I think our trip is off....

[la79al]

We have a trip booked for the end of June. We were planning on paying for it with our tax money. Well we did our taxes and we can pay for our trip and still have some left over. Some stuff has come up since our trip was booked though and we are thinking that our money should go into the savings account instead of to Disney. DH is leaving the choice up to me. He has told me that he wants to go because I worked so hard on planning this trip and it will be at least 5 years before we get to go again. Tonight I suggested that I go with my sister instead and he was not happy at all about that suggestion. I am really thinking about saying we will just skip Disney. It is causing so much stress right now because while it is not incredibly expensive we are thinking the money might be better used elsewhere. Also, if I do decide to go, and we go, once we get back and something comes up that we can't afford, I am going to feel horrible. I know that we never know what tomorrow is going to bring but I also know that we can have a nice family vacation (the kids love camping) for less than Disney and then we may be better able to afford tomorrows unexpected expenses. I guess I just cry myself to sleep a couple of nights and then go into AAA and cancel our trip.

 

[jojoandhb]

I think you can do Disney on a budget. Stay at a value resort during free dining season for example. Push your trip back a few months and try to save even $100 a week. September is 20 or so weeks away, you could save $2,000 which would definitely help pay for the trip. I think you can make it work. I'm not sure I understand the cut-your-husband-out-and-go-with-your-sister suggestion. I wouldn't have liked that either if I were him. But, he wants to go, so try a new plan. You can change your dates and get your deposit applied to your new ones.

 

[Vickie46]

I agree.. do Disney on a tight budget... Value Resort, Bring your breakfast foods.. maybe lunch too.. eat a cheap meal at night.. you can do this!

 

[la79al]

We already have a value resort booked but we can't go at all during the school year. We have DDP booked because we all got tired of CS on our last trip and we will not have access to transportation. I had decided to drop park hoppers and go with just adding water parks. We could drop a night (or MAYBE 2) but it makes very little difference. Our total comes to slightly under 3000 without transportation there and back. I thought going with my sister would let me go (since DH says that is why he wants to go) and cost a lot less than taking DH and the DSKids along. SKids don't know about the trip so they won't be heartbroken.

 

[dopeyprincesses]

Awww I hope you can work it out but I understand about using the last bit of funds for a Disney trip that's how we are going this year in November. Actually, we will probably put the trip on our Visa and then pay it off with next year's income tax. PP has a great idea about going in September for free dining...we can't go then because DH won't have enough vacation time in with the new job. Hopefully we don't need a new roof or something worse hit our budget.

trying to think of money saving ideas:
Were you planning on camping at Disney? That's what we are doing. I know I can save $500 off our trip if we don't get 4 days of dining plan but I'm not willing to change that because I want our girls to go to character meals so the other 4 days we're staying we will crockpot most of our dinners.

I have really cut down on eating out so we can afford this Disney trip - we only go out to Applebee's or take out chinese once a month used to be alot more.

I make my own pizza now on the weekend so that only costs us about $3.

Use our timer coffee pot for DH morning coffee for on the way to work instead of $3-$4 at Dunkin Donuts.

best of luck to you guys and stress-free planning

 

[jojoandhb]

There are a lot of ways to save money. When I sat down and figured out our savings plan for Disney, I noticed that we spend a lot of money on weekends. We take our daughter shopping and to the movies and we eat out a lot. During the week, my daughter and I get bored and we go shopping, too. I bought a zoo membership and started packing snacks and going to the zoo 3-4 times a week. My daughter is not tired of this believe it or not. It's cheap, fun, and great exercise. We are saving $200 a week just cutting out some of our activities. It'll all be worth it when we get to Disney.

 

[Cdn Friends of Pooh]

Also, if I do decide to go, and we go, once we get back and something comes up that we can't afford, I am going to feel horrible.

We can totally sympathize with this but the other side of the coin is how would you feel if you cancelled the trip then nothing unexpected came up and you realize you cancelled it for naught?

Life is short and it's not like a trip to WDW is something you can just do anytime you feel like it.

That being said we cancelled our annual anniversary trip in 2004 because of a budget that was too tight, figuring we wouldn't really enjoy ourselves if we were constantly worrying about money and trying to save a dollar here and there.

Perhaps before you do anything rash like cancelling, browse through the budget section of the Dis. Those folks know how to stretch a dollar (both at home while you're saving to go and also once you're there) better than anyone.

Good luck whichever route you choose!

 

[TinkerbellLuvr7]

I'm sorry to hear about your trip!! I agree with others, there are ways you can save money and if cutting a few days off the trip and getting rid of the high level park passes allows you to go to wdw i would go for it. I'm sure your kids are very excited about the trip although things happen that you cant control like finances and I'm sure you could find a nice sub. if you decide not to go to disney. But maybe sit down and discuss it further with ur DH before you head to AAA crying to cancel your trip.


what side of PA are you on? if you are on the west side you could always drive to Ohio and go to cedar point or g.lake/6 flags (which ever it is now) and make a long weekend out of it and camp, if you are on the east maybe you could do a weekend beach trip? of course none of that compares to WDW!!

