January 2009. . . Calling all Snowbirds ~ Part IV !!!

[Kazooie01]

So, that brings me to a QOTD. Are you planning to allocate spending money to your children, or do you wing it?

QOTD: There’s a reason why we stay at the values (in addition to the fact we only use our resort for sleeping); it gives us more money to spend at the parks!!! In all seriousness, we’re on vacation and we really don’t want to save receipts and count pennies for the kids. Our children are a bit young to have their "own" spending money so we don’t set limits for them and for the most part let them get what they want (within reason). When they are a bit older, it might be a different story! Right now, it’s mainly t-shirts, sweatshirts, or stuffed animals. Nothing too expensive.

 

[Momof2Disneyboys]

Hi Everyone,

Sorry to hear so many Snowbirds are sick - count me in, too. Bad cold, actually leaving work soon to go home to bed.

Pretty exciting now - Christmas only 2 weeks away, then Disney time!!!

Here's an interesting "problem". DD has done a great job of saving spending money for her trip. She saves change and begs the rest of us for our "cents" as she calls it. Occasionally her grandparents give her dollars, and she's been really good at saving since we made our reservations. We've made 2 trips to the bank to empty her piggy, and are ready for a third. She has $62 saved already, and has counted up approx. $22 for her next run. I estimate she'll have around $100 to spend when we get there. Fantastic. But then she's also getting the Birthday Gift Card, which should be around $80 AND her grandmother told me she is giving each kid $100 in twenties to spend at Disney!

Do you know what that means? She's going to have close to $300 in spending money for the trip!!! That feels like it's WAY TOO MUCH! and I don't know what to do about it. I've already told her that Mom and Dad are responsible for 3 meals a day, but if she wants snacks like ice cream, sodas, churros, etc. that it comes out of her spending money. She'll probably want some stuffed animals and of course, once she sees the big Mickey store in DTD, I guess she will spend it all, but it seems kind of wasteful to me.

Don't think I want to deprive her, but I just don't want to over-indulge, I guess. But, the good thing is at least a third of it is money she saved herself, so that's some satisfaction.

So, that brings me to a QOTD. Are you planning to allocate spending money to your children, or do you wing it? Do you put a limit on winging it? DS will be easy to manage, so I won't have to "match" DDs spending money, but he will have the $100 from grandma, too. I'm hoping DH and I get money from Grandma, too?!?!

My kids save their own Disney spending money too. They are even doing this now, even though they don't know about the trip. They are saving up for the "next Disney trip"!

I agree, $300 is a bit excessive. If my kids went with that much they would likely spend it - just to spend it. Not because they really really wanted everything that they were buying. They normally go with right around $125 each to spend on toys and whatever they want really. We buy all their food, ice cream, snacks, and shirts.

It really is the way to go with them having their own "Disney money", it eliminates all the " I wants"!! And it helps them learn how to manage their own money and decide if they think a certain item is worth it or not, because it is their money, not mom and dad's!

 

[MindyLuvsMickey]

QOTD: I've been saving Disney Dollars for DS for a while. He's got $60 to spend. Plus I have money from my Disney Rewards along with the $200 gift card. DS will not have it at his disposal. I think we're going to use the gift card for tips and such.

 

[Momof2Disneyboys]

Anyone want to guess where it is 81 and sunny right now???

 

[Monny2AE]

I'm sure everyone already knows about this, but here's some info anyway!

"According to an article in the Orlando Sentinel, Disney's Design a Tee Presented by Hanes shop begins a soft opening today in Downtown Disney's Marketplace. The shop is located next to The Art of Disney store at the east end of Downtown Disney. Customers can design their own short- or long-sleeve T-shirts, using more than 300 items of Disney art and up to four lines of text, on one of eight touch-screen kiosks. Prices range from $20 to $30. Shirts are made in about 15 minutes, and you can wait and watch them being made on video screens, pick them up later or have them delivered."

Thanks for posting this- my nephew has had a hard time finding a Disney shirt since he's at that age where it's just not cool to wear shirts with Disney characters on them. Gotta love those tween years!

So, that brings me to a QOTD. Are you planning to allocate spending money to your children, or do you wing it? Do you put a limit on winging it? DS will be easy to manage, so I won't have to "match" DDs spending money, but he will have the $100 from grandma, too. I'm hoping DH and I get money from Grandma, too?!?!

My kids are getting Disney Dollars from my in laws- $100 each and my parents- $50 each and I think that is plenty especially since they are so young. I'll probably get them each a sweatshirt with it, let my son pick out something fun in the Lego store, some potato head parts, adn let them pick the rest! My dh gets a birthday fun card to spend and I'm using part of the $200 gift card for my souvenirs. The rest will go towards OOP meals.

 

[Monny2AE]

Anyone want to guess where it is 81 and sunny right now???

Certainly not at my house!!!!

Hmmmm could it be FLORIDA!!!!! Now if it could only stay that way through the whole month of January!


I went through and packed my toiletries bag and sorted out the stuff for my backpack today!!!!!

 

[chemysterygal]

QOTD: Both my kids will have their own spending money, plus we will (of course) supplement it if they are short, as needed. They should end up with about $50 each, which I think is plenty.

