How much $ do you really NEED in WDW?

My family of 4 is planning a trip to WDW. We will be staying 6 days. We have ordered breakfast and lunch foods from Garden Grocer. My kids have their own spending money which my husband and I will be adding to, but keeping separate from our budget. We have water bottles to carry, and have purchased single serve drink mixes already. My husband and I are not anticipating buying many souveniers because we went recently together and bought the place out. My question is, how much money do we actually need to bring? We are only going to be doing counter service for dinners and won't be buying alcoholic drinks either. Thanks everyone!

You could literally do it for $0 if you wanted. You say that you will eat CS for dinners, so you can figure about $7 each if you drink water.

6 days x $7 per CS meal x 4 people = $168

I agree, you could get away with $7 per person per day. Most CS meals cost about $7.

:) You could easily do it for under $10 per person.....

How much do you got? :D Just kidding, actually you could do it on the cheap like everyone has said, it sounds like you have a lot of things planned ahead of time. I bring around $300-500 when we're on the dining plan to cover alcoholic beverages, tips, extras, groceries, and my favorite...STUFF!! I could spend a bundle at the WOD store but if you weren't going to do that I would say you could do it way cheaper than that.

I am probably the worst person to answer this question but I'll try anyway. I would plan to bring at least $100/per day. We go crazy in WDW (to the tune of thousands, easy to do with 3 :princess:) but I would still think that you would need a little extra money for snacks and could you really visit the World and not buy any souveniers, not even a pin?

We stay onsite and do not rent a car and purchase the DDP
We are a family of four, Me ,DH, son 9 and daughter,7.
So pretty much everything is paid for before we arrive.
I set aside about $200 for tips, appetizer and beer or wine for our 7 TS meals.

We then take $100 a day for whatever's and have never spent that , but we still take it.
So for our 7night/8 day trip we will take $1000 cash and more than likely bring about $400 back with us.

If you're very careful with when and where you eat, you can get by with $7 per CS meal per person, however if you share meals, in the long run you can save a lot.

I can often split a counter service meal with someone... A half of a grilled chicken sandwich or half of a hamburger and some fries or onion rings is usually enough to fill me up. Rather than getting a full meal and having to stuff in the last few bites, you save a good $6-$7 by sharing a meal instead of getting two individual meals. Then you can even order a side dish like a side salad or soup for only a couple dollars, and you've got a half a burger, some fries, and half a salad and you've fed two adults for around $10 (plus drinks).

If you can get by with sharing a CS meal once in a while, you could probably average 1.5 CS meals per 2 adults each day, which would, in my estimation, probably put you at about $12/day for the adults. Depending on how old the kids are, and how much they eat, if they like the childrens meals, etc, you can probably estimate a little less than that.

So probably if you're careful you could look at $25/day for meals, but maybe $35 if you're a little less conservative. Over 6 days, you'd probably be at around $140-$160, in my best guess, again, but that's being conservative, especially on the soft drinks.

Some of the common money saving tips that have helped me in the past:

The refillable mugs can also be a good deal at the resorts... for $12 you can get a mug that can be refilled unlimited times at the food court. You can get coffee, soda, juice, etc. Drinks are right around $2.50, so if you would buy 4-5 drinks (including coffe, etc) then you'll end up getting your money's worth.

If you don't plan to eat many meals at the resort, don't want to get coffee in the mornings, or don't want to drag around the mugs, then it might not save you. Since you are staying 6 days, it might not be enough to help, but it really all depends on how many drinks you would expect to buy at the food court.

I know that personally we save quite a bit, and it's nice to be able to just go down and get a cold drink whenever you want without having to pony up the money every time. Just refill the mug, and you're all set.

The biggest key to saving money while you're in the parks is snacks. Bring them with you to the parks. Snack bars, cereal bars, granola bars - they go a long way. Peanut butter and crackers are also good (I love those orange crackers w/ PB). When your stomach starts demanding a meal, pop in a granola bar or whatever and you can extend yourself.

