how much spending money to take?

[stephanie23]

This August will be our first ever trip to WDW. We are staying at AKL savannah room. We are on the dining plan and have water park tickets.
It will be My husband and myself(24) my DD(5) and my DS(1). I need to know how much spending money to save. I can not say no to my kids and like to splurge on vacation. I am not rich..lol so I would need to budget a little as I know Disney can be expensive. Any help is appreciate!

 

[DizzDoll]

I usually plan on $100 per day. Often I have left over $$ to put towards the following day's budget.

 

[antree]

We did $100.00 a day for the last 10 yrs. We just up it to $120.00 a day.
We have 2 kids 13 and 5. The 13 yr old never asked for anything from when she was 4. We used to beg her to pick something out, Last year was her first time spending like crazy now we begged her to stop looking. My 5 yr old son has been asking for things since he was 10mos old . His first must have gift was a Mickey Bobble Head, he wouldn't leave the store without it, He screamed for it everytime he saw it and when we let him touch it he wouldn't let it go. He has been hooked to Disney and everything about since then.

What we also started doing was giving the kids $25.00 a day and that helped a lot. Then we would by them something ourself.
Your 1yr old won't ask for anything{unless they were like my 10 mos old}
and I never really see anything down there to buy for someone that young, except t-shirts. Your 5 yr old I would give him the budget a day then buy that one item you really want him to have that he can't buy on his budget.
My 5 yr old does great with that now. Plus we put away all birthday and holiday money and they can buy whatever they want. He always comes home with a large item that way. Last year was the $75.00 MK Train set he bought from his birthday/Holiday money.

Hope this helps.

Maria

 

[collcass]

We have given each of our four kids 40 Disney Dollars. They have the option to convert their allowance into DD from now until our trip if they want. we also decorated a canister with Disney stickers for spare change but put a tiny twist on it.

Each time they do something extra special: we put some change in for them. For example, the 1st and 5th grader are each getting an award at school this month. The day the brought home the notice my DH put $5 for each into the canister. Just before the trip we will cash it in and split the earnings between the four of them

 

[DLBDS]

I loaded up a Disney gift card with $400 for our last trip. Used it everywhere we went for food (F&WF), snacks, souvenirs...whatever. It was already paid for so we had no worries....until it ran out. That's cool though 'cause we only went over about $100 and DH never goes anywhere without cash. It's so nice to know it's all been prepaid. Makes for a more enjoyable trip! I say load up a Disney gift card. You don't have to worry about keeping up with cash or Disney Dollars and it's reloadable. Good luck!

 

[cjs123123]

What I usually do is.... I go to the disney store in the mall once a week and buy 40 dollars in disney dollars every week till the trip. At least if you buy disney dollars you cant spend them anywere else but disney. the last trip I took 750 dollars we would take 100 dollars a day out and put the rest in the safe. It makes it fun too seeing you have children.

 

[guelde96]

We usually spend @ $600.00 - $1000.00 depending on the length of the stay. I have a hard time saying no on vacation. We tend to have the children save up Disney Dollars also, this way they are earning their own spending money.

 

[mkycrzy1971]

For our recent 8 day trip we bought each child a $100 disney gift card (once we arrived)...in addition, we bought each child a t-shirt out of our own spending money. If you are on the dining plan, I would think that (above the kid's money and any you want for yourself for souvi.) $50-$75 each day (for a standard family of 4-5) would be MORE than enough...you might want a snack above and beyond your dining plan snack, perhaps a pastry for breakfast, and additional drink here-and-there, etc....we just took this amount extra in case we needed it for some reason. We did end up coming back with most of it in the end...there is only so much that a person can eat/drink in 8 days

 

[wilde_oscar]

I'll bid 100 billion dollars, just for popcorn

 

[mkycrzy1971]

I'll bid 100 billion dollars, just for popcorn

Oh yeah...that is VERY true! Got to focus on the really important stuff when you are at WDW!

 

[blessedmommyX4]

We are going in Dec for 10 days. We are a family of 6 and I was thinking the older 2 can have $100 for their own spending money. My husband and I will probably plan about $100 a day for the family.

My hardest part will be saying no to my 4yo Cinderella fan! We are already planning on going to the BBB to get ThE WoRkS done!! She has been cinderella now for the last 2yrs for halloween and is already asking to be her again this year. When she met her in 2006, she was speechless. It was so awesome to watc her expression. So, I have a hard time saying no to her "love"

 

[hacgec]

We also have a "Disney Bank" that our girls put all spare change and all paper money that they have recieved for birthdays, holidays, etc... in for the past year. Also when asked what they wanted for Christmas or birthdays I suggested Disney Dollars, and now they have over $150 and counting.

 

[stitchlover]

I think we spent about $1,200 our last trip and it was 10 days. There are three of us. But this does not include our daughter's Disney Dollars. We did have an Illuminations Cruise last trip so that is about $275 of that $1,200. We budget between $1,000 and $1,500 for 10 days.

 

[blueeyesrnc]

Great question. I was thinking the same thing but never posted the question. Thanks. Learned some valuable information.

 

[PEANUT1]

I think if you are doing the dining plan $100 per day should be plenty. We do the disney dollars too. My husband just bought a bunch at the disney store for our 4 year old to "earn" by helping clean up her toys and such. She gets so excited to get the Ariel money to have for Disney.