With the current economy will you "DVC" differently now??

[edk35]

Let's just say it's been very busy at Bank of America lately. I haven't been able to spend much time on the boards unless it's the weekend.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh man. Sorry about all of that. Good Luck. I am sure you are really busy.

 

[edk35]

We are in the same boat, our first heads off to college this fall, our second next fall. We are trying to be extra smart with money so we can help our girls with the cost of college. We also realize they are getting older and may not always be available to join us do to their own schedules, so we plan on really enjoying our 9 nights at BWV next month! And any other trip we can take with our girls, money is important, but not nearly as important as time
Congrats on your daughter!

That is how we feel too so we added that Nov. trip this past Nov. It was going to be out last time to go then with her because her Thanksgiving days off will not match her brothers still in school. Oh how fast they grow up. The time flies.

 

[mrsR123]

We are using our points; that will not change.

However, instead of renting a beach house somewhere for spring break, we're staying at SSR because it's already paid for.

And, because I don't want to spend a lot of money, just in case, although DH and I have secure teaching jobs, we're not buying Disney passes. We're going to Universal for $96 a head. We're driving down instead of flying, and that means easy grocery trips and cooking in the villa. (And that means not having hundreds of dollars in restaurant meals charged to the room.)

 

[kikiq]

1. Will you continue to go the same amt. of times per year or for as many days??
Actually as west coasters, the original plan was to go every other year with extended family. We went last summer and are planning an extended family DCL/DVC trip Dec 2010, but may delay that trip. My DD is hoping she is accepted to the WDW College Program from May to Dec. We are making tentative plans for 2 trips while she is there Aug and Dec.

2. Will you spend less money while there and if so what changes will you make so that you are spending less money than previoius trips?
Yes, more meals in the villa. Not interested in "stuff" anymore.

3. Have you become more thrify/mindful of what you spend while vacationing?
Yes, use to be sure to have a souvenir sweatshirt/shirt, but now as we get older, it's not important anymore.

4. Do you cut back at home...so that you can REALLY enjoy your vacation?
I'm a teacher without tenure, so we've been cutting back for several years to save just in case.

Congrats to your DD. Maybe she can apply to the College Program, you won't have to buy passes

 

[edk35]

We are using our points; that will not change.

However, instead of renting a beach house somewhere for spring break, we're staying at SSR because it's already paid for.

And, because I don't want to spend a lot of money, just in case, although DH and I have secure teaching jobs, we're not buying Disney passes. We're going to Universal for $96 a head. We're driving down instead of flying, and that means easy grocery trips and cooking in the villa. (And that means not having hundreds of dollars in restaurant meals charged to the room.)

You know I did something similiar for our Jan. trip. I had originally booked special deal...pay for 4 and get 3 more nights free. It just bugged me to stay at a resort in 2 rooms because I was still paying out money when I had points there to use. Sure I was saving points but I was spending more money. SO we cancelled the special and booked OKW. Sure we had to borrow to make that trip and our summer trip happen but I was okay with that too.

 

[edk35]

1. Will you continue to go the same amt. of times per year or for as many days??
Actually as west coasters, the original plan was to go every other year with extended family. We went last summer and are planning an extended family DCL/DVC trip Dec 2010, but may delay that trip. My DD is hoping she is accepted to the WDW College Program from May to Dec. We are making tentative plans for 2 trips while she is there Aug and Dec.

2. Will you spend less money while there and if so what changes will you make so that you are spending less money than previoius trips?
Yes, more meals in the villa. Not interested in "stuff" anymore.

3. Have you become more thrify/mindful of what you spend while vacationing?
Yes, use to be sure to have a souvenir sweatshirt/shirt, but now as we get older, it's not important anymore.

4. Do you cut back at home...so that you can REALLY enjoy your vacation?
I'm a teacher without tenure, so we've been cutting back for several years to save just in case.

Congrats to your DD. Maybe she can apply to the College Program, you won't have to buy passes

Thanks and she is interested in that. I am going to PM you.

