Shamelessly piggybacking on @profmatt and his recent thought experiment. It’s a snow day here in much of the midwest so here’s a way to pass the time!
You get $2,500 to spend to get to and from WDW any way possible. Much like profmatt’s thread, you must stay on site and otherwise spend the money in the bubble. Figure out who you bring, what you eat and where to (or not) sleep! It’s acceptable to bring groceries with if driving or have them delivered.
After I have paid for 4 flights from the U.K…I would have to sleep on a bench and eat scraps…
watch out, you don’t want to get banned
I think this challenge is a bit more tortuous! It is funner (yes, yes, I know…that’s not a word) to spend gobs of money I don’t have than to spend a small amount of money I don’t have! 
Well, same as before, I have to wipe out $600 right off the bat for the drive/hotels down/back. But, since this is a tight budget, I probably would have to limit this trip to just my wife and I (don’t make me leave her home, otherwise there would no point in going!). So, I could probably do that trip down and back for $450 or so.
That leaves me about $2050.
Tickets for 3 days (which then requires park hoppers, ideally) would run about $870.
I’m down to $1180.
Food for those three days for two of us? We could probably manage with $50/person/day. That’s $300. But I also need food for the travel itself, which is four days. Can do that cheap, so let’s add another $100.
So, I’ve got to find 4 nights for $780. Whatever I can find for that cost. Caribbean Beach or a Value resort.
It can be done, if solo from the UK lol.
Here’s my rough estimate:
Gas from Milwaukee to Orlando (1240 miles ÷25 mpg) =50 gallons at $2.10= $105×2=$210
Groceries=$100
4 day passes for 2 adult, 1 kid=$1292
4 nights at ASM=$600
Park meals and snacks=$125
Etcetera=$125
Makes it in just under $2500 
This line is where I think your plan falls apart! 
Maybe so, maybe not . If we all split some QS meals and 1 mickey bar a day it could happen. I’d plan to bring picnics for new nearly all meals.
We’ve done that before when our kids were younger, but always ended up spending more on food than we had planned. But if you can pull it off! (And, since this is all hypothetical, you could always go hypothetically hungry if need be!)
Oh, no. My Mickey bar (we, Mickey Ice Cream Sandwich in our case) is ALL MINE! I ain’t sharing!
Oh. Wait. You meant share with YOUR family,
That’s actually about what we spent on our trip!
6 day tickets for 2 people (old pricing and DS2 is free) - $804
We stayed off site, but 5 nights in Pop is about $800 I think. That will also eliminate our cost of the rental car and parking.
Our flights were just under $600.
That only leaves $296 for us to eat, which isn’t quite enough. We’ll subtract a night to make it work a bit better. So 5 day park tickets, 4 nights at Pop, flights, and a combination of sharing QS and groceries.
I think that would pay for a short trip for me and my DH at a value resort, flying down. A bare bones trip.
I’ve been contemplating this while snowblowing
Flights for two (DH and me) ~ 600
Three nights at POFQ - 746
Four-day tickets - 744
Quick service dining plan - 315
That leaves just under $100 to pay for a couple alcoholic drinks and a small souvenir.
We’d fly in early and fly out late. Two days at MK (maybe arrival and departure), one at Epcot, and one at AK.
It needs to be a solo trip for us!
$2,500 is roughly my budget for my solo December trip. In round numbers…
$1200 - 7 nights at WL, renting DVC points from a friend (at an admittedly good rate)
$257 - 5 day Military Salute park hopper ticket.
$70 - gas for drive to/from.
That comes to roughly $1500, leaving me roughly $1000 for food and extras. I’m contemplating the DxDP which would cost roughly $800 for 7 days which would then leave me roughly $200 for tips and incidentals. This would be if I wanted to do TS every lunch and signature dining every night. If I skipped the signature dining, I could eat much more economically doing the whole thing OOP. I could save even more if I did a couple of QS lunches. It will probably come down to how much I can save between now and the trip.
My family of 5 spent just that much on airfare from San Jose. 
I wouldn’t want to go alone, so if I were doing a “romantic getaway” with the Mrs. we would probably spend $1K on flights, $1K on an All Star and tickets (maybe 3 days at that price?) and $500 on food and incidentals. Needless to say, not a great value.
I can still make two weeks work at the Motel 6 on irlo bronson with my ma for $2500… in fact,
I think you’ve just hit my usual travel budget!
Ever wonder why I rarely stay onsite and only at the all stars? I can do two weeks on that for sure!
Coming from the UK that wouldn’t get us all there, so it’s just me, probably stay at POP, but I don’t want to go without my family.
Can we use our airline/hotel points? lol
If so, flights from ORD (~150,000 miles)
taking four kids (two disney adults), we could do 2 park days (without hoppers) $1262
Stay at Dolphin or Swan - technically on site - with points (~150,000 miles for three nights)
$1300 to feed six people - challenge accepted.
Last month, we went during “free” dining, stayed six nights at CBR, had six days of park hoppers and upgraded to the middle tier dining plan for $4,700. That’s the best we’ve done for the whole crew. If we had to pay for flights, it would be insane.
One alcohol drink will come with every QS meal…
I just want to say that offering even 10% of what the original offer was is still pretty generous.
When will my check arrive? I am heading to the world in 15 days…
