How can people ever afford Florida holidays??

[Disneynutinlondon]

Count me in the commuter belt posse!

If we only had to pay £100/month mortgage I'd go to WDW every 8 weeks!

We're in Surrey, near Croydon. Far enough from London to be not technically part of it but close enough to be in zone 6!

I'm a zone 4 annual season ticket holder If I didn't have to pay that every year I could get 2 round trips to MCO !!!

 

[BlondeViki]

I'm a zone 4 annual season ticket holder If I didn't have to pay that every year I could get 2 round trips to MCO !!!

Ditto! Zone 3 here - I try not to think what else OH and I could buy with the money we spend with TfL

 

[Tony Toon]

? don't you mean

I know what you mean and I thought long and hard about which smiley to add as all of those are appropriate. Decided finally on the cuddle (aah bless)sentiment.

 

[bazzanoid]

Im not far from upminster either!

This bears further investigation.... which town?

 

[kevin harrison]

We go at least once a year for 3 weeks or twice a year for 2 weeks each. Our flights are around £600 each and the villa is about £350 a week.

I have a Disney annual pass and that saves us parking fees each time we go into the parks and that can be £50 a week. We use vouchers and coupons when we are out there and that saves quite a bit too. We also get annual pass discounts on food too.

I compared notes with a friend of mine and our 2 weeks holiday, all in, is costing less than her 10 night holiday at Laka Como in Italy.

The only debt we have is our rent and study course payment for DH. He gave up work in a bad job last December and studies full time at home which will hopefully lead to a good job, so we are down to one wage.

I have a credit card for work which is paid back each month and another with about £200 on it that I keep for emergencies.

We do all our shopping at Aldi which has more than halved our shopping bill. We don't drink, only coffee. We don't have takeaways but we do treat ourselves to a meal out when I get paid.

We put money away every month for Florida, cars and general savings and once it goes out of my main account it doesn't get touched unless we have to pay for tax, MOT, insurance etc. the general savings is for emergencies like replacing something in our home and Florida is, well, Florida.

I get a bonus every quarter which is around £1000 and that goes straight in the Florida fund. That means we use my salary for general day to day living and use the bonus for our trips. I work bl**dy hard at my job and it is great to be able to use the bonus for trips.

Most of our entertainment is the tv and films. We got LoveFilm rather than going to the cinema and usually watch 2 films at the weekend, so that's just over £1 per film!

I do a lot of batch cooking and on a Friday night we have a home cooked curry rather than a takeaway which saves around £10 per week.

We make sacrifices but it doesn't feel like we are missing out at all, even with DH not working.

I would rather go to Disney than go anywhere else.

Impressed with the saving plans, not sure I could buy Aldi though !

 

[queendisney]

Impressed with the saving plans, not sure I could buy Aldi though !

You have obviously never tried their white chocolate with freeze dried strawberries in...omg its to die for Its worth going to stock up on that alone...

 

[Disneynutinlondon]

You have obviously never tried their white chocolate with freeze dried strawberries in...omg its to die for Its worth going to stock up on that alone...

WWWWHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAATTTT how come I've never heard of this ......... tell me more

 

[BlondeViki]

WWWWHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAATTTT how come I've never heard of this ......... tell me more

If it's similar to the one they have in Lidl then it's lush! I'm so lucky to have one near T-Hale station within walking distance of the house!!

 

[2Tiggies]

Impressed with the saving plans, not sure I could buy Aldi though !

What's wrong with Aldi? There are some things I prefer to stick to my known brands with but they have some great savings (and chocolate). That white choccie with the strawberries is Not sure it's cost effective though - hard to stop after just one

 

[Kath2003]

I agree with the above - sometimes the cheaper food/product is better, sometimes it's not - but you gotta try them before you know.

Tesco Everyday Value milk chocolate is better than their "full price" stuff, for example (though not as tasty as premium brands - but it's a fifth of the price...). Their Everyday Value pasta and rice is fine - it's pasta and rice. But their Everyday Vaue ketchup is nasty. So we don't buy it.

I would never buy brand name foods etc. just for the sake of it. If you save just £10 per week, that's a return flight to Florida each year...

I also have never paid full price for any shampoos, shower gels, dishwasher tablets, toilet paper, washing powder etc. Buy when it's cheap and stock up. We have a year's worth of dishwasher tablets currently...!

Oh and I don't buy "holiday clothes". My clothes suffice the rest of the year, why would I buy anything new to go on holiday?

 

[Disneynutinlondon]

We switched to doing the weekly shop in Asda about 2 years ago, it worked out to a £30 - £40 saving PER WEEK !!!!!!

As PP have said there are certain things I still by branded products tomato ketchup and quilted toilet paper being the main ones but everything else still gets consumed by the end of the week no matter what name it has on the label/packaging

 

[wayneg]

I also have never paid full price for any shampoos, shower gels, dishwasher tablets, toilet paper, washing powder etc. Buy when it's cheap and stock up. We have a year's worth of dishwasher tablets currently...!

Was it you I discussed this with before? our garage is like a minisupermarket.
I also have about a years dishwasher tabs (bought another pack of 28 today cheap)
Shower gel, we use Simple, Asda £2, HomeBargains 95p, I have about 6-8 months stock.
http://groceries.asda.com/asda-esto...me=Products&headerVersion=v1&_requestid=53412
Keep an eye on Amazon groceries/household, they have great offers from time to time.
My days of caring where I shop are gone, the main supermarkets just rip you off.

