I do the same thing about comparing my prices with discounts to non-discounted prices to make me feel a little better!
and you are spot on about the memories!
The only saving I’ve made is on my flight. I’m flying Virgin Upper Class, which can cost around £3,500 return. I paid about £1,700.
Which is expensive, I’ll admit. But then the flight becomes part of the holiday, rather than a miserable grind to get to the holiday.
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yes - while something like that is soooo practical - well unless i really, really, needed it - I am much more about the life experiences.
I am perhaps not as fiscally responsible as I should be - but that new drive-way that I really should put in - that can’t compare to Disney.
My DH made a spreadsheet of our projected Disney expenses for the next 15 years.
It almost made me say “nope, we can go once every two years”.
Then we sat back. And said “what will we do with that money if we DONT spend it at Disney?”
And the reality is? Nothing. It’ll sit in the bank and collect a terrible rate of return (our retirement is already fully funded, with zero lifestyle change). Disney, while yes a “waste”, means memories and other things. We can’t take it with us and the kids need to make their own way in the world.
So Disney it is. We agreed to not fuss over the costs and embrace it with the gusto I embraced collecting the massive wardrobe I own. Except the wardrobe was selfish, Disney is for our family and friends who we get to go and share special memories with.
And that I won’t put a price tag on.
However, if it meant we couldn’t pay our bills or feed my family, this would be a different story. If you can afford or budget for it? Go and make the memories. We only get one life. Make it count!
(I’m feeling very sentimental this week. I resonate with the whole Kate Spade incident so much…that’s the majority of my wardrobe, and I live a very joyful and colorful life, but struggle with sadness from time to time. I’ve overcome my depression, but it lurks from time to time.)
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My name is John, and I approve of the philosophy of this message.
(Not that you needed my approval. 
)
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If our retirement was fully funded (god bless you!) and we didn’t have 3 more kids to send to college, 1 starting in August, I would wholly adopt and cherish this philosophy. How wonderful 
I am jealous! Enjoy!
I do a fairly in-depth budget plan before I go; I’m confident enough in my research that I don’t feel the need to tally things up every day. But after I get home, I do a full reconcile of my actual expenses and compare them to my budgeted amounts - if for no other reason then to adjust my methods for the next trip.
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Yeah I hear ya. Now that my once in a lifetime trip turned into an agreed upon with DH minimum once a year trip and hopefully twice a year, we started looking at the budgeting issue. We’ve done the dessert parties, the holiday parties, every ADR almost that we ever want to try… This last trip we tried to scale back and moved from a moderate resort to Shades of Green to save about 50% on our hotel bill. But the loss we felt in the way the place made us feel was not worth the savings. It didn’t feel special or like we were anywhere special or at Disney. I know some people love it, but I say this as an example of how sometimes the budgeting gets to be so personal. I can deal with eating just QS, but I’d rather not go if it means staying value. I’ll wait. But that’s us. I won’t do dessert parties again, I’ll try to get in my favorite restaurants. No other place in the world does it for us like WDW. So should they charge more, can they, will I pay? Yup. So take my money Mickey.
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This is something I need to start doing but almost don’t want to so I don’t have to face it for next time 
I will though.
I’m a numbers girl so, everything is accounted for in my budget. We don’t carry anything on credit - if we cannot pay in full, we don’t do it. I think we are kind of in-between budget friendly and spend whatever we want…it won’t be a “cheap” vacation but, we definitely adjusted things to bring it more in line with my comfort zone.
I know when we get home, I will review everything and update the budget to reflect true numbers, but mainly so I can see areas I would need to change for future trips.
Stay off site. Rent a condo or home. (We usually go through homeaway.com.) You can get something WAY nicer than Disney for a fraction of the cost. The value hotels at Disney (and even the moderates) really are just hotel rooms on Disney property. Staying off property allows you to get full kitchens, washer/dryer, more space, etc, for a lot less.
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This thread piqued my interest. I’ve never added up the cost of our stays before, so thought it would be interesting to do so. We’re going for 12 nights in September, and our all in cost (flights, overnight airport stay, onsite accommodation, tickets, MNSSHP, Prime Now delivery, stroller rental, Owners Locker delivery, all food, snacks and souvenirs) is just over $6,500.
I have to add that we are DVC members, so the accommodation cost I’ve used for the calculation is our current grand total cost per point, times the number of points we are using for our stay. This works out at less than a third of rack rate for Animal Kingdom Villas and Beach Club Villas. Still, the total cost of our stay is definitely greater than I expected. If I remove the “cost” of our DVC points, the total comes down to a much more reasonable $4,300. If DH ever asks how much our Disney trips cost, that’s the figure I will be quoting…!
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How many people is that for? Our cost, without lodging, is slightly more than yours. But no MNSSP, no stroller rental, no flights, no additional airport stay, etc. But we have five people…
That’s for 3 people flying from the UK (two flights each way, since we live offshore so have to fly to London first).
Ha!
Ahh, that explains some of it! UK-ers get better deals on tickets than we do!
True. We originally bought the 14-day tickets when a website had them on special offer, and later upgraded them to APs when DVC members got Platinum Plus passes for the price of Gold. This is our third trip on those APs, so I’m only counting a third of the total AP cost for this trip. 
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I travel a lot, both for pleasure and business. I realised that sometimes, the money I saved by cutting down on something or not doing something is not worth it.
I rarely regret doing something (or spending money for it), but I always regret not doing it!
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me too!
Especially at Disney!
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