Spending Money Budget - HELP!!!

[LeeHarman]

My family and I (My Wife, 8 year old & 4 year old) will be visiting WDW at the end of this year from the UK. We are trying to work out just how much spending money we should take for our 2 week holiday :shrug:
I know its really difficult to judge or advise on, but would a $200 a day budget for us all be a resonable amount to take? :veryconfu

We are not part of the dinning plan so included in the budget would have to be food & drink.

As I said before I know this is quite a difficult one to answer, but I just wondered if other people work to a budget or do you go with the flow and worry about it when the credit cards bill comes in!?:lol:

Thanks in advance for any pointers.

 

[awilliams4]

$200 per day is plenty for us. Me, Wife, 14 DD and 8 DS.

We do two sit down meals a day, no counter service just good meals. But NO buffet's, that will kill your budget.

Breakfast $45 or so, that is about $12 for the three oldest, $7 for the DS and $6 for tip or so.

Dinner $75 or so. We snack for lunch, we send ourselves a box of goodies in the mail to our resort ahead of time.

So food is about $130 a day for us leaving $70 per day for a soda, ice cream, shirt, toys, etc.

 

[LivingtheDream]

first off, hope you have a safe trip "across the pond" and enjoy your stay here in the U.S. ...... if you plan on getting a rental car, you can go to one of the local grocery stors (Publix, Goodings, Winn Dixie) and stock up on bottled water, juice boxes, snacks, and essentials .... you are allowed to bring food into the park, you just cannot being in a cooler( styrofoam or otherwise ) ..... another suggestion would be to go to one of the buffet breakfasts, so you can fill up before hitting the parks (theres a good one at Fort Wilderness and some of the local restraunts like Golden Corral and Ponderosa) and have a light lunch ..... we usually get small bottles of water, freeze them the night before, and they last almost the whole day ... lastly, try and avoid the stores in the hotels as their prices are usually one to two and a half times greater then off the park prices ... feel free to pm me if you have any other questions on things in the area

 

[wdwforus]

As long as you stick to counter service you should be fine. You should have enough left over for 2 to 4 table service meals too. For a family of four you can figure on $25 to $35 per counter service meal. If you start adding in desserts and sides to each meal the cost is going to go up.

I think it will be closer to at least $40 per counter meal. We were just there and as an example at Pinnochios we spent $51 for 5 of us. Thats for 2 orders of chicken with fries, 2 personal pepperoni pizzas, 1 side order of fries, a sandwhich and 5 drinks. The cheapest meal we had was at Pizza Planet and that was for 5 pizzas and drinks and that was $43. The cheapest meals are pizzas and who wants to eat that every meal, except for my kids:brick: . I would plan on a minumum of $25 for breakfast at the food courts, $40 for lunch and $75 for dinner. Character meals are a minumum of $75 plus tip. Our Brown Derby meal came to $166 before the tip. The Hoop De Doo cost us $250. Then throw in a Dole Whip, a couple of Mickey Sandwhiches, now your atleast at $150 just for food and snacks. Thats if you plan on eating out every meal. We got 2 pizzas at FW for $30 and they were very good. We also tried Gardengrocer.com and were very happy with them. Check it out. For $12 they will deliver food right to your hotel, so if you get a fridge, you can have fresh fruit, cereal, muffins, bagels and all that stuff to help save $$$. I highly suggest it.

 

[snakeislandboy]

I would also check allearsnet.com and mousesavers.com. There are some excellent tips on getting the most out of your money for food. For example they have suggestions for locations that have good counter service meals that can be shared by two people. I've found these little tips to help on saving cash.

I don't have children, but I have friends who go with children and they tell their children that they can buy a treat or souvenir at the end of the day or their stay. That way, when the kids are bombarded by stores and merch, they can be mindful and choose something instead of just wanting everything they walk by.

 

[Deadmanwalking]

Well excluding your room and tickets to the parks from the equation. $200/day is more than enough unless you'll be buying lots of mixed drinks and dining at the pricey table service joints.

Safely assume that for breakfast you will spend 8 for you and 8 for your wife... for the 4 year old maybe 6 and 4 for the 2 year old ($26 for breakfast assumes your in a disney resort for breakfast, if your offsite it may be free). Inside the park for lunch look at $30-35 for your family. Dinner would be 40-50. Now those assume counter service. So if your doing counter service you'll spend about $100/day on food. If you put in snacks you're going to see that go up very fast, Disney is not cheap for cokes or snacks so figure $25 for a snack.... still though you under 200. If you do a character meal your looking at $75-$100 depending on the venue. ... Now if you have access to off site transportation you can cut any of those costs in half. There are a lot of more reasonable priced places to eat than inside the park or resorts but if your trapped your trapped.

Where a family can quickly go over a budget isn't really the main meals. The real killers are the snacks and drinks during the day. Those add up fast and if your not careful a budget can quickly get buried by the "I'm thirsty little ones."