 

[bazzanoid]

I also have never paid full price for any shampoos, shower gels, dishwasher tablets, toilet paper, washing powder etc. Buy when it's cheap and stock up. We have a year's worth of dishwasher tablets currently...!
?

Same here... i'm sure you can imagine the look on our 3 cats' faces when we rocked up one day with 5 ten kilo sacks of go-cat!!! Makro had them on a seriously good special

 

[queendisney]

If it's similar to the one they have in Lidl then it's lush! I'm so lucky to have one near T-Hale station within walking distance of the house!!

Actually it may have been Lidl then! We have both oposite each other and I get confused which is which! Anyway it is indeed very lush and a good quality chocolate as well...

 

[Kath2003]

Same here... i'm sure you can imagine the look on our 3 cats' faces when we rocked up one day with 5 ten kilo sacks of go-cat!!! Makro had them on a seriously good special

Yeh we buy cat food in lots of 60-80kg at a time for ours. It's enough to feed a pack of lions We also realised that high quality dried food is both cheaper and better for them than canned. There's no variety in our house!

Wayne - yep, another hoarder of non-perishables. I reign as Queen of Decanting into Tupperware

 

[scottishgirl87]

Was it you I discussed this with before? our garage is like a minisupermarket.
I also have about a years dishwasher tabs (bought another pack of 28 today cheap)
Shower gel, we use Simple, Asda £2, HomeBargains 95p, I have about 6-8 months stock.
http://groceries.asda.com/asda-esto...me=Products&headerVersion=v1&_requestid=53412
Keep an eye on Amazon groceries/household, they have great offers from time to time.
My days of caring where I shop are gone, the main supermarkets just rip you off.

Haha! Our garage is the same! My dad bulk buys things like toilet roll, kitchen roll, dishwasher tablets, washing machine tablets and fizzy drinks (Irn Bru, Pepsi, etc.) at Makro so we always have a supply of them.

I also used to be a shop snob, whereas nowadays I will happily shop in Poundland, Savers, Home Bargains, etc. as I don't see the point in paying more when I can get the same thing cheaper down the road. Plus most of these stores stock all the brand names anyway. For example, I like Baxters tins of soup, £1 (sometimes £1+) a can in Asda, 69p in Home Bargains.

Even my own parents think my bargain hunting is hilarious as I've completely changed! It actually frustrates me when they spend over the odds on something when I know it can be bought cheaper elsewhere.

 

[2Tiggies]

Even my own parents think my bargain hunting is hilarious as I've completely changed! It actually frustrates me when they spend over the odds on something when I know it can be bought cheaper elsewhere.

I used to be good at it but as there have been more and more demands on my time I find it impossible to go from one place to the next looking for the best deal. I do it online but I just cannot go hopping to 3 supermarkets for the cheapest bottle of shampoo.

But when you all talk about stock piling, I have to plead guilty. Much less so now, but when DD was a baby I worked for a chemical company doing admin and accounts. They used to sell bulk cleaning products to companies and I mean BULK. Like washing powder in 10kg buckets, 5L bottles of washing up liquid .... my garage was full!

One day I took DD up to the doctor's surgery for something and my boss rang and asked if I needed anything as he was going to the warehouse. I glanced round the house and asked him if he could drop off a few toilet rolls, then forgot about it. When I turned into our street an hour later there was a crowd of people outside my house staring. Of course first thing you think is burglary/fire etc. Nope .... Toilet rolls! TWO BALES OF THEM!! you could not see the front door through the 96 rolls per bale I left there about 7 years ago and I STILL have bin bags and things left over from all that stock piling. You only realize how much it saves you when you have to start buying again!

 

[madmumof2]

Nothing wrong with Aldi! More fool the shop snob for buying the same food 3 times the price! lol

We only get to go once a month for our big shop, since Tesco is a 5 minute walk away it's all too easy to nip there every week but I wish we were more organised and went Aldi every week, we'd save a fortune, and I've found most of their stuff is nicer than Tesco, sometimes the same, rarely worse.

We've recently switched to the nappies Aldi has, they have never leaked, whereas with Pampers and Huggies we get at least 5 leaky nappies in a pack which is unacceptable for the price. The meat is nicer too

I've stopped saving on the little things as much as I used to which is very bad. A few years ago when we had no money we'd go on freecycle for everything, fix things that were broken, wait for the best price etc. Now, I've not been on freecycle for a long time, something breaks I just buy a new one and I'm more of an impulse buyer now!

Must get back into saving the pennies!

 

[BlondeViki]

HomeBargains

I miss this so much living down south! When I go up north to my parents' house I always make them take me to the big one in Liverpool so I can stock up on a whole load of things!

 

[Tony Toon]

Haha! Our garage is the same! My dad bulk buys things like toilet roll, kitchen roll, dishwasher tablets, washing machine tablets and fizzy drinks (Irn Bru, Pepsi, etc.).

We are another family who bulk buy with regular visits to Costco. DW recently took advantage of their special offer on toilet rolls with the purchase of megastacks two weeks running. As I approached the chap who checks your purchases as you leave the store, he, completely deadpan, quipped - "see your wife's cooking hasn't improved then". Fortunately my wife isn't easily offended.

Meanwhile we worked out a while ago that the Tesco petrol deals go nowhere in making up the general price difference between their store and Asda who win hands down on price. We do use Tesco credit cards though to rack up points for their voucher deals.

Back to the O.P question. These boards are one of the best ways of finding affordable ways to having a Florida holiday, thanks to people like the oracle that is Wayneg. Flights, car hire, Travel insurance, dining are all covered here - and not just in this post. So keep reading - and posting.