is anyone else like this? what are your thrifty hangups?

[smidgy]

Nope, no joke. That day we had a big character breakfast snaks at the park. Dh got a burger and didn't use fixing bar and I really wanted a salad, just lettuce tomatoe and mayo. The next night we got a large pizza and dd and I made salads.

It doesn't matter how big a meal you ate earlier. you realize the toppings bar is for toppings on a burger or taco? not to make a meal out of.? but it doesnt surprise me.. I am a server and we have buffets on holidays. all you can eat. at least once very holiday someone wants a "to go" box . "I took to much.. it will only go to waste anyways".
or.. the all you can eat friday fish fry. "Yeah, I'll have another piece of fish!.. oops , can't eat it after all. to go box?" I don't think so!

what if there is a "sundae" bar? you pay X amount for it. but you don'
t pay for it. you don't like ice cream, whatever... but... you pile up your plate with cherried, nuts, whipped cream, chocolate, pineapple, etc. TOPPINGS for the sundae you didn't PAY for.


"toppings" are supposed to go "on TOP of" something you Paid for. hence the definition of the word..

 

[mi*vida*loca]

I was just in Philly last weekend and in this one restaurant the mixed drinks were around $15. I just can't enjoy it when it costs that much, even if I'm not paying for it.

My friends love going to Old City to party. I can't do it often. The prices are crazy to me. I limit myself to very special occasions in certain parts of the city. Include parking, cover charges and toll coming from NJ.

Back in my old days I had no problem doing this but after being a single mom for 5 years I see money completely different! Even though I am comfortable again I can't justify the cost anymore.

 

[NotUrsula]

My husband and I have a 'cheap' side to us and it seems to start rearing it's ugly head as soon as we start to plan our WDW trip. We talk and plan about staying at a Deluxe and 'indulging' this time, throwing our cares out the window - blah blah....THEN we start to price things online and are always blown away by the amount of money we could save by staying at a Value vs. Deluxe.

This time we told ourselves that we'll save the Deluxe resorts for the future when the kids can appreciate it a bit more. That sounds about right, maybe?

One thing we both agree on is we love staying on property and will spend the extra in order to do so, but I hate that we can't just be carefree and tra~la~la while planning our vacation. We always come to the conclusion that we're only in the room so long (especially with kids wanting to see the parks bright and early).

It isn't your kids you should be thinking of on this issue, it is yourselves. Yes, you are only in the room so long -- 8 hours a day at the very least. A good night's rest is crucial for Mom & Dad. The reason we spend that little bit extra for higher-end lodgings is that the beds tend to be better. Kids can sleep anywhere, but once you get to be a certain age, spending a week sleeping on a cheap bed is a nightmare. I'm not going to be having much fun if my back aches for the entire trip.

Best beds on-property? S/D, no contest. That's why we are both SPG members and carefully steward our points so that we can stay there without paying more than $50/nt. Ponying up for parking is more than worth it if it gets us those beds!

As for staying on-property, the advantage to it for us is the special park hours We price theme park value by how many hours we get for the admission price, and how much wait time we have to suffer through. The on-site perks in both those categories make it worth it for us.

The British commonly use a term that I think sums up my POV beautifully: value for money. To me, that is what budgeting is all about. I don't mind paying more (within reason) if what I get for the extra money is important to me in concrete terms. Conversely, it isn't worth it to me to scrimp if what I can buy for less isn't going to really meet my needs. That just leads to compensatory spending. (The analogy that I like to use to explain THAT concept is installing a low-priced low-flow toilet ... that is so inefficiently designed that you always have to flush it twice.)

 

[amcnj]

We can easily spend 200 on dinner, no problem. But if my husband had to pay for a refill of soda, it kills him. Same with parking. We live just outside chicago. If we go into city for theater or dinner, he will let me out and park six to eight blocks away.

For some reason the fees for parking and cost of drink refills are also pet peeves of mine. Along with road tolls.