 

[permavac]

Very interesting topic. I've seen a lot of articles lately on "cutting back" due to the current economy and I do have to say how very lucky I am that my DH introduced me to the "joy of budgeting" well before the crisis. When we met, I was an already reformed shopaholic, however, I still didn't quite grasp the concept of achieving the balance between "money in" and "money out". He has really brought me around to his way of thinking - so much so that he has now created a monster I budget and control what we spend on a weekly basis and we have a pretty huge spreadsheet for tracking every penny so:

1. Will you continue to go the same amt. of times per year or for as many days?
Yes! To echo another poster, as long as DH has a job, we will keep taking our wonderful trips to Disney.

2. Will you spend less money while there and if so what changes will you make so that you are spending less money than previoius trips?
No - since everything is already budgeted, we won't be spending less, however, we would not be considered "high rollers" to begin with. We typically will buy only 1 or 2 fairly inexpensive souvenirs per visit (if any since we are both really picky about what we spend our money on). We have breakfast in our room but do eat out for other meals (TS lunch every other day and CS the other times) but we don't do signature restaurants and don't over order so again, what we do fits in our budget. Also, for accommodations, we just bought into DVC (small # of points to start) but we do plan on taking advantage of WDW package deals as well. Our upcoming week at Pop Century cost us next to nothing on the 4/7 deal and we'll be rounding our trip out at BWV. Here's to a little surf-n-turf!

3. Have you become more thrify/mindful of what you spend while vacationing?
Again, no, because of our budgeting lifestyle.

4. Do you cut back at home...so that you can REALLY enjoy your vacation?
Well, since we aren't home for the number of days that we are vacationing, we do use the money normally budgeted for groceries for that time period to supplement our vacation budget for food.

Terri

 

[edk35]

Very interesting topic. I've seen a lot of articles lately on "cutting back" due to the current economy and I do have to say how very lucky I am that my DH introduced me to the "joy of budgeting" well before the crisis. When we met, I was an already reformed shopaholic, however, I still didn't quite grasp the concept of achieving the balance between "money in" and "money out". He has really brought me around to his way of thinking - so much so that he has now created a monster I budget and control what we spend on a weekly basis and we have a pretty huge spreadsheet for tracking every penny so:

1. Will you continue to go the same amt. of times per year or for as many days?
Yes! To echo another poster, as long as DH has a job, we will keep taking our wonderful trips to Disney.

2. Will you spend less money while there and if so what changes will you make so that you are spending less money than previoius trips?
No - since everything is already budgeted, we won't be spending less, however, we would not be considered "high rollers" to begin with. We typically will buy only 1 or 2 fairly inexpensive souvenirs per visit (if any since we are both really picky about what we spend our money on). We have breakfast in our room but do eat out for other meals (TS lunch every other day and CS the other times) but we don't do signature restaurants and don't over order so again, what we do fits in our budget. Also, for accommodations, we just bought into DVC (small # of points to start) but we do plan on taking advantage of WDW package deals as well. Our upcoming week at Pop Century cost us next to nothing on the 4/7 deal and we'll be rounding our trip out at BWV. Here's to a little surf-n-turf!

3. Have you become more thrify/mindful of what you spend while vacationing?
Again, no, because of our budgeting lifestyle.

4. Do you cut back at home...so that you can REALLY enjoy your vacation?
Well, since we aren't home for the number of days that we are vacationing, we do use the money normally budgeted for groceries for that time period to supplement our vacation budget for food.

Terri

Hey I do the same thing for the grocery money. LOL SO I guess I do budget. Yeah......I do budget for stuff. I do kinda "set aside" so to speak an amt. for groceries each week...of course it isn't like we always stick to that amt. though. So.....I do take that amt. out in cash to take with us on our trip.

 

[twinklebug]

Just curious if the economy has affected your DVC vacations. Or maybe you are the type "vacationer" that has a wonderful vacation yet budgets so to speak while at WDW or at home before you go on a trip. Would love to hear your ideas. I have decided that we will be more thrifty while vacationing than on past trips. I feel that sometimes we SPEND way too much at WDW and it doesn't necessarily have to be that way to still enjoy our trips there. Plus a biggie is DD just got accepted into her number 1 college choice and she will be starting college in the fall. So we need to prioritize more so to speak. So.....here we go and I have answered too.