 

[rjeash]

My husband was going on about the cost and what we could do to the house with the money we are spending on Disney. This is our first and probably only trip. My philosophy is this, in 20 years, the house will still be there and the house will need more repairs and we could have spent the money on the house but instead spent it on our memories. The kids won't remember if the house needed windows but they will remember the first time he see's Stitch or she sees Ariel. I know this is tough. We have been blessed with tax refunds to pay for our trip. We could have put into savings, like my husband wanted or choose to spend it on our family. My husband is now getting very excited and the kids can't wait.

Also, you mention that you can't take the kids out of school. We are taking our out Sept 4-14 and will work with them to get caught up. We have never done this before but I know several parents that have and you will save a bundle on rack rate and free dining, especially if you do a value resort.

Good Luck!

 

[pepe of ohio]

I agree.. do Disney on a tight budget... Value Resort, Bring your breakfast foods.. maybe lunch too.. eat a cheap meal at night.. you can do this!

Your children are young only once and time flies by and they are gone, you can't bring back memories and life moves on. Our children are both married and gone but the memories we haveand pictures of all the Disney trips is priceless. You can never plan or forecast the future, we life for today, I've seen too many people say, oh next year or when things are better only to be goe in a few years. We plan to now, the future hasn't been written yet and no matter what we do now has no effect on later. Take a value, cheap eat in the room, no souvenior vacation, the kids will alway remember the tight ones.

 

[Cee]

.......nobody, on their deathbed ever said, "I wish I had worked more." or "I'm
sure glad I had the master bath grouted." I'm going out on a limb here, but I'm
betting nobody has. Be happy any way you can.

 

[aka-mad4themouse]

Only you know what is best for you and your family's finances. I applaud you for having the insight to realize that NOW might not be the right time to visit WDW. If you need support or a shoulder to cry on, hop on over to the Budget Board (see the link in my signature). There are a lot of people over there who will help you to do WDW now for less, or they'll give you some info on how to save for a future trip while you get your "emergency fund" in order.

Canceling a much-anticipated trip is never fun. But being on vacation while worrying about your finances isn't fun, either. {{HUGS}} to you. I know how bad you must feel.

 

[jenseib]

I wouldn't cancel either. I'm not sure how many days you are staying, but we stayed for 4 nights for about 1400 with the dining plan. (We only had 2 adults on the plan) Maybe cut a few nights out. Or go late August. (I think the dining plan is free then too??) Is Spirit airlines near you? Sign up for there specials and you can sometimes find really cheap fares. Also sign up for Soutwest if they are near you, and htey let you know fo specials as well. Or you could just drive down to save a little. But to me, I think it's not a very big savings. I am not a big water park person, so I would drop that option as well, and jut buy a day when I got down there if I wanted to go.

 

[Samar]

I'm with some others in saying don't cancel. I see where you are coming from (unexpected expenses that come up and bite you from out of nowhere) but I told DH that going to Disney is like having another kid in our case. There's never a "right" time and if we keep waiting for the "right time" it will pass us by and we won't realize it until it's too late.

Some small budget savers can be:

-bring your own water to the park in a book bag along with some small snacks to avoid over-priced ice cream bars.

-IF your kids have never gone to WDW before then let them get one small souvenir from each park at the end of the day OR one big souvenir (reasonably priced, of course) at the end of the trip.

-Instead of buying souvenirs IN Disney, stock up on some goodies at the Disney Store (they've had GREAT sales lately) before you leave and dispense them throughout the trip.

-drop the Water park option. If you're staying in a value, just hit the pool. I know it's not the same but it's still saving a small chunk of money.

-Air fare changes a lot. Check all the sites and if it seems too high, perhaps wait a day to see if it goes down. If I would've followed that advice I would've saved $80 per ticket on Cheaptickets.com

-Get a jar and drop loose change in it at the end of the day. If you ever want to buy something like lipstick for example but you really don't need it, put the money you would've used towards the lipstick into the jar.

-After the jar fills up a bit, take it to a coin machine to get the $'s. Then head to the Disney store and turn them into Disney Dollars so you won't be tempted to spend the money on random things

***Those are just some things that I can think of off the top of my head. I wish we were staying on-site to save the whole rental car thing but due to dietary reasons we have to rent a car to drive and buy food off-site unless we want to live on CS the whole time we're there.

Good luck with whatever you choose Money problems suck

 

[AllesonWonderland]

Keep researching, I bet you can find a way to do it! We just got back from our first trip to WDW over Spring Break. I just did the final tally and we spent 8 nights there for under $3k! (Including transporation and everything.) Everyone had a magical time.

Ditto on heading over to the Budget Board. There is a wealth of information over there. Like others have said, not only for saving money on your trip, but day to day stuff too. Perhaps if you can find a way to tweak your regular budget you can feel more comfortable about taking the trip and still knowing you can handle any unexpected expenses that come up down the road.

