HELP!! We are always over budget!

[Yvette Q.O.D.]

We go to Disney World at least once a year. I always work out a budget for hotel, meals, grocery trip, tickets, snacks, souvineers, and fun camp for the kids.

We just can't seem to stick to the budget. I try to do my budget based on what was spent the previous trip.

We even bring snacks into the parks to help curb the costs. Oh, I even try to budget some misc. money.

Please send your tips.

Yvette

 

[Sleepy]

We always deal with cash when we visit the parks. The money is in our checking account. We have set a limit of $100 a day as our spending money and so a way to make sure we ONLY spend that much is each morning we go to an ATM and withdraw $100 (which is our set budget) and when the money runs out, so does our spending. Everyone has a different limit that they are willing to spend each day. I have heard of some people putting their limits in individual envelopes. This would work too if you have a safe place for the cash. Just do whatever it takes to NOT spend the money you don't plan to throw away. Good luck

 

[Mouser]

We have done the envelope bit...but we put travellers cheques in them and locked them up in the individual room safes, then we know how much we spent each day. We take an extra envelope and put the remaining cheques from each day in them and use it is a deposit envelope, taking an extra one out if we think we wil have an extremely expensive day....

One way we used to track money when the kids were with this..this may sound silly but we used to be on a such a tight budget we had to track where our money and wanted a reference for the next trip, was write everything down in a small Mickey Notebook I carried with me....I used to write down every newspaper, soda, t-shirt or cookie we bought, entire trip, I was very thorough. At night we could see where it went, and before the next trip I would review it and see how much things seemed to cost..it worked well for us then....

 

[Yvette Q.O.D.]

Thanks for the ideas, I think I will try them on our next trip.

I usually don't have a problem saying no, but when at Disney it's soooooo hard.

Wish I were there now!

Thanks
Yvette

 

[mikenlisa1]

We go down with Envelopes !
Each one marked with a day and the food amount for that day, if we plan to take in a sit down lunch we allow for more money. We plan on $60 a day there are 3 of us DH 33, Me 34, DS 2 will be 3 on the last day of next trip.
We find over the years 10 b 20 l 20 d and 10 for popcorn, pop, whatever.
We always have envelopes with spending money and we will charge our room card then use the money to pay. and we never pay the first thing I want I wait and look, Most of the time I forget what I wanted.
If you have kids old enough start having them save money and doing odd jobs to make money, and then help them split up the money, if they end up with $100 and you will be going to parks 5 days thats 20 a day and when they come to you wanting more SAY NO !
unless it is for tax. We even plan to budget DS this year $50, he does not ask for much so when he does it is ok.
One last thing because this is getting long
during the year we have Envelopes marked
Hotel 400, (stay at all stars great rate), car 200, food 480, spending 300 ,tickets 400, then we start saving until one is full and move to the next that way we know what is paid for ahead of time.

 

[Mic]

When we took our kids out of school for a week-long trip in Sept.-October '99, my 11-year-old daughter was put in charge of the budget in lieau of homework that she would miss. It was her job to write down everything we spent for 9 days. Not only did her "financial report" earn her extra credit, but alot of her friends' families used this as a tool in planning their own Disney vacation, as she had written down EVERYTHING from snacks to fireworks cruises! We took envelopes in everyday with the food/snack allowance, and we had an envelope with enough $$ for the AP's, another one for fireworks cruise, etc. Our kids were given their own Disney Dollars to spend, and knew not to ask for more. 12 trips later, we still use the daily envelope method, and the only time we go over-budget is to buy pins(and I put that on my credit card so I can see 4 weeks later just how bad I went over!) I do not take more money than what I plan to spend, and take the credit card just for "emergencies"(does pin addiction count?) Also, my family goes over menus at Deb Wills' site, usually deciding before we leave what they will order, so I budget that amount plus tax and gratuity, and an extra $10 in case the prices have gone up, and I have never been short. We also budget $3 a day per person for snacks(that buys a goofy bar, popcorn, etc)and we sometimes do not spend all that. It's easy to spend a lot of $$ at WDW, but by spending less on each trip, we can afford to go more often. Good luck!

 

[Yvette Q.O.D.]

Mic,

That is exactly what I told my DH. The less we spend the more often we can go. I really like the idea of checking out the menu prices before leaving. We also know the restaurants we want to eat at before we go.

I'm so excited because planning is half the fun.

I'll be marking my envelopes today to start saving, and our spare change jar is just about full too.

Thanks everybody!

More tips welcome!

Yvette

 

[Sleepy]

Next time you are at the bank cashing a check or whatever, ask them if they have any gold dollars. Buy a few each time and drop them in your change jar. You are less tempted to spend a coin than a paper dollar and you would be surprised how quickly those add up.

 

[Lisa P.]

Pre-pay everything possible (room, transportation, passes) and use only cash (or travelers checks) while there, as many have mentioned. We also give each of our children their souvenir, video arcade and snack cart (i.e. Mickey bars, popcorn, sweet nuts, cokes) budget into an envelope at the beginning of the week. They may add whatever they'd like from their own allowance savings. They're told that when that money is gone, they are done spending for the trip. Period. It's plenty enough if they are frugal.

We've found that this drastically reduces the questions, "Mom, Dad, can we get ice cream?" and "Look at this cool toy, can we get it?" They are also more apt to ask one another (or us) if anyone wants to share when buying snacks or skip it if it's just a "gimme" rather than something they really want. They think about their souvenir purchases more carefully and sometimes opt to go back later or hold off on buying any until the last day, when we visit DD. To be honest, with their mroe careful thought put into each purchase, it has been much easier for US to stop and think before splurging too!

 

[FINFAN]

We have a point system that earns a disney dollar per point. Every time one of us does something above and beyond their normal chores, work etc, they earn a point. I t has to really count tho...no cheating just to get the $. At the end of each week we vote on the points to see if they were really worthy and before the trip I will total the earnings and have them turned into Disney Dollars. ONLY this can be used on souvie's....none of our vacation budget $.This works for any type of trip....just convert the points to cash...you'll be surprised at how clean your garage, weeds,house etc. are a few weeks before your trip, and how NICE the children are to each other and others....neighbors even benefit from us because kids are willing to help their friends out with stuff.It usually saves quite a bit off of our "extras" expence list.We are also way more choosy in what we will purchase as any leftover $ is the persons to keep. One vacation DD even gave her leftover $16 to us to put towards the bills waiting at home.She earned another point on the spot for her generosity!

 

[Radar]

This is a one timer but we went to Planet Hollywood. there were 6 of us. We split into 3 groups of 2 and gave each a $5 off of $20 coupon. Four of us ended up beside each other the other two a few feet down. We got $15 off which is decent, we beat the mandatory
group tip. You can get the coupon off their web page. The food was excellent.You may want to make a resesrvation. The line was like an hour, my wife who has bad knees had asked for the elevator, when we get off on the second floor they handed up three seating slips for each party. We did not give them back. We had our food within 10 minutes and it was great. You may want to check the elevator yourself....