I'm not going to answer your questions as my life took a 180 from just 2 years back and the economy... well, I have a job, and I'm very, very happy with both it and my family. Things are good and my budgets are as frugal as ever.

I want to say pass a big CONGRATULATIONS to your daughter for getting into her 1st choice college. Mom & Dad: pat yourselves on the back too. Waiting for my DS to graduate any year now... (the Disney CP is wonderful, but is quite the distraction from studies)

 

[dcfromva]

Plus a biggie is DD just got accepted into her number 1 college choice and she will be starting college in the fall. So we need to prioritize more so to speak. So.....here we go and I have answered too.

While we missed DS a lot, we've found that when DS went off to college, we had more time to travel (and more points available). We even invited some friends along on a trip for F&W and had an awesome time. A whole new world has opened up to us.

1. Will you continue to go the same amt. of times per year or for as many days??

My perception was that we were reducing the number of trips this year, but then I looked at our pending ressies and we may actually have one more trip planned this year than we did last year....We've already purchased a couple years ahead on the AP vouchers--I try to buy a set of vouchers when I find out the price is increasing. (I am afraid they will stop the discount in the future and I want to take advantage of it while we can. )

2. Will you spend less money while there and if so what changes will you make so that you are spending less money than previoius trips? For ex. Will you eat out less in the parks? Maybe less table service meals? Less shopping? Maybe even not buying park passes or AP's?

I am always looking for ways to cut costs. I think the DDP was certainly the entre to our family eating more counter service meals--something we never really did much of until we tried DDP and had the counter service credits to use.

I used to schedule 1 tour per trip, but most things have become so pricey that we just try to stick to the things that are included in our AP.

I never do much shopping except for presents to bring back to othersand that won't change (usually Mickey shaped Gummies, Mickey pasta, Mickey pretzels and different color/flavor hot choc and Mickey head rice crispy treats.)

3. Have you become more thrify/mindful of what you spend while vacationing?

We have always been careful. Careful spending translates into more trips. I like to buy prepaid gift cards so most of the vacation expenses are prepaid.

4. Do you cut back at home...so that you can REALLY enjoy your vacation?

Disney is not a once in a lifetime vacation to us any more. We know that we will be back, so that tempers some of our objectives while on vacation.

 

[dianeschlicht]

1. Will you continue to go the same amt. of times per year or for as many days?? We are actually going the same number of days and same number of trips as usual. We'll be there for 11 days starting tomorrow, 8 days in May and 8 days in December.
2. Will you spend less money while there and if so what changes will you make so that you are spending less money than previoius trips? For ex. Will you eat out less in the parks? Maybe less table service meals? Less shopping? Maybe even not buying park passes or AP's?We have already purchased our new APs, and we will go back to using the TIW card this trip. We found we couldn't do the DDP with all that food. We'll have one table service a day, and we'll make our own breakfast and an occational lunch in our villa (just like we usually do). We will still be doing at least 3 Signatures as well. It wouldn't be a trip if we didn't do those things!
3. Have you become more thrify/mindful of what you spend while vacationing? We tend to do the same things every vacation, so I doubt it.
4. Do you cut back at home...so that you can REALLY enjoy your vacation? Not really. We cut back last year by vowing never to drive over 60 MPH no matter if the speed limit was more or not. That is really the only cutting back we have done with the economy, and that was really more of a "green" decision than anything else.

 

[starbox]

Hmmm - during my SAHM years, I was really, really, really good at doing Disney trips on a budget. Then we started staying onsite and then doing the DDP - which morphed into owning DVC and doing TIW and almost all Signature dining. Last year, I spent as much on dining as I used to spend for a DDP-inclusive 7 night moderate package.

This past December, we used our APs to do three nights offsite. I pricelined and got the DTD Hilton for 60 bucks - and we ate CS. The total cost OOP for the trip was 400.00 and it was one of the best trips I've had.