Good luck to you!!

 

[Disney8704]

I agree, dont cancel. Try your best to find everyway to save money. DH and I just moved into a new house and we finally we able to buy a freezer cuz we have the room now. We are planning on going grocery shopping on the 15th and buy enough food to last us until June 1st and it will only cost us $200, when we normally spend $200 on food every 2 weeks! Thank goodness for Sams Club! We always buy food that we can have leftovers for the next night. Try doing that if possible. Give up extra useless spendings like DVDs, going out to eat and to the movies. Dont give it up altogether. Still go to a movie or dinner once a month, to get out and relax for a lil bit. Make a habit of getting the sunday paper and clip out coupons. You wouldnt believe how much money I save every month using coupons! If you like to rent movies at blockbuster, drink coke, save your points, join mycokerewards.com and use your points to rent free movies. Its only like 30 some points to rent 1 movie, and it adds up VERY quickly. See where you can cut back on your monthly spendings. You would be surprised where you can cut back. As for the trip, dont do water parks feature on your tickets. That will save you even more money, and you will get the chance to spend more time at the 4 parks. And who knows, maybe even give you the chance to shave off a day or 2. Dont do the DDP. Instead bring your own breakfast food or save the money to eat a huge breakfast, skip lunch, maybe get something to snack on to tie you over, bring something from home if you need to, and then eat a early dinner. Or if you wanna do the DDP, use the CS for breakfast, snack for lunch and TS for dinner and eat a early dinner. Figure out how much money you really need for water. Figure $2 per bottle. Another thing you could do is buy your water from staples.com and have them ship it to your resort. You can get a lot of water for a very cheap price. Figure which way would be cheaper on you, fly or drive. If flying go with AirTran. DH and I are going in December and we are getting $89 tickets. Comes out to $390 non-stop, roundtrip for the 2 of us, includes taxes. How much are you allowing for souviner money? Try to cut back on that as well. Maybe have each of you buy 1 thing and thats it. Go around your house and see what you could sell, and sell it on ebay or do a yard sell.

 

[car55]

I hope this all works out, My trip is in five days I cant wait. I would go over to the budget board for some great tips. I used it alot for my upcoming trip. I personally would not cancel unless something really pressing came up. I did the windows in my house myself and I did it over time. Your DH can replace the worst ones first. I did 12 windows in 6 years. I hope this helps.

 

[eliza61]

We have a trip booked for the end of June. We were planning on paying for it with our tax money. Well we did our taxes and we can pay for our trip and still have some left over. Some stuff has come up since our trip was booked though and we are thinking that our money should go into the savings account instead of to Disney. DH is leaving the choice up to me. He has told me that he wants to go because I worked so hard on planning this trip and it will be at least 5 years before we get to go again. Tonight I suggested that I go with my sister instead and he was not happy at all about that suggestion. I am really thinking about saying we will just skip Disney. It is causing so much stress right now because while it is not incredibly expensive we are thinking the money might be better used elsewhere. Also, if I do decide to go, and we go, once we get back and something comes up that we can't afford, I am going to feel horrible. I know that we never know what tomorrow is going to bring but I also know that we can have a nice family vacation (the kids love camping) for less than Disney and then we may be better able to afford tomorrows unexpected expenses. I guess I just cry myself to sleep a couple of nights and then go into AAA and cancel our trip.

Could you split the tax money? This way, maybe you can still do Disney on a bit of a budget and still start your savings plan. We try to divide any extra money up 3 ways. Save a little, pay some bills (if we have any debt outside of house or car payment.) and then fun money. Is there some thing coming up in the near futue (next 12 months) that you will definitely have to drop a wad of money on?
I'm with your Dh on one thing, no way would I be happy if my spouse went to disney and I stayed home.

 

[mabenoab]

I kind of, sort of, know how you feel. We'd planned to go to Disney last summer, and had promised our youngest. Sadly, we couldn't make it happen, so we settled for a more low key vacation, and worked to get ourself into a better situation so we could do it this year. Now we're booked, and I'm looking to the trip even more than I could have imagined. Its all the sweeter.

There's no denying that the trip, for us, is a splurge, but we feel its a splurge well worth it. Maybe you can still make it happen. Have you considered taking 1/2 the $ and putting it into savings, and taking the other 1/2 for the trip? Or maybe just going for a shorter term?

Good luck with your decision,

 

[asfarrell]

A few weeks ago after doing our taxes (we owe)...I told my DH, just "Forget Disney"..Even though this whole time he has acted like it's not that big of a deal, he was like "NO", saying, our kids are only going to be this age ONCE and we are never going to get this time back again, we have the rest of our lives to worry about money and saving, but we only have our kids, at this age NOW!
He said, where was the one place you wanted to go as a little girl?
Disney World.
So we are going!
He's right. My DD will probably never be at this age where she actually believes in the Princesses and we might not EVER be able to go again and in another 10 to 15 years, the kids will be out of the house and we can never re-live this time, so WE ARE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD and it's going to be the best trip ever.