When it comes to meals try to eat as much as you can in your room. We try and pack a small suitcase with breakfast and snack foods. Usually the boxed milk works okay for cereal. We do keep it on ice, but its nice to use if you don't have a refrigerator. Usually we do peanut butter and jelly, snack bars, nuts, trail mix, etc. We never have a car at Disney so we take all that we think that we will need with us.
For eating in the parks, you might want to check out allears.net they have full menus, not only does this let you get an idea of prices but it also helps you to figure out where you might get the largest portions. My son just turned 13 and even on our last vacation we were able to get one meal and split it between us which allowed us to have two small meals in the park.
You read some advice on water bottles. I live in a pretty rural community and have never really been fond of the taste of "city" water. We recently purchased water bottles with the filters in them. You can get the bobble or brita, about $10 each. When you fill them at the parks, you don't get "city" water taste, you don't have to add flavored powders, and you don't need to fill them with more than you need and lug them around the rest of the day.
I like to get postcards at the hotels off site and have the characters sign them at the parks instead of purchasing an autograph book.
The tips for giving your kids gifts before heading to the parks seems to work really well also. When we went to the parks at Christmas time the "Disney Fairies" left my son a small gift each morning in our hotel room each morning. They were only a couple of dollars each and had Disney characters or theming. It really did help keep him from asking for everything while we were in the park.
We also don't go into many of the shops. I know its unusual for a woman to hate shopping, but I can't stand it. I only go into the shops if I am looking for something special or have to bring back souveniers. Even then I only do it on the last day. Its a lot harder to skip the shops that are at the exit of the rides, but you can always plan for a very full day and "rush off" to the next ride.
We did
Disneyland (not counting hotel, tickets, flight, and food we brought from home) for five days, two people, just under $250. Its definitely do-able. We only took one travelers check into the park per day and kept it limited. You can do Disney without spending a ton and still have a great time!