So - this year we are using our DVC points for two trips. Spring break and then one long June trip. I am using points to stay the weekend and not cash - (we usually use those extra 50-60 points for another 4-5 nights stay late summer). I'm going to try the CS DDP for part of the stay (it's split BCV/VB/AKV). We'll likely eat our TS at lunch this way, and not as many signature dinners.

Hopefully, with the money we save, we'll be able to take two three-night weekend trips in October and December using priceline or hotwire and staying offsite.

 

[ead79]

1. Will you continue to go the same amt. of times per year or for as many days??
Well, it depends. Right now we only own enough DVC points for our annual weekly December trip. We still plan to go on that, so we'll still use all our DVC points up for the year. For quickie trips over long weekends, we typically use our free Starwood Preferred Guest nights at the Dolphin. So how long we stay for those will depend somewhat on how many points we earn.

2. Will you spend less money while there and if so what changes will you make so that you are spending less money than previoius trips? For ex. Will you eat out less in the parks? Maybe less table service meals? Less shopping? Maybe even not buying park passes or AP's? Maybe a bit less. We typically like table service dining, so we'll probably stick with that for now. However, we have been a bit disappointed in our last several signature dining meals, so we're planning to cut those either down or out altogether. We don't seem to buy as many souvenirs as we used to, so that helps us save. We do have AP's right now, and we plan to keep them since we typically visit the parks around 12 or so days per year.

3. Have you become more thrify/mindful of what you spend while vacationing? I think we've become more aware of how much certain things at Disney cost and whether or not we really think they are worth the price. For instance, we thought the Segway tour was definitely worth the money; our last meal at Artist Point, not so much.

4. Do you cut back at home...so that you can REALLY enjoy your vacation? We are trying to be very mindful of our spending at home. We budget for our Disney vacations, so it's just a part of our overall budgeting.

We cut back last year by vowing never to drive over 60 MPH no matter if the speed limit was more or not.

Diane, you had me laughing with this one! Living in the metro-Atlanta area, around here you'd be run down for sure--people think the speed limit is the minimum speed, not the maximum! LOL!

 

[eliza61]

1) We only do 1 wdw vacation a year so no way am I giving that up unless there is a cataclysmic destruction of the earth.

2) Generally we are not big budget travelers. We will still try to eat at our favorite places. We do generally eat off site a time or two. We're not big souviners buyers so that's not a big expense.

3) Probably. I think I'm just now more intuned to what I spend because of the economy.

4) Yes, I will eat ramien noodles for months before giving up a vacation and I hate getting on vacation and then saying "No, you can't have a mickey bar because it will blow the budget".

Next year, we'll have our oldest starting college and of course every stinking college he's looked at is "out of state" so all the above answers may change very quickly. LOL
I may be the gal parking your cars at the WL valet just to pay for park tickets.

 

[edk35]

1) We only do 1 wdw vacation a year so no way am I giving that up unless there is a cataclysmic destruction of the earth.

2) Generally we are not big budget travelers. We will still try to eat at our favorite places. We do generally eat off site a time or two. We're not big souviners buyers so that's not a big expense.

3) Probably. I think I'm just now more intuned to what I spend because of the economy.

4) Yes, I will eat ramien noodles for months before giving up a vacation and I hate getting on vacation and then saying "No, you can't have a mickey bar because it will blow the budget".

Next year, we'll have our oldest starting college and of course every stinking college he's looked at is "out of state" so all the above answers may change very quickly. LOL
I may be the gal parking your cars at the WL valet just to pay for park tickets.

WHEW this made me laugh. See I feel that way too...I hate to budget when on a vacation proably because I am just bad at budgeting period. My kids think we have an endless supply of money and I learned my lesson fast this past July when I let DS age 14 at the time.... have a room key he could charge on. So when we went back in Nov. I didn't let him have one.

Hey maybe I can get that valet job too!!!

 

[edk35]

I am quite proud of the airfare I snagged for our July trip. I as able to get 54 bucks each way and I had a 45 buck credit which came off the total. Of course with Airtran we have to pay an additional 6 bucks per person both ways to secure our seats....but for 660 roundtrip for 5 people...I WILL TAKE IT.

