. We usually only spend about 30$ a day on food at counter service or DTD (Earl of Sandwich is awesome). We eat a quick breakfast (turnovers, poptarts, oatmeal, cereal) in the room except for 1 or 2 breakfasts buffets (Love Boma at AKL). We limit the amount of things we can buy to take home, because we realize after 50 years of trips, our place will look like a crowded disney museum. We budget in refillable drink mugs, and bring snacks (indiviual pkgs of oreos or granola bars) from home, or stop by wal-mart on the way and pick up some snacks, soda and capri suns. 50$ is enough for 2 people to have 1 nice sit-down meal, 1 counter service meal a day. This is without sharing meals. For more people, i would add on about 25$ a day per person.

 

[rocketriter]

An indirect answer to your question: we give our kids (8 and 11) $20/day for souvenirs. They can spend it or save it for that more expensive trinket. They're very good about it, counting every penny.

 

[lenshanem]

If you are going over $1000 and only 200 on souvenirs, where did the rest go?

I guess on food?!?

If we eat at one PS a day for 2 adults / 2 kids doesn't that typically come up to around $60 or so with tip? (Really, hubby deals with the money while we're there...)

We just ordered the DDE card and we'll get at least three trips off it.

 

[JVL1018]

I think this last trip, we spent around $1300-8 days, 2 adults, 2 kids.
the trip before that was closer to $2000.
The $2000 trip we used our room charge-not a good idea for us, we spend way more on that than we do with cash for some reason..and it's not like I limit myself-I spend what I spend and whatever it is, fine..but I always spend less if I spend cash.