$100 a day August 2017 Bargainous Budget Bites
Intro
Me Stephanie 42, Dibber, like a bargain or a coupon, will eat most things
DH 42, only driver in Florida, he is with us honestly but prefers no photos of him on the dibb/social media. Hates seafood or mushrooms
DD 11, just started secondary school. As you will see Anna was born without her left hand but she doesn’t let it stop her
We first went to Florida 20 years ago in July 1997 when we had just graduated from Law College as girlfriend/boyfriend.
Since then we are at over 30 trips to the USA mainly Florida.
DD has been 12 times.
As we go a lot we tend to do Universal or Disney not both in one trip
Last trip was Oct/Nov 2016 for 2 weeks at Animal Kingdom Lodge with dining plan. I did a food review and trip report.
We also enjoy Universal and have just done Universal May 2016, October 2015 and October 2014. Again, my dining and trip reports are on the dibb from these 3 stays at Cabana bay.
We usually go October as DD used to get 2 weeks October half term. Unfortunately, all good things come to an end and she has just started grammar school with a 1 week half term.
So, we braved August. Just a week at Universal for various reasons. We got a rescue dog in January called Ollie (short for Ollivander) and I didn’t want to leave him too long with Grandma. I was also wary about coming back too near DD starting school.
We have done week before and find as repeat visitors we hit the ground running.
We tend to eat mainly offsite on our Universal trips and I do keep an eye out for deals and coupons.
I had a pre dining thread running which was good as several people chipped in with suggestions.
I aim for $100 a day roughly and do the dibb cash in envelopes tip, basically roll over what you don’t spend to the next day. You will always be ahead as day 1 travel day is only 1 meal in US.
Before we went I did the usual sign up to email clubs with a new email address to get some new joiner offers. Don’t do this too early as most last only 7 or 14 days. I also stay signed up from previous years and existing ones came through with some useful offers, plus a heads up on current specials.
I bought a steak and shake giftcard off groupon.com This was $10 for a $20 non expiring giftcard.
Another groupon for Ben and Jerry ice cream - $14 worth of icecream for $3.50 (should have been $7 but groupon had 50% off code)
Travelzoo.com hash house a go go $40 voucher for $20
$25 restaurant.com voucher for $10 for O’Charley’s
Thanks for reading and hope you find it useful.