 

[DawnM]

Oh, yes, really. It's common for people who obsess about thrift to occasionally slide over the line a bit into petty theft. If you are buying a sandwich anyway and just prefer to put your lettuce and tomato on a plate and eat it separately, then fine, but if you are not buying an item that normally calls for them, using the "fixings" as a side dish is a form of petty theft. One that Disney is aware of and generally turns a blind eye to, yes, but it ends up inflating food prices, so it isn't completely benign.

I'm fine with paying for things that will be eaten; where I have issues is waste. That's why the dining plan was generally a bad idea for us; we ate too much food because we could not bear to throw away food we had paid for. For people who fight an internal battle between denying themselves treats that they want, vs. overspending because they want to never have to think about what food costs, using a prepaid gift card is a nice middle option.

Our big bugbear has always been alcohol. We don't buy it except for home consumption because we can't bring ourselves to pay the restaurant markup on it.

 

[DawnM]

We are frugal. We don't buy meals every day in the parks. We take our own backpack cooler in with our own lunch and snacks. With 5 of us now ordering adult meals......it is $75 just for lunch and over $150 for dinner in the parks.

But we stay off-site so that we can have a full kitchen and even make quick dinners in the condo most days.

"Points" from CC don't sway me unless it is definitely something I want/need to buy. Paying $800 for your DD to eat when she really will only eat $400 worth, but you got $8 in points just isn't worth it.

We don't stay on-site because we couldn't stay in the values anyway.....we are a family of 5. We also don't like small hotel rooms. The condos we get have anywhere between 2-4 bedrooms. Our last trip we got a 4 bedroom townhouse for $38/night including tax. The boys LOVED having their own rooms.

 

[rnorwo1]

We are frugal. We don't buy meals every day in the parks. We take our own backpack cooler in with our own lunch and snacks. With 5 of us now ordering adult meals......it is $75 just for lunch and over $150 for dinner in the parks.

But we stay off-site so that we can have a full kitchen and even make quick dinners in the condo most days.

"Points" from CC don't sway me unless it is definitely something I want/need to buy. Paying $800 for your DD to eat when she really will only eat $400 worth, but you got $8 in points just isn't worth it.

We don't stay on-site because we couldn't stay in the values anyway.....we are a family of 5. We also don't like small hotel rooms. The condos we get have anywhere between 2-4 bedrooms. Our last trip we got a 4 bedroom townhouse for $38/night including tax. The boys LOVED having their own rooms.

We are also a family of 5, so we always look for condos, too. I've never gotten this good of a deal, though. What are your favorite sites for finding them? We have a very small DVC (resale) contract to use on villas at Disney, but we travel to many other places too where we use condos. Thanks for any tips!

 

[StephMK]

We don't stay on-site because we couldn't stay in the values anyway.....we are a family of 5. We also don't like small hotel rooms. The condos we get have anywhere between 2-4 bedrooms. Our last trip we got a 4 bedroom townhouse for $38/night including tax. The boys LOVED having their own rooms.

I agree , we are also a family of 5 and we feel the same way about offsite. I would also like to know where you find the great rental deals. In the past, we have used a timeshare exchange from family. I'm not sure that will be available next time and the kids really want to go back. We love having our own rooms and more space to spread out when we're there.

 

[NotUrsula]

We are frugal. We don't buy meals every day in the parks. We take our own backpack cooler in with our own lunch and snacks. With 5 of us now ordering adult meals......it is $75 just for lunch and over $150 for dinner in the parks.

But we stay off-site so that we can have a full kitchen and even make quick dinners in the condo most days.

"Points" from CC don't sway me unless it is definitely something I want/need to buy. Paying $800 for your DD to eat when she really will only eat $400 worth, but you got $8 in points just isn't worth it.

Well, of course not; that would be idiotic, but anyone who calculates point value that way simply doesn't understand how to maximize value.

DH and I travel for work, and we make it a point to use Starwood properties for a substantial number of those room nights; it is all the same to our employers as long as the price is under the per-night limit for the locality. SPG is a better value than most other programs because the purchase/point ratio is good, they often offer bonuses, and there are no blackouts at all. I can stay at S/D for 5 nights at Christmas for 50K points + about $100 in fees, and the extra park time that comes along with that is priceless when the parks are at capacity.

