Friday, March 14, 2014

Planning Disney on a budget!

SOOO we are going to DISNEY WORLD!!!!!  AHHH! I'm kinda excited.Okay really excited. Probably more so then my kids honestly. Well maybe not more then my two year old who is OBSESSED with minnie mouse. I've never been to Disney nor has my kids and spending 3500+ on a week vacation is kinda a big deal to us. Most expensive vacation prior to this was a long weekend on the beach that I snagged for around 600. :) So needless to say I don't plan on spending more then we have to. We are going the first week of April which is in between spring break and Easter holidays so its not suppose to be as busy. And yes we are taking the kids out of school for this trip. My kids have great grades and hardly miss any days so that's not a big deal to us. I am paying too much to go when its crowded and hot and this will probably be a once in a lifetime trip for our family. We are leaving on a Saturday and headed back home the next Saturday so that gives us 6 days in Orlando. (12 hour drive from our house eek) We are currently 15 days from the trip and I've already done A LOT. I will re blog how everything turned out after the trip but Here's my planning list and how much I paid.

TICKETS for 4, 3 adults(oldest is 12) and one child plus a 2 yr old who's free! (we are going 1 week before her 3rd birthday he he) 
$1650 - includes 5 days Disney, 1 day universal, and one dinner at medieval nights.  
I had to get a discount so I purchased them from undercover tourist. Who is an authorized Disney ticket seller. The tickets are actually cards and are fast pass plus enabled. They take about 2 weeks to get to your house in a signed for mailing envelope.  I actually only wanted 4 days at Disney, one day universal and one day for us to decide on when we are there(in case it rains all day one day or we see somewhere else the kids want to go). Well undercover tourist gave us the 5th day free so hey cant turn that down.  We are doing one park per day cause how the heck do people have time to do more then one per day!?! Not purchasing the park hopper saved a lot of money and going when its too chilly for water parks helps too. The idea of chasing my 2 yr old and 6 yr old around a water park all day is a nightmare. Sorry 12 year old I know it would be dream come true for him but hes getting a Disney trip so he's fine. I LOVE undercover tourist. I saved about 15-25 per ticket per person using their site and I Loved getting all my tickets from the same site. I signed up for the emails and got a special link that toke 4 extra off per ticket. That site also has an awesome crowd calender with park times that I used to decide which park which day. 



ACCOMMODATIONS we booked a 3/2 townhouse in the Terra Verde community
$850 - 3 bed room 2 and a half bath townhouse with full kitchen, private hot tub and community pool. 
Honestly this was the most time consuming part of the planning process for me because I wanted it all under 1000 and within a mile of Disney. lol yeah that didn't happen.. The houses I loved were 20+ minutes from Disney and the ones really close were too expensive or didn't have private pool and hotub. Of course I had to look at EVERY house, townhouse, and condo on the vrbo/homeaway website too.  I love this website too. I didn't even look anywhere else. I knew we needed a kitchen and my kids needed their own rooms so no point even looking at the inside Disney hotels(which are crazy expensive anyways). I booked our beach vacation penthouse on the water on this site last year too for a great price. It connects you with the owners on most of the places and some it connects you to a realtor who brokers the deals. I always gravitate toward the ones that are direct contact with the owners. Anyways we finally decided that a private pool in April wasn't gonna get used much and was too expensive to heat. My husband really wanted a private hot tub tho so we booked this townhouse. The community pools are heated to 80 degrees year round but the private pools charge 150-200 a week to heat. The price on this townhouse was all inclusive(another reason I liked it) it  includes all taxes and cleaning fees. Also includes a 50 dollar damage insurance. I used the on site price, bedroom and amenities search to narrow down my search, Then I flipped to map view and added every house that was decent to "my list" on the site. I then did a pros and con list on a sheet of paper featuring distance and amenities. This spot was advertised as 10 minutes to Disney but i plugged it and my other top 5 in the google maps and got the time from the address to the main gate which even includes current traffic conditions. So I am thinking this spot will be more like 15 to disney. 
 I could of got a bigger/nicer house but we HAD to have the hot tub so this was the winner. The price comes out to 120 a night for 3 bedrooms which is great too.
   

