Originally Posted By mamacita This trip I am going to really try to stay within our allotted Disneyland trip budget. Every trip I say the same thing and every trip I go over, by a lot. Are there any ways that you guys stay in your budget? Tips, hints, tricks? I think I make a pretty fair estimate of how much things will be but I miss the mark. I pay for the hotel and tickets before we go so it's basically food and souvenirs that I have a hard time with. We don't bring a lot of food into the parks but we do bring in water and sodas as paying $2.75 for one drink kills me. I figure $100 for food per day should be plenty. There are 5 of us; 3 kids (10, 8, and 5) and my husband and I. Maybe I am off there? Thanks for the help. :-D
Originally Posted By 4Disnee I also seem to have a hard time with spending on goodies. LOL What we usually do for our lunches is bring snacks along with us like some lunch meat and cheese with crackers and chips. We usually head back to the room about one or so cause by that time our DS who is 10 wants to swim and we could realx. So we save by eating our luches at the room. We usually go and get some fries at the hotel or some kind of finger food and it works really well for us. I love to eat breakfast in the park at the Carnation Cafe and our dinners also somewhere in the park so we try to save on the lunches. Have a great trip!
Originally Posted By busycamom I usually figure $40 per person per day for food. We don't usually spend that much but it is nice to have. I give my kids $60 in Disney Dollars for souveniers and whatever else they want for the entire trip. Then I know that they really want the item and they are not just caught up in the moment. I will usually buy them a couple of samll things before we leave if we have extra money left. Hope that helps! Have a great trip!
Originally Posted By funnygarcia I've heard of people using the envelope trick. You set aside money for each day, seal in envelope. When the money is gone.. it's gone! I budget about $100 a day for food for DH, me and 10 and 13 yr old. Usually spend less than budgeted! Breakfast in room, sncak foods packed (granola bars, fruit snacks), water with meals (we pack a refillable water bottle, get ice and filtered water from restaurants. Use single packets of Crystal Light). Split meals, eat child meals instead, Mcdonald's treat booklets for ice cream cones and fries for free. One treat per day (typically shared). We find that we don't eat as much when on vacation. We also have a set amount $ for each person for souveniers. Shop at the Character Warehouse instead of the park. Very choosy about what to buy. Good luck!
Originally Posted By DVC_dad One thing that has helped me stay in budget at Disney Parks and really in the rest of everyday life is this simple thing I do... I pay cash for everything. For some reason, handing over a hundred dollar bill is a lot harder for me than taking $500 off the debit card. So I take an alloted amount of CASH into the parks in my "Fanny Pack" (yes I know, I used to make fun of middle aged dad's with fanny packs too, and then one day I became one...anyway...) and after I go through that amount of cash I'm done. Of course I have the debit card for emergencies, but for me, cash is key.
Originally Posted By SuzieQ I don't think $100 for 5 people is realistic food-wise. That may be where you are off. We budget that for 3 of us. Also souvenier money is key. Especially with the kids. From the time my son was about 6 or 7, we gave him a set amount of money for the whole trip. We told him, "If Mom and Dad ask you if you want an ice cream (toy, whatever), we are paying. If we are walking past an ice cream cart and you say you want one, you are paying." It worked! He still had most of his money left on the last day and went on a shopping spree. I know other people who don't get any souveniers until the last day. That way they know what they really want and don't impulse buy.
Originally Posted By DVC_dad True that Suzie...$100 not enough even for counter service for 5. I love your technique for the "stuff" like ice cream and whatnot. I'ma try that! ...also the ability of a parent to actually *gasp* say the word "NO" to their kids... that helps.
Originally Posted By mickeynewe >>> I also seem to have a hard time with spending on goodies. LOL <<<< I'm not going to say a word...not one little word...nope, I'm going to be good.... Definitely under-budget, IMHO, on the food! For our family of 3, we budget at least $100 per day. If we are going to a nice sit-down restaurant in the park, we budget even more. Like SuzieQ said, we do our shopping on the very last day. By then we all know what we want. Our last day is usually a half-day, although, not this year! YAY! We typically eat breakfast in the park, ride one last favorite ride (okay maybe 3-4) and then do our shopping before the long drive home. As far as money for the kids, we give our daughter a budget. In the past we have given her a rewards card (won't be doing that anymore) but you can buy them Disney gift cards to use in the parks. She knows that is the money she has to spend. That way she chooses wisely. She also usually has money from her grandparents to spend. We will also buy her a few things here and there, but like stated above, she will NOT ask for them. It is something that is OFFERED when we see she is interested in an item. She has also been earning her own money this year by doing a few magic shows and I'm curious to see how much of her own "hard-earned" cash she decides to spend! I usually do a rough budget of expenses, but never count in the money we pay at the parks...I don't think I actually want to know. I was quite surprised at how high our expenses were this year because we typically stay on property, but this year we are staying at Hojo's with the $54 entertainment rate. We are already at $1,750, but we have some special events planned this year. LOL..I guess its a good thing we aren't staying on property this year! *sniffle*
Originally Posted By mickeynewe >>> ...also the ability of a parent to actually *gasp* say the word "NO" to their kids... that helps. <<< Amen to that!