I once paid for a cruise with my SWA CC rather than my Disney CC because a triple points promotion made me enough on that one purchase to pay for the flight to and from the port. (I never bother trying to accumulate points on that Disney card b/c the value is too low. I have the account strictly because of the discounts and special park perks that are offered to cardholders.)

You can play the points game like a violin if you care to learn how and are properly positioned to do so. Lurking on the boards at Flyertalk is an excellent place to find out how.

 

[abmitch01]

when we went as an extended family we stayed in houses in Windsor Hill and loved it. And it was so inexpensive, less than half of what 2 rooms at a value would've been. We had a private pool. It was heaven. Last year it was my DD and DS and we got a small condo and it was still great. But this year with just DD, it seemed like a good time to try staying on site.

 

[leebee]

Lodging is my big travel peeve. We always stayed offsite, as I have trouble justifying the $$$$ for a place to sleep. You'd NEVER have caught me paying disney value prices for an econo-lodge level room. However, DME changed my mind; imagine not having to rent a car while at Disney (or deal with your luggage)! Then there was free dining. Suddenly it was more cost-effective for DD and myself to stay onsite at Disney. However, we have discovered that we waste a lot of food on the dining plan, and we cannot stand the Disney buses, so we rent a car now anyhow. Pretty soon, I am sure we'll be back to being offsite-only, as neither the dining plan nor no car rental works for us any longer.

For our upcoming celebration in October, I decided that as this is a special trip, I will make decisions and then push them out of my mind! I bit the bullet and rented points to stay at BWV. I justified it when I realized that I am willing to pay that or a little more to stay in Manhattan (yes we LIKE being in Times Square!) and consider it a good deal, so we (me, DH, DD20, er, 21!) will be staying in a studio at the BWV and renting a car. For meals we will do WCC and Jiko for dinner, Biergarten for lunch, graze through F&W on two days, and then wing it at other places. I will have about $700 in Disney VISA rewards to pay for the food, so probably not quite enough to be "free" dining! However, some of the restaurants we are interested in give discounts to Disney VISA cardholders, so those'll be the places I use my credit card. I just decided that I'd make reasonable decisions and then NOT let myself second-guess these decisions on this next, special trip!

 

[amcnj]

Thought of a couple other fees which bug me, "convenience fees" and all those add on fees for tickets. Some places charge you extra for printing the tickets at home (your paper and ink) versus picking it up at the box office (their employee and paper,etc). Makes no sense to me. And just all those processing and handling charges, which can greatly inflate the initial cost of the ticket. And convenience fees apply to other areas, such as I know car registrations in my state cost more to do over the internet (due to a convenience charge) than to go to the DMV and and get them. So they make the in person process so bad that you are willing to pay extra to not have to go through it! Seems like quite a racket to me. They have also toyed with charging extra (due to convenience) of using ez pass (automated toll payment system). So they are saving on employees and cost of handling actual money but want to charge you extra for it besides!

 

[abmitch01]

I think that's key- decide what you are willing to splurge on and the being able to sit back and enjoy that. I struggle with this but am determined to really try this trip

 

[ZephyrHawk]

OP I hear you. I worry about the cost of everything. But, when it comes to vacations, I let that slide. I work my butt off saving money the rest of the year so I can have a couple of weeks where I spend what I want on vacation related items. I get the dining plan for the same reason you did, so I wouldn't find myself re-thinking my lunch purchases when I'm supposed to be chilling at the happiest place on earth.

I don't know if I have a thrifty hang-up. At least not anymore (DH has become skilled over the years at encouraging me to succumb to his spending ways). But I guess I still have a major problem with paying for an item that's not worth what I paid. For instance, if DH wants some new fancy piece of tech, he has to ask nicely, research it thoroughly, present the pros and cons of the model he wants versus a cheaper model, and then find it on sale somewhere. Then I feel justified spending the money on him. I'll pay out, but he's gotta convince me its worth the price.