 

[BWV Dreamin]

I am quite proud of the airfare I snagged for our July trip. I as able to get 54 bucks each way and I had a 45 buck credit which came off the total. Of course with Airtran we have to pay an additional 6 bucks per person both ways to secure our seats....but for 660 roundtrip for 5 people...I WILL TAKE IT.

Yep, I got that same rate for my May 2009 trip....I have never flown to Fla. for $54/one way before, can't believe I got that fare!!!!!

 

[patsal]

1. Will you continue to go the same amt. of times per year or for as many days??
For a change we are trying to economize and be gas savers. As a result our usual three vacations per year will be one very long one, and if we are very lucky maybe we'd squeze a second one in somewhere, but I am not planning on it.
2. Will you spend less money while there and if so what changes will you make so that you are spending less money than previoius trips? For ex. Will you eat out less in the parks? Maybe less table service meals? Less shopping? Maybe even not buying park passes or AP's?
I guess this is the "no spend" for passes year, since it is trip #2 on AP's . The jury is still out on what will be done next time. We will eat out less int eh parks, the old DDP that had tips included had me eating more in parks and paying OOP to add to the included gratuity and any thing anyone wanted, we even paid ofr our water int heparks rather than worrry about carrying it all with us. That has changed, no DDP of any kind, a few meals in WDW restuarants--actually all in non particiapating in DDP as we find the menus better and the prices more fair. More eating in the villa and off site. We rarely get souvineers so no change there.
3. Have you become more thrify/mindful of what you spend while vacationing? Not relaly thrifty but fell like sometimes we go and have to pay really high airfare and transport costs because we cannot go at off times. I feel liek it would be better to go less often and save that money for other things.
4. Do you cut back at home...so that you can REALLY enjoy your vacation? Not really a place I cut back too much. But overall I have cutback in the areas of eating out and take out. I find it is a place where we waste a lot of money, don't eat as healthfully as we should and since I like to cook it doesn't bother me!

 

[edk35]

Yep, I got that same rate for my May 2009 trip....I have never flown to Fla. for $54/one way before, can't believe I got that fare!!!!!

I actually got a 34 one time for one of my ways. But I have gotten 49 and 59 before too. Those were on SW though.

 

[OurDogCisco]

1. Will you continue to go the same amt. of times per year or for as many days?? Well... we live on the West coast so, our intention was to go every other year (although this year we are going twice) and then, on the other year go to Disneyland (as it is within driving distance for us). We intend to do the same going forward. When we go to WDW we tend to stay for 7 to 10 nights at a time.

2. Will you spend less money while there and if so what changes will you make so that you are spending less money than previoius trips? For ex. Will you eat out less in the parks? Maybe less table service meals? Less shopping? Maybe even not buying park passes or AP's? No... we won't eat out less. The meals are part of the vacation. We don't normally buy annual passes except this year we have them. So, I did buy the TiW card. In the past, we did the DDP. I do buy non-expiring park tickets so, I have several tickets with left over days and water park days. As for shopping my kids save money for things they want. We usually just buy one nice sweatshirt when we go. But remember we only go once every other year. On my next trip I plan to buy some art for my office.

3. Have you become more thrify/mindful of what you spend while vacationing? Not really...

4. Do you cut back at home...so that you can REALLY enjoy your vacation? Well... my dh works a lot of OT as one poster said not by choice. So, we really cherish our vacations. He takes 4 weeks off a year and we travel to other places. However, when we travel to other places we are always staying in a condo and tend to eat in about 50% of the time. This way we can enjoy more vacations. Now, if money got tight we'd just do different vacations. I do try and use frequent flyer points whenever possible. I use points to stay in hotels, etc... On most trips I don't shop much. I just collect Christmas ornaments. I've never really enjoyed shopping anyways. We don't eat out much at home as I love to cook. Although with food prices the way they are today, I'm thinking it would be cheaper to eat out than in. At the moment we haven't changed much. However, we'll see what this year brings.