Lulabelle's MFW Diary

HelenDaveKids

Oh Np, you and your TD!!!

lulabelle1

nattypants wrote: »

I agree that life just gets so busy with juggling appointments, food buying, food prepping, house stuff, work stuff, car stuff, bill paying, poo picking, etc. etc.

All I can say is thank God for tumble drying. One of life's little luxuries:D

Exactly, at least we have our Tumble Driers Natty!! :beer:

lulabelle1

Tillie Tidies done on the two flex accounts.

Other Savings pots still have a little bit of something left in them, which is most unusual for 4 days prior to payday, maybe because it is a slightly shorter month.

Dinner tonight - Hunters chicken - had a load of chicken in the freezer, so some of that has been taken out to defrost. Have everything else in too.

By all accounts we should have gone and done the weekly food shop last night but we're going to see if we can string it out for a few more days as the food account money is running a little bit low.

Baked comic relief cupcakes on Tuesday evening and sent them in to nursery - they are selling cakes to raise money for CR. I was really pleased with how they turned out. However, I'm really fed up of baking cakes now, so I've hung up my whisks for a while.

Looking forward to a very lazy/quiet weekend after the chaotic one last weekend. Will hopefully manage to get out for a nice walk with the boys at some point of the rain holds off and we might all go for afternoon tea as a little treat over the weekend. Although it depends if I think they can behave appropriately for an hour.

Booked the car parking for our holiday today. Car parking is ridiculously expensive. Booked via Quidco for 15% cash-back so I guess it helps a little bit. Used some of the money from the Holiday saves account to pay for it.

Everything is now booked and organised for the holiday. The only thing I need to think about before we go is getting some park tickets. We only plan on going to a couple of parks a couple of times over the few weeks so I'm just going to shop around and see what I can find. I might even just pick up some tickets from a dodgy booth once I'm there.....

I've nearly managed to save all of the spending money, we have a few months before we go, so it will all be saved by the time we need it. Shame the exchange rate is so pants at the moment though!!

moneycurious

Your very organised Lula, thats great stuff!! where you off again?? Hmmm to go on holiday would be lovely - currently back in duvet!!!xx

lulabelle1

We're going to Florida.... flying in to Tampa as it worked out cheaper and flying back from Orlando.....

We've been a few times before so we're not planning on spending too much time in the parks. We're going to take day trips to Clearwater, St Pete's and there's a nice country park North of Orlando that I want to take the boys to - you can take a rowing boat out and see Alligators. We're staying at a lovely place with a few pools and a lake with watersports, so hopefully we can have some lazy days there too.

I'm soooooo looking forward to it.

HelenDaveKids

sooo jeolous. Would like to do florida next year. Any super saver tips??

lulabelle1

I wish I did have some super saver tips!

I can only share what we did, which is to book everything separately... Although I guess there are probably some good package deals available?

I managed to save a good chunk of money by flying in to Tampa instead of Orlando. We're flying with ba and for some reason it was around £150 each cheaper to fly in to Tampa. Tampa is only around a 1.5 hour drive, so it's worth the £600 saving on 4 tickets. We will fly back from Orlando as this was the same price as flying back from Tampa.

I always hire my car with Alamo as find them to be thE cheapest.

I booked both the flights and car rental via quidco.

I got lucky with the accommodation. A business contact helped me out and I got it for £750 for 2 weeks... If I'd gone direct it would have been a few thousand. We're staying at the Marriott cypress harbour resort. I've stayed there when I've been over for business and its lovely. We'll have a 2 bed apartment and the units are huge, so plenty of space for us all. The facilities are fantastic.

In regards to park tickets, they cost a fortune. I just google around for the best deal. However, this time we will only spend a few days in parks, so I might just buy them from a dodgy ticket booth when we get there....

Basically, they have these ticket booths where say a family who have been on holiday and have purchased unlimited park tickets for 2 weeks but have a few days validity left on them - they take them to the ticket booths and they give them a few dollars for them. You can then buy the ticket from the booth and use the remaining validity. It's against the park rules but impossible for them to enforce. The same people at the ticket booths have been there for donkeys years and the police would close them if they were illegal, so as far as I can see, it's ok......

We bought some last year to go to the Disney watermarks.... After we'd finished with them (upon advice of the ticket booth), we paid to extend the tickets at the Disney ticket office... We were then able to sell the, back to the booth and made a few hundred dollars out if the while thing. Funded a shopping trip to the mall before we flew home!!

I'm not saying this is for everyone..... We've been there lots of times, so I guess we felt more comfortable with doing this than say a first time visitor would.

Eating out over there is cheap, but not if you eat in the parks....

If you go, I'd always recommend to go exploring a little but. Whilst Orlando is good for the parks, the surrounding areas and beaches are stunning and it's a shame not to experience them.

Oh, and regardless of how hungry you are, never over order in restaurants, the portion sizes are massive. On the bright side, they will package everything you don't eat up so you can take it home!

HelenDaveKids

Thanks Lula.

WE want to go next easter, so thinking maybe start looking soon??

Half promised kids so not turning back now.

lulabelle1

Never too early, you can always start saving even if the flights might not be available yet.......

If you are booking everything separately, then I guess you will book flights with either Virgin or BA - these are the only Scheduled airlines that fly directly in and out of Orlando.

Scheduled flights become available to book 11 months prior.

Easter tends to be one of the busiest times in Orlando - so expect to have long Q's at the parks. We've avoided Easter so far but have friends who have been during that time. They ended up spending a lot more on park tickets as they paid extra to have tickets that allowed them to go in the super quick q rather than q'ing a few hours.

Before we had children in school, we always went the first 2 weeks of May as this is a fairly quiet time for Orlando.

This year we are tying it in with the week they have off at the end of May and then taking our eldest out of school for the following week.

It's usually best to book the flights as soon as they become available, especially if you are going at Easter as the flights will just get more and more expensive if you leave it.

HelenDaveKids

Thanks Lula

Easter is a bit odd next year in school hols world, its different were we live to the neighbouring county. Last time that happened we got a really cheap holiday deal, so we were praying that will be the case again. Perhaps need to check other counties websites to make sure we are the odd ones out not the county next door.

Thought about going in aUgust but DH reckons way to hot, but my mate went in august and she said they are really well prepared in the parks with shade etc