If your going to be there any length of time and your on a budget I would strongly suggest you take one day and either rent a car or hire a taxi to take you to an off site place like Wal-mart or Target. You could get some cases of bottled water and snack cracker/cookies that will more than make up for the price of the taxi or rental car in savings. Also if your little one wants some disney merchandise that there are two good places offsite to get those things at much lower prices than in the park. 1. Wal-mart has a lot of disney stuff that may satisfy them. 2. There is a disney outlet at the outlet mall where you can buy merchandise that is no longer being sold in the park or that the park bought to much of at much lower prices. Hey it isn't like they're going to keep the stuff forever it will quickly be pushed to the back of their closet.

 

[MouseearsDeb]

Are you staying on site? If so, would the dining plan be a better option? With kids, if you are going to be doing several character meals, it would probably be worth it. We did the free dining plan last year and will consider paying for it if we stay on site next time. It is really nice to not have to worry about the 'ifs' in regards to the dining. If we eat here, then we won't be able to eat the rest of the day! or Mom, dad, can we do four character meals (average around $100+ for four).

Being a family of 4, we don't spend a lot per day. Me and DH don't usually spend a lot for gifts, etc. but do try to let the kids get a few things here and there. If we were staying off site, $200 would cover us quiet well. There are several off site resteraunts that are a fraction of the price of WDW resteraunts.

It just depends on you spending habits and what it takes to make your trip magical. Hope this helps a little.

Have a magical time! :ROFLOL:

 

[DisneyBuffinDE]

I don't budget for WDW. My thought is as long as you know it is expensive it doesn't matter. We always get the dinning plan and we get disney dollars whenever we can. I'm not sure if they have disney dollars in the UK. You get them at the disney store. When you are at WDW they work same as cash. So months in advance whenever I'm at the mall I pick up some. I also ask for them as gifts. This really helps. Kind of like instant spending money because they can only be used inside the park . I know some parents who give the dollars as allowance.

 

[Lindsy1052]

My family and I (My Wife, 8 year old & 4 year old) will be visiting WDW at the end of this year from the UK. We are trying to work out just how much spending money we should take for our 2 week holiday :shrug:
I know its really difficult to judge or advise on, but would a $200 a day budget for us all be a resonable amount to take? :veryconfu

We are not part of the dinning plan so included in the budget would have to be food & drink.

As I said before I know this is quite a difficult one to answer, but I just wondered if other people work to a budget or do you go with the flow and worry about it when the credit cards bill comes in!?:lol:

Thanks in advance for any pointers.

With the ages of your children, why not go on the "dine" plan. You would get 1 counter service meal, 1 table service meal & a snack per night of your stay and your looking at about $102.00 per day for all of you. On your table service meals that would include appetizer, entree, dessert & drink plus gratuities...

You can't beat it...

 

[LoriMistress]

$150-200 a day should work out okay.

 

[Capt. Salty]

first off, hope you have a safe trip "across the pond" and enjoy your stay here in the U.S. ...... if you plan on getting a rental car, you can go to one of the local grocery stors (Publix, Goodings, Winn Dixie) and stock up on bottled water, juice boxes, snacks, and essentials .... you are allowed to bring food into the park, you just cannot being in a cooler( styrofoam or otherwise ) ..... another suggestion would be to go to one of the buffet breakfasts, so you can fill up before hitting the parks (theres a good one at Fort Wilderness and some of the local restraunts like Golden Corral and Ponderosa) and have a light lunch ..... we usually get small bottles of water, freeze them the night before, and they last almost the whole day ... lastly, try and avoid the stores in the hotels as their prices are usually one to two and a half times greater then off the park prices ... feel free to pm me if you have any other questions on things in the area

This type of plan works well for us, too. As soon as we're settled in, we head off to the gorcery store and stock up on such items as above...also deli meats/bread for sandwiches - hey, you do get mini-fridges in most rooms, so might as well use them, as well as save a bit of cash. We've really learned to "nickel and dime" our way around while on vacation, while still taking in whatever restaurants/shows/shopping we want. Works for us, but each family/group has it's own way of making it through their trip. Have fun, and welcome to the U.S. (in advance...:animwink: )
:wave:

 

[UKMickeyFan]

I agree, we travel from the UK and the Dining Plan is a great deal! But it really depends on where you like to eat. If you aren't big on table service or you have a car and and area prepared to eat off site, $200 will be plenty.

 

[mep517]

To make your dollar go further, I would highly recommend splitting meals. My husband and I do this when we are at Disney. We have pretty hearty appetites, and splitting meals usually fills us up. Then, we also have room for treats (ice cream or a hot dog at Casey's, etc) later in the day.

We tried this several trips ago when we were on a very strict budget and I was amazed at how well it worked out. So much so that now that we have more wiggle-room financially, we still do it. Disney has such good food, and this way we get to taste more of it!

:wave: