How do you all afford it?

[aussietravellers]

My son will be out of school for a total of 13 school days. Three weeks of school, the last week of term, then the first two weeks back of the next term, but two of those weeks have a student free day, so rather than 15 school days, he will only miss 13 school days.

My plan was that he not miss any other school days this year so it really wouldn't matter taking three weeks off. But then he became sick last term and ended up missing the last two weeks of school in first term recovering from surgery so that threw a spanner in my "well he hasn't had any other time off line that I was planning on using"

I haven't told the school yet. I will let them know a week or two before we go, don't know why I am so nervous about telling them, I guess I just feel a little guilty as there is a clear school rule of no missing school due to holidays! I wonder if I don't call this a holiday but call it his mothers 40th Birthday Party!

 

[rosiejo]

We invested in DVC which brings the cost of our trips down overall.

Because we have a kitchen area in our room we make sandwiches every day to take to the parks - which cuts the cost of food. We also eat breakfast in our room too.

We try and take two trips within 12 months so that we can buy an annual pass which is good for both trips.

To save up we have an account that money comes out of our wages each month so that we could afford to take a trip every year if we wanted to.

When we can we eat in the chain restaurants in Kissimmee rather than in WDW restaurants. It's cheaper and it works for us because we're from the UK and don't have IHOP and Perkins etc here - so it's not like we're just eating out at home.

We try to be careful with purchases too - we make a note of things we want to buy and then at the end of the trip decide what we actually want to take home and spend out money on. Having a tax allowance helps too as we can't spend too much or we'd get charged to bring it home!