TRAVEL we are driving my mini van the 10+ hour trip to Orlando!
$270 for gas
I have 3 kids, myself and my husband and my van seats 7 so we have room to stretch out and lay seats back. Plus I have dvd(yah)  I have taken us on trips to Tennessee and to the beach and all our luggage and even full size coolers and chairs have fit in the back fine.  Here's how I got the gas amount(word problems are easy :)! Map the distance which is 680 miles, my van gets 20 miles per gallon, so 680/20=34 gallons of gas. 34x$3.20 price of gas=$108 dollars for gas for one way. Then I added a tank($50) for our driving around during the week we are down there. So that's ~220+50=270 for gas. Considering flights were well over 2000 that's a good deal. Our check in time is 4 on Saturday so I plan on leaving around 3 am that morning cause we will probably be stopping to eat at places with play places so we can get out of the car for a minute. Plus the kids will sleep until at least 8 so more time they are snoozing in the car the better. I plan on unpacking, checking out the wares in the townhouse then heading to walmart to pick up food for the week and ponchos in case it rains(I cant find any cheap ones where i live, they were even kinda expensive on ebay)

SOUVENIRS
$61.00 before departure
 $140.00 on site budget (kids already have their savings for this)  
~Tickets to Disney.
 Cost $0.20cents  I made and printed souvenir tickets to Disney and Universal for my kids on word processor and gave them to them for Christmas! I put pictures of the characters they each like on each ticket and wrote things like "The Disney princesses cant wait to meet Allie" It toke about 2 hours of my time ( I even download Disney fonts) I put it all in a Huge box that they opened Christmas morning. 
*I also included the free park maps and dvd that u order from the Disney website. 
~The Ears Hats. 
Cost  $5.00 dollars  I got their hats at thrift stores!! I lucked out and found a couple at goodwill and the other one at a place called gateway, that's here in pearl ms. I also got a wizard hat and mickey glove/hand.
 *I got the Disney dvds from ebay and paid between 9-14 a piece. 


~Countdown to Disney. 
Cost $4.00 Stolen straight from Pinterest. I printed the titles using those Disney fonts. (I just Googled free fonts and downloaded the ones i wanted, cant remember the site). Then I cut a mickey shape out and recut that a few dozen times on pink and purple paper until I had enough for our 60+ day countdown. The kids liked getting to take down one mickey number per day. Nice photo backdrop too :)

~ Pick A Pearl
Cost $24.00 for necklaces that I pre-ordered from etsy. And I'm told it's 20 a piece for the actual pearl in Disney. They are suppose to make a big fuss and let the kids pick an ouster from a tank and they open it in front of you and you keep the pearl inside. It's listed as a favorite souvenir on many websites so I went ahead and ordered the necklaces to cut the cost down some. I ordered an extra since they are so cheap just in case one of the pearls didn't fit in the smaller cages or in case I decide to wear one. They all come with nice necklaces and I think look better in person then in the pictures. The cost I put up there included 5 for shipping. They range from 4-7 a piece and the mermaid came with a pretty green pearl. 
 

~Signature Book
Cost $21.00  I got our signature book on ebay and it came with a pen. This costs about the same in Disney but I was trying to spread our costs out so I went ahead and ordered it. It's smaller then I expected but the official pen was a nice surprise even tho i had already bought a retractable fine point sharpie anyways. Its an official 2014 autograph and picture book.
Item picture

~Passport Signature Books
Cost $6.75  I read on some blog somewhere that you need to purchase "passports" at epcot so that you can get the folks in each country to sign them in their language. So I lucked out and found these on oriental trading and figured I couldn't beat that price. They are good quality(not easily torn) and came in a pack of 12 with free shipping. I just wrote our names on the fronts of 5 of them and put the stickers in the bag they are going in. If there's room after the signatures are done I will let the kids add the stickers.

"My Passport" Sticker Books

Random other things
 I got all our luggage at goodwill's. I paid between 6-10 per luggage and I have 6 really nice luggage's with wheels. 
I ordered our stroller rain cover on ebay for 9.50. free shipping. 
I still have to buy my collapsible cooler and rain ponchos. 

