How We Fund Our Disney Addiction

Disney vacations are not cheap.  And with four boys it can be a little tricky to keep those trips affordable.   Ticket prices and resort room prices go up every year.  But our Disney trips hold some of our best family memories and magical moments, so we continue to find ways to make them happen.  These things are for a trip to WDW in Orlando, but some of them also apply to the Disney Cruise we have planned for the fall.

Travel - It's pretty much a no-brainer for us.  We drive instead of fly.  We are able to stop at hotel for the night on the way using points, so that costs us nothing out of pocket.  Even if gas prices are high, it is always much cheaper than flying.  And there is no need to rent a car when we get there.

Lodging - There are limited lodging choices on property at Walt Disney World for parties of more than four.  Plus, they would be really cramped for us.  On our last two trips we stayed off property at a 3-bedroom/2-bath condo.  It was just off property.  We were able to drive to each of the theme parks in less time than if we took a bus from a Disney resort.  There was a ton of space, everyone had his own bed to sleep in, and we had a full kitchen and a washer and dryer.  Our condo was also decked out in Disney decor, including a Toy Story bedroom, a Disney Princess bedroom, and Finding Nemo bathroom, and a Ratatouille kitchen.  It worked out to about $100 a night - huge savings over staying on property.

On our next trip (hopefully fall 2016) we are looking into renting an RV and a campsite at Disney's Fort Wilderness.  That will give us the sleeping space we need and still be cheaper than other on-site options.

Food - Staying at a condo or renting an RV with a kitchen gives us the ability to cook some of our own meals.  We don't want to spend a lot of time cooking on vacation, but we will make a few simple meals.  We still splurge on some table service meals, but we book them for breakfast or lunch when they are less expensive.

Tickets - There is not a way to save a lot on tickets.  We have purchased from Undercover Tourist for a small savings.  We are also looking into Disney's YES (Youth Education Series) where we can get discounted tickets by the kids attending a class.  We normally buy Magic Your Way base tickets and don't find it worth the money to pay for the Park Hopper.

Timing - Because we homeschool we can travel during the off season when lodging prices are lower.  Traveling in September can be thousands of dollars cheaper than in the summer or over a holiday.

How We Save - We put a certain amount of money into a vacation savings account each month.  Here are some of the ways we save that money (some of these monthly figures are just my best estimate and some of these are things that most families do that we choose not to so that we can put that cost toward our vacations):
I coupon and shop sale ads.  Some months are better than others.        $200
I cut all the boys' hair (5x$15)                                                                 $75
We do not have cable or satellite TV (but do use streaming services)    $60
We rarely go out to eat or pick up fast food                                          $150
I never get a mani/pedi                                                                            $30
We rarely go see a movie in a theater                                                     $50
Swagbucks (we each earn about $25/month or more)                            $50
I shop at Kroger and use fuel point to save on gas                                  $25
These simple things add up to $590 a month.  We also have a Disney Visa card that we pay off each month and earn money towards a Disney gift card.

Easy DIY PVC Clothes Rack

I have been looking for a cheap but durable clothes rack for Michael's dance concert.  He will have 6 or 7 different costumes, so I figured it was time we brought our own rack to hang them on.  The only cheap ones I've come across have had terrible reviews for falling apart, so I decided to try to build one.  Ideally I would like one that rolls, but the boys' dressing room is down a flight of stairs, so I would end up needing to carry it and all the costumes down there anyway.

I used 3/4 inch PVC pipe.  To get the length, I measured across the back of our car so that I could use the top bar as a hanging rack while driving.  It was about 46", so I cut 2 pieces this length (the top and the bottom).  Then I wanted the height at 36", so I cut the 2 side pieces this length.  For the fittings I used elbows and tees.  I used the elbows to attach the top pole to the sides and tees to attach the bottom pole.  Finally to stabilize it, I attached another tee to each bottom corner using short 2" pipes and put a 5" pipe into each side of these tees.

elbow (left) and tee (right) fittings

top corner

bottom corner

top bar hanging in the car

hole with string to hang in the car

To make it usable as a rack that would hang in the car I drilled a hole through each end of the top pole and tied a string through it.  My plan is to carry the costumes in on that top pole and put the rack together once we get down to the dressing room.  I spent less than $10 on the PVC pipe and fittings, and it took me less than 30 minutes to complete.

Toy Story Halloween 2013

Wow, am I behind on blogging!  I'm just going to jump right in with some things I wanted to blog about and never did, so I am about 6 months behind.  Our church has started hosting a Trunk or Treat on Halloween evening.  We didn't participate the first year, but after being challenged by last year's (2012) big winner, I thought it would be fun to see what we could put together.  And I wasn't just in it for fun, I wanted to see if what kind of categories we could win in and figure out just how big our competition was.

