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As a single mother of two children, I always had to plan a vacation on a budget. Most of our family vacations would be at locations like Disney World. Disney World can become expensive is not planned well. The following are the steps I took to plan a vacation to Disney World on a budget:

1) I would pick the second week of September because it wasn't a peak period and all kids and families were busy with starting the new school season.

2) I wold contact a friend or acquaintance that had a timeshare and would purchase a timeshare week from them. RCI had a program where I could purchase a week for $199.00 this would save me $400.00 for the week and I didn't impose on the owner's time.

3) During the year, I would utilize my debit master card that has miles reward and accumulate enough miles to purchase two airline tickets for $20. One ticket would cost me about $180, a savings of $360.00.

4) Most locations in Florida have booths offering 2 free amusement parks to go through a 90 min. tour at their timeshare or hotel. I would sign up to 3 or 4 of these and get free tickets to the amusement parks saving me about $100 for each park, a total of $400.00.

5) For the food budget, the timeshares typically offer continental breakfast during the week days by the pool. This saved us a lot of money for breakfasts. Where I would pay about $3.50 per person a day. This breakfast plus the breakfasts at the 90 min presentations would save me approximately $100.00 for the week.

For lunch, we would go the supermarket and purchase cold cuts, bread and make sandwiches for the kids and myself. I would purchase a case of small bottles of waters or juices and small bags and chips and pack a lunch to take with us. If you have ever been to Disney World, lunch at the park becomes very expensive. So instead of paying approximately $6.00 per person a day, I would end up paying about $2.00 per person per day for lunch. Saving me $12.00 per day for lunch, which equals to $84.00 for the week.

For dinner, we would alternate either making dinner at the timeshare or purchasing items that were least expensive. For instance, one day we would order one pizza pie which would run about $12.00, another day we would purchase a bucket of chicken that would cost $10.00 and another day I would make spaghetti in the timeshare with sauce and bread.

6) Toys and trinkets for the kids at the park. Kids will always want toys or stuff at the parks, which is the most expensive part of the trip in my opinion. So what I would

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