Due to Brown Derby F! Dinner, I need 7 credits but only have a 6 day plan. If I want to pay out of pocket for a meal in the middle of the week, how do I do this? Obviously I want to pay for the meal that looks like it will be the cheapest.
You can decide which meals to put on the DDP and which meals to pay for OOP - just let the server know how you want to pay. You can even decide for a given meal that you want to put some people’s meals on the plan and pay for others.
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Thanks for the info. Would I also be able to order an appetizer OOP and pay for a dinner with DDP?
Yep, Disney will always let you buy extras! 
Keep in mind while you’re planning your credits that you can spread out your credits however you want.
Also (this doesn’t have much to do with your question, just a common point of confusion currently about DDP) are you going in 2016 or 2017? In 2016, you get 1 snack and the CS meals include dessert. In 2017, you get 2 snack credits per day instead of that CS dessert.
It may seem intuitive to pay OOP for the one that is the cheapest, but that may not save you money overall. For instance, using 2 credits at HBD seems like a no- brainer, but that’s actually a terrible value when you look at the $$ per credit (it’s less than $33 per credit, even if you get the most expensive things or a Fantasmic plan), especially if your other meals are character meals or lunches or dinners at pretty much anywhere else. I’d suggest using your dining plan for half of your adults (and I wouldn’t use ANY for kids’ meals unless you’re on the deluxe plan and they let the kids order from the adult menu… the kids’ menu there is the same as or inferior to any other TS place but it’s still going to take up 2 kids TS credits) and paying out of pocket for the other half, and saving those credits for use at a place where they will have a better value, like a character lunch or dinner, Tutto Italia, Boma, Chefs de France, etc.
For example:
Paying out of pocket for 2 adults at Tutto Italia dinner will likely cost you around $90, which is significantly more than you’d pay for one adult to eat at HBD even though both will cost you the same 2 credits. The exception to this would be resort TS breakfasts… they tend to cost less than $30 and aren’t really a good use of a TS credit in any case.
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My DD10 is on the adult plan. I’ve looked at menus and I think she may prefer to order from the kids menu at some restaurants. So tell me if I’m thinking right…if she orders from the kids menu at three places and we pay out of pocket for her meal but use credits for ours, then we could end up with three “additional” credits for another TS meal at the end of our trip. Is that correct?
Yes, that is correct. That is a good way to accumulate extra credits to use at Signature restaurants that charge 2 credits per meal.