I figured we couldn't go wrong with a Disney theme, and since I'm not really the princess type, I decided to go with Toy Story.  I couldn't quite get the whole family on board, but Luke and I were a team for this project.  Nick and Zack went with a Walking Dead theme and used the back of our truck.

I had found a fancy Buzz Lightyear costume at a resale store in his size for $5!  With some sewing help from my mom and some other resale store items, I dressed as Jessie.  We decorated the back of the car like Andy's room.  I painted white clouds on a plastic blue tablecloth to hang for the background.  I cut and painted a large piece of cardboard for the headboard and covered a folding table with a blue comforter for Andy's bed.  I decorated some cardboard boxes with sharpies to make the town, and I made a bean bag toss game out of soup cans with pictures of Potato Head and some homemade bean bags.

I made Buzz's spaceship for the kids to stand in and take pictures.  For the spaceship I used large pieces of cardboard leftover from Sam's Club (you can take these for free) and cut out the shapes for the front, sides, and wings (the front was about 4 feet tall).  I drew the design in pencil and painted it with craft paint.  I made a frame out of PVC pipe and fittings and duct taped the pieces on.  For a final touch I attached a string of lights across the top and sides.

It was such a fun evening!  After a rough start of not wanting to wear his costume, Luke came through for me as the cute factor.  He danced to the Toy Story songs I had playing through the car speakers and helped me hand out candy.  We even posed for pictures with several kids.

All of the kids and families voted on the cars, and we found out a couple of days later that we had won 4 out of 5 categories, including Best Overall!  We did not win for Scariest.  Our prize was a 6-pack of tickets to Holiday in the Park at 6 Flags, which we used over the Christmas holidays.

Summer Slipped Away

 My summer to do list was pretty much a failure.  One of the things on the list was to update this blog, and clearly that task did not get finished.  I was also going to catch up on my scrap booking, update Luke's baby book, and organize the school room.  These items are still on the pink sticky note posted next to my desk, without being crossed off.

The only big things that I accomplished were cleaning out the boys' rooms and organizing two bookshelves.  And I mean big time cleaning of the boy's rooms.  We threw away several big bags of trash and went through all of their clothes and toys.  We gave away several more bags of stuff to friends and one of our favorite resale stores.  We also dusted, vacuumed, and cleaned under beds and in every corner.  So I felt really good about that, but then I was too burned out to finish doing the same in the school room.  The only reason that two bookshelves got done was out of necessity.  I had to make room for our new set of school books for this year.

So my nice, relaxing summer didn't exactly go as I had dreamed, but there were many shining moments and we made some great memories.

We finished last school year in early May.  I spent the month doing some cooking that I don't normally have time to do, including lots of breakfasts and desserts.  My Pioneer Woman cookbook got quite a workout.  Some of our favorites were vanilla scones, French breakfast puffs, Italian cream cake, and blueberry cobbler and cinnamon rolls.  I used a lot of butter this month!

June was full of activities for the boys.  Zack and Michael performed in their annual dance concert.  It was a big deal.  We were thrilled to have family and friends there to cheer for them.  Nick and Zack spent a week at the Pines Catholic Camp.  Nick spent a week at Youth Leader training.  We also squeezed in a few trips to the water park.

In July we had an epic family vacation.  My side of the family stayed in a huge rental house outside of Bastrop, TX for 4 days, 22 of us!  We had a double baptism for my niece and nephew.  My brother rented an inflatable water slide.  There was lots of eating, dancing, relaxing, and laughing.  

July was also consumed with lots of youth group and church activities.  We did service projects every Monday, VBS every evening for a week, and our 3-night summer lock in.  And our monthly bake sale and car wash.  And Michael had 2 weeks of theater camp.  Did I mention July was a busy month for us?  But it was lots of fun.  I love spending time with our church youth group, both the kids and adults!

Before we started school the first week of August, Nick and I went with our youth group high school students to the Dallas Catholic Youth Conference.  It was an amazing weekend retreat and great way to end our summer.  We are now on our 5th week of school, and we seem to be back in a good routine.  Last week I spent 3 afternoons and evening freezer cooking.  I've never done this before, but I think we will like it.  I was able to put over 40 meals in the freezer!  Some are fully cooked and just need to be heated, need to be thawed and cooked, and some are all ready to go in the crock pot for the day.  I think this will help as we dive in to our full schedule of school, soccer, dance, faith formation classes, theater classes, and preschool for Luke.