FOOD 
$650.00 I will update afterwards. 
I plan on heading to walmart right after we check in and buying groceries for the week which will include our drinks, snacks and some meals we will carry into the park. All breakfasts will be at the house. I'm sure we will be stopping to eat 2-3 times per day for the two travel days we have which adds a lot to the cost. 
I already set reservations at rain forest cafe, Akershus royal banquet hall(dining with princesses), and Hollywood and Vine Buffet(dinning with disneyjr characters). I expect each of those meals to range from 70-140. So it will be over 300 for just those 3 meals. Jeeze feeding a family of 5 is expensive! And a dinner at medieval nights was already included in the ticket prices as well.. 

Total Budget 
$2970.00 before food. 
$3620.00 after food. 

Monday, September 24, 2012

Thirft Store Finds!

I'm one of those crazy chicks that spends hours shifting through stuff that other people gave away! After you see what I find and how much I paid. You become one of those crazy chicks too!! I Love goodwill and the salvation army. Most of the things in my house came from those places. Ill post pictures of that stuff later. I got this on my most recent trip to goodwill. I love shopping. I love leaving the kids with grandma and/or daddy and hitting the stores to clear my mind but not my pocket book. I went to 3 goodwill stores this past Saturday and this is my haul. I spent 63.00 total for it all! I got a large fairy princess painting for my daughters room, a picture frame(which i used to make a earring holder). almost brand new luggage for my step son and daughter, a small corner table(which has already been painted), a letter S for the kitchen wall (our last name starts with S),  frog rain boots for my daughter(I'm gonna wrap them and give them to her for her birthday), a Thomas the train light up toy, a blue dress for me(which is beautiful), and brown dress and two shirts for me. Also I got a pair of shorts and two shirts for my step son.  Let me repeat the price again all that was 63.00 dollars! Happy Dance time!

Halloween Costumes!

Saw this online and got inspired!

Im still working on this one! but I added some white ribbons. Ill post pictures when its finished. I gotta go find some eyes!
 
Then I noticed a unused white baby towel in the bathroom!

And it became a ghost costume! I cut the bottoms, drew some eyes and sowed tole to the back!


eBay for Cell Phone Cases

4.00

7.00

My husband is hard on his phones so he needs quite a bit more protection then me. He is always getting dirt and grease in the ear bud hole and the charging holes for his phone so I bought him these two cases. I got the black one from the top and it blocks all the holes from getting dirty and looks just like a otter box! Jeez I would never pay 60 for an otter box! that's just crazy!

8.00 for a B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L Iphone Case!!

ALWAYS buy your cell phone cases from ebay. They are way cheaper. The case on this phone consists of a black sparkly iphone skin and a electroplated silver hard case.  The skin cost 1.29 including shipping and the hard case was 6 dollars shipping included. I had to wait 3 weeks on the silver hard case to get here from china but it was totaly worth it. You really cannot beat those prices.. and its soooo pretty!

FREE Victoria Secret Panties!!!

I Love the finer things in life especially when they are FREE! Victoria secret will send you 4-7 cards for free panties per year just for having a Victoria secret credit card!! This is another credit card that I have that Ive never used. I just have it to get the free stuff! FYI having credit cards and not using them is good for your credit score and history. It increases the amount of your credit line and shows the length of your credit history. They also send a 10 dollar card for your birthday that can be used for anything in the store. I always buy one of those sampler perfumes cause they only cost 10 making them free.. Also VS sends 10 dollars off on a bra along with the free panties.. The VS cotton bras cost 29.00 dollars so I have purchased a few of those. A VS bra for 20 bucks you would pay near the same at walmart or target for a good bra. And my VS bras last a long time and they say Victoria secret on the straps. If your bra straps are gonna show they should say Victoria secret... I haven't paid for a pair of panties in over 2 years!!

Kohl's 10 bucks FREE!

I Love jumping beans clothes from Kolhs. Therefore I have a Kohls credit card. When I got the card in the mail, I cut it up and threw it away! Yep you read that right but guess what I still get promotional offers from Kohls because I "have" the card. I don't have to use the card. I get 10 dollars at least twice a year from them. The best thing about kohls is that the 10 can be used on anything! When they send the cards they usually have a bunch of stuff marked down like 70%. I, of course, am obsessed with the jumping beans so I headed straight to the kids section and got this zebra print shirt and polka dot pants. I paid 2.39 after the 10 off from the promotional card. Sweet!