Carrying around a water bottle is a very good idea. You can fill them up at the water fountains, and although it won't be ice cold, if you sip on the water throughout the day it can prevent you from getting really thirsty and breaking down and buying a drink. Even if you're out of drink mix it can still be useful just for water. Not to mention it's a good way to stay hydrated by drinking a little bit here and there rather than one big drink all at once.

But anyway, to really answer your question of how much money you should bring:

I would bank on at the very least $200 for food and $100 for "other stuff," because as hard as you try, there's always something that you end up buying. Drinks are the biggest threat to your budget, as people tend to forget about that aspect when they look at meal prices. So all told, I wouldn't plan less than $250, which over 6 days is $40 a day.

Don't be afraid to splurge a little bit more than you expected. Sure, not to many of us have money spilling out of our pockets, but when you think about how quickly $100 or $200 goes when you're refilling your gastank these days or going to the movies or something like that, it's not that much. Even if you have to cut down on recreational expenditures for a few weeks after your trip, it will be worth it to not walk around wishing you could have a chicken sandwich. ;)

That was probably way more long-winded of an answer than you were looking for, but hopefully there was something in there somewhere that will at least help someone a bit :D

bring plenty for drinks and food.. no set amount.. but at least 100 day....

I think that's hard to say. You could defintely get by w/ very little. Like pp said, the CS meals can be very large and often shared. And many souvenears can be had for very little $ at WDW. I guess it just depends on your expectations.

We always allocate $100 a day. Somedays we spend more, others less

Wow I guess I am way over budgeting. :thumbsup: I have allocated 2000 for spending on our 10 day trip and 450 goes to the kids (150 each). This is over our tickets, room, airfare, and dining plan. I guess I have way over budgeted. This is my husband's first trip back to WDW in over 20 years. When my kids and I went this past March there were things we wanted to do and buy and we didn't have the budget for it so I guess I am making up for it. :secret:

Don't tell my kids that yours get $150, yikes.

Mine get $50 a piece to spend on souviners. We pay for everything else. Last trip, they barely spent the $50.
We go to DTD mid trip and that is when they get to shop. If they have any money left over ,t then they can spend it in the parks the last half of the trip.
We have discovered that the first half of the trip they see many things they want, but by mid trip, they have eliminated many of those wants and end up getting truly memorable things they want.

Gosh last time we went we spent almost 1000 dollars on food in a 8 day trip. :sick:

This time we are doing less table service and more CS and eating in our room.

We are having groceries deliever to our room (mostly snacks and bkfst food) That way we can bring our own cheaper snacks into the park!!

We don't budget our extra spending money, so I'm sorry I can't speak to that point.

Overall, I find that the biggest unpredictable expense comes from tips: bell services, Magical Express, mousekeeping, food delivery, restaurants.

We're not big souvenir buyers for ourselves, but we buy our friends and family at home. I keep a list of who to buy for and try to keep it simple and small. My kids don't really ask, so I'm lucky there.

And the food, that's a tough one. As you yourself have stated, the best way to save is to supplement with your own pre-purchased items. We personally perfer to have food in our room since I don't think most of the food is healthy or appetizing - especially the kids food.

As far as actual cash, we only take about $200 total for a 10 day trip and we usually come back with at least half of it. We stay on-site and tie our Disney credit card to our room and we use that to pay for just about everything, so we usually only use cash for small purchases (like a Diet Coke or bottle of water) and for tipping bell services and/or mousekeeping.

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Originally Posted by dizzydisney

... My question is, how much money do we actually need to bring? ...

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By experience, its seems the simple answer is all of it. I've often thought that it would be so much easier just to do away with tickets altogether and let them swipe your credit/debit/charge card at the Main Gate. They'd max it out, then with a smile say "Have a Magical Stay!" Wouldn't that be less painful?

I really can't answer that question. Each time we go I always say we won't buy much because we have already bought one of everything.....then we see more. As for the CS food, I would count anywhere from 7-10 dollars per day. That should cover a meal and a snack.