I already have t-shirts and large Mickey stuffed animals from the Disney store for each of them. Those will be "room presents" that I will put in the room at various points during the trip.

I also have some Disney dollars for them which they will get in the week before the trip (we are doing a countdown chain treasure-hunt sort of thing for the last week before the trip).

Hope we don't get the "I wanna"s too bad.

 

[Momof2Disneyboys]

Thanks for posting this- my nephew has had a hard time finding a Disney shirt since he's at that age where it's just not cool to wear shirts with Disney characters on them. Gotta love those tween years!

I'm thinking my boys will want to do this. They are very "hands on"! They've already done the "Build you own Lightsaber" and the "Stuff your own Pirate Skull", so this will be right up their alley!

 

[Momof2Disneyboys]

Certainly not at my house!!!!

Hmmmm could it be FLORIDA!!!!! Now if it could only stay that way through the whole month of January!

Not at my house either!! Not even close.

That would be wonderful if it stays that way for January. Perfect!

 

[trixiequilts]

Hey Everyone! I was out of the loop for a while....but i'm back!
Trixie - Are you still granting eye candy wishes?

I'll do my best!

only issue I totally forgot that no one was at the shop so the sidewalks didn't get done. So I was out there attempting to shovel this am. hmm bad idea!! first its solid ice under the snow second my "guts" arent up to that kind of movement yet

You shouldn't be shoveling yet!

Actually, I think I will just buy out V&A's one night for a private VIP Snowbird affair.

We can eat at V&A's right before our sleepover in the castle suite!

 

[drakes]

I

The ones you mentioned have no penalty for no-shows or for cancellation. While you don't have to cancel an ADR, it's only polite to do so for anyone who wants a walk in.
QUOTE]

Thank you- I definitely will be cancelling what we don't want. I hate to even admit we double booked. However the CM advised us to think on it and get back to them. I will post any cncels on the Restaurant boards for people to grab!

 

[mana_liz]

Little sister has about $50 of her money to spend. She will also have $100 Disney Reward card to spend. That should be enough for her...if she needs something else Mom will probably get it for her. She won't have to worry about snacks and such since we are on the dining plan or Mom will buy with the gift card.

 

[Laumau]

I can't believe how the time has flown! The trip is almost upon us. I'm sort of anxious about it because it's coming up so soon after Christmas and I'm so busy with that that I can't even think about planning for the trip. Yikes!

 

[trixiequilts]

I can't believe how the time has flown! The trip is almost upon us. I'm sort of anxious about it because it's coming up so soon after Christmas and I'm so busy with that that I can't even think about planning for the trip. Yikes!

That's how I feel.

 

[overthemoon4mickey]

IT IS SNOWING AT MY HOUSE!!!!!!


IN




HOUSTON!!!!


I'm going out to play....details later!

 

[Laumau]

IT IS SNOWING AT MY HOUSE!!!!!!


IN




HOUSTON!!!!


I'm going out to play....details later!

It snowed last night here- in Austin- after a high of 81 degrees yesterday afternoon! As my DH said- our weather is crazier than Illinois politics.

 

[Laumau]

That's how I feel.

Glad to know I'm not the only one Trixie.

 

[coffeehousemom]

$$$$$$ DD will have about $100 of her own she has been saving up & DS has about $50. She might have more that I don't know aboout she is quite the little Scrooge. I wont let her take much more than that. Last year they had their own money to but what they wanted but instead of carrying around their cash we put it on our KTTW's and kept heir cash for the trip home. I am waiting to see if they gat any money for Christmas & then I will turn their cash into 2 seperate "credit cards". Easier to carry around.

 

[Momto2PrncChrmgs]

QOTD: We've been talking about this with Drew (our 6 yr old). I was thinking about $75??? Does that sound reasonable? We'll be on the DDP so I'm not worried about snacks. I'm sure there will also be things that we'll buy FOR him (like I've promised him a new light spinner since his brother got a new one last year and his 4 yr old Power Ranger one has lost it's spin)! For Keaton, our 2 yr old, I don't really have a limit set, but I'm sure I'll have to buy him something whenever big brother gets something (probably the exact same thing) so it's not WW3!! For being 4 yrs apart in age, they sure always want to play with the same thing at the same time!! UGH!

 

[Dancegrl624]

QOTD- I haven't really thought about spending money for our DD. She's not one of those kids that sees something and has to have it, so that's nice. I think that this trip is just going to surprise her so much that she's not going to know what to do with herself! We probably won't give her gift cards to use or anything. We'll most likely just buy her the stuff that she really wants. She's by no means spoiled, but on this trip, I have no problem spoiling her rotten!

I can't believe that we're leaving in 45 days! That is so exciting! Today, I went onto allears and printed off some (ok, a lot!) of menus. I put them in a folder with the clasps. That way, we can just pull out the folder while we're in line and figure out what we want for lunch or dinner. I only printed out the menus that interested me, but there were still quite a lot of them! I put dividers in there to separate each park and DTD. I haven't told my DH yet and when I do, I know he'll think that I'm crazy! I don't have any more planning to do, so I had to do something!

Well, I'm off to teach ballet for a few hours. Be back later!