Originally Posted By SuzieQ DVC_dad, the first time we did the set amount of money thing, I started saving change as soon as we decided to take the trip. I told my son, that however much we saved up would be how much he had to spend. You should have seen him checking under couch cushions, the bottom of the clothes dryer, etc! LOL Just before we went on the trip, we took the rolled up change to the bank and cashed it in. Now that he's a teen, he's again seeing the value of saving up change. When he's out with friends and they hit a drive through or something, the kids never want to carry coins in their pockets, so they dump it in the ashtray of his car. Every once in a while, he trades all of his change for bills from me. I still save up rolled change in a shoe box as my mad money. It bought me a last minute plane ticket to DL two weeks ago so I could join Lisann22 and Pixie Glitter on a trip!
Originally Posted By mickeynewe What fun Suzie Q! I have jars filled with coins. Maybe I should try rolling them up to see just how much I have!! Thanks for the idea. I can put it towards our food budget. Great suggestion!!!!!
Originally Posted By MOLLYSMOM I use the "pay cash" method as well. I start planning and saving 18 months in advance, and have the trip booked for and paid for 10 months in advance. As a matter of fact, I just paid off our next August trip this past monday. Then, I go with the "we're on vacation" attitude. Since we only go on a big-time vacation every 2 years, I don't want to have to tell my DD, or myself "no" when we see something we want. I DO remember being told "no" by DH last year when I wanted to bring home one of the suits of armor at Medieval Times...preferably the one with the Green Knight in it...but I digress... Since I start planning soooooooo early, I have lots of time to save for food and souvineers. For the three of us, I take $300 per day. Waaaaaayyyyyyyy more than we need, but I always bring money back home with me. We aren't breakfast eaters, so the continental breakfast at our hotel works just fine for us. We had the fridge in our hotel stocked with lunch makings, and I think we only ate dinner 2 times in the week we were there, because we were having too much fun in the park to take a food break...we pretty much just grazed on churros and Mickey Mouse pretzels all day and weren't up for a sit down meal. Realistically though, I would figure about $40 per person per day for food and snacks. As far as souvineers go, I'm not the one to ask, but my friend gave each of her boys $20.00 per day, and they came back with a lot of cool things. I think we all TRY to stay within some kind of budget...we can't let it become a financial free-for-all...however, it IS a vacation, and after working hard or going to school all year we deserve to have a great time with our family. Sometimes that means buying overpriced t-shirts, silly hats, water bottles with battery operated fans, and glow lights with Mickey's head on them.(Very cool, by the way).
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Originally Posted By DVC_dad ^ ^ ^ Once I read that I wished that I had not posted it. MEH... I'll blame that one on the bad influence that RoadTrip is on me.
Originally Posted By SuzieQ LOL! It was funny, DVC_dad! And if you really want it removed, report it to the moderators and request they remove it. They are very good about that, as I know from past personal experience
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo I agree, food is under budget here. Typically for a day at Disney - land, World or Paris, we budget $150 a day for food for the 4 of us Mikey is three and Jes is 18 months. Also, I factor in about $100 a day for souvenirs. So far we have not really gone over budget over the last 10 years.
Originally Posted By MOLLYSMOM DVC dad...I would have been open to some kind of counter offer from my DH, but he just said "NO" and that was that. I told him that if he would agree to dress up in a suit of armor, I wouldn't feel the need to take one home, but all I got for that comment was "the look." By the way, I'll cross my fingers that you don't get in too much trouble with your lovely bride for your previous comments about the waitress. You know, some things ARE better left unsaid.
Originally Posted By plutospal77 I usually save a grand for 3 of us. We always come home home with $ in our pocket.Most of our money goes to food though and I usually start saving 6 months in advance.
Originally Posted By mamacita Okay, so I must be off on food. The two youngest typically share, my oldest daughter and I share, and hubby usually gets his own but shares anyway- we are "family style" eaters. Everything is fair game! So it seems like $40 per person is about the norm on food and that means I could be a good $100 under per day! If that's the case there is $500-$700 right there- WOW! My ability to say no in real life is solid. My ability to say no at Disneyland sucks! I buy the little trickets before under the guise that I won't allow them to spend over their money there and I always do. I usually give them each $50 but one trip to Build-A-Bear alone trashes that. So food and gifties is where I am lacking. (((( Thanks for the insight fellow spenders.
Originally Posted By tink_26 For our family of 5, I budget $100/day in food. Some days we are over, some under. One trick I use is a check register. I just start with our Disney balance and work our way down. Every night I just deduct our purchases. It doesn't take long and I stay on budget. I also always have some misc $ saved just in case I find something I need. It came in handy one time we were asked to go to the Disney studios and company D!
