A painless way to add to your Disney Fund is to get your weekly budget out of the bank in cash and break dollars whenever possible. You won’t believe how quickly the change adds up.
When I go to pay for any purchase at the register, I pay only with bills. Even if my total is $0.01, I still break a bill instead of giving them a penny. At the end of the week, I count all the loose change and deposit that amount into the Disney fund. I don’t miss it.
Our Disney fund is kept in this cute bank we picked up from Disney World. You can also find it online at The Disney Store (just search Disney Bank).
Want to find out how to find even more money in your budget? Be sure to check out all the articles in the your fund series.
{ 28 comments… read them below or add one }
Our bank doesnt let us deposit change, so what i do is head to coinstar get a amazon gift card and deposit the amount in my fund. Oh and i had so much fun making a little env. book the other day it was totally free because i just used my scrapbooking stuff :)
Oh oh oh that is awesome!! Please email me pictures if you want!
We have a mickey mouse cookie jar that we keep our loose change in and then when it gets pretty full we put it in this huge glass beer-bottle looking thing. So far we have 1 1/2 glass jars filled and some more in the cookie jar. I keep my own change seperate in my room to use as my spending money at disney. We got a coin counter jar from walmart so it counts the change for me and when it gets pretty heavy I put the change in a cute mickey mouse bank I have.
So far I’ve got a pretty good amount since July! Saving change is one of the easiest ways!
I do this ALL the time!!!!! I just cashed in my coins and got $100!!!!! Thats going RIGHT into the DIsney FUND!!!! WOOT WOOT!
I do this all the time and my husband drives me crazy trying to pay in correct change and I tell him no:) Last time we used it for spending money for a trip to Gatlinburg, this time for our baby fund since we found out we were pregnant while we were there!:) Saves up so fast!
I started saving all of my change last week! :-)
I started saving my change since last year, my back offers a coin counting machine at .003 per dollar instead of the almost .10 cents per dollar the coinstar charges us. We also collect recyclables and cash them in for money and deposit that in our Disney cruse fund….
I like to keep my change in a classy location- a Coach Clutch bag haha! But you’re right breaking a dollar doesn’t make you miss the money at all, and its fun to change in the change! I do that at my TD bank, if you have an account its free to do.
We do this too! We have a piggy bank that my husband and I painted together at the local pottery place. We use that for pennies, dimes, and nickles. Then, we have a Mickey bank that we use for quarters and cash. I cash my paycheck and put a nice amount into it every 2 weeks. We also put any other cash that we have after an outing. When we head to Disney, we cash the quarters and deposit the cash. This has helped making multiple Disney trips possible for us!
We do this as well in our family. My husband takes $5 per week and turns it into change for our jar. There were some weeks we added more and didn’t even miss it. Last year when we went to Disney, our jar had $500. I would definitely recommend this to anyone for any reason!!
we started saving our change about 20 years ago for gas money to drive to Disney!! Back then we saved about $200 in a year…that was when we young and only had minimum wage paying jobs. Up until I lost my job a few years ago 1 year we saved about 1200 in loose change and another 500 in bills that I also would throw in the jar from time to time. We count it the old fashion way…dump it on the floor and sit there for hours separating it and counting
we got one of those counting ones at rite aid after christmas it was like 75% off… we use that…. we also got all the kids one too so they can watch their money grow…. my daughter is learning about currency now at school so i get the money out to help her and she always says “since you used it to show ME, MY homework… can i keep it and put it in mine?? lol
I have been saving my change for years and cashing it in when we would go on vacation.
My 8 year old son showed me his bank a couple of weeks ago and how heavy it was getting. I asked him where he was getting all the money from, and he said “I don’t like the change in my wallet so I’ve been putting it in the bank”, plus his big brother doesn’t like the pennies, nickles and dimes and so he’s been giving all that to the him too. He said he was saving for our family vacation on the Disney Dream! I guess my obsession is rubbing off on him! Last night I came home from the grocery store and gave him my change for his bank, he said” Thanks Mom but you know know you could help me out a little more by cleaning out your purse too!”
I am similar, except I use bills and pennies- that way I’m not getting anything but nickels, dimes and quarters back. If it’s $1.07, I’ll pay $2.02 so I’m still rounding up a dollar, but I get back $.95 instead of getting pennies back. Then my bank is filled with bigger coin amounts. And I do the coinstar thing as well for gift cards so I don’t lose 10% to fees. Since we are going to remodel our house soon, I have been doing Lowe’s. But Amazon is another good option since we get quite a bit from there.
On Jan 1st of this year we decided to ramp up our Disney savings. We now put all $5 bills into a jar. We never spend the $5 bills we get, just throw them in the jar. It is amazing how fast they are going in! We are hoping to get to $1000 by the end of the year. (I did glue the top of the jar… just so I don’t ‘borrow’ from it!)
That is a good idea to glue the lid. I’ve caught my husband digging into our bank once or twice for change to get a soda at work…
Thanks, deb g.! I have to do that too, or my husband would borrow from it to get change for the newspaper! I used to have to hide it from him! Now, the jar he used to raid only has the pennies! I put the silver in a large water bottle that has the counter in the cap. I got it from Bed, Bath and Beyond. When it’s full I can take it to my bank and I can use their machine for free. Then I deposit the full amount in the fund! We are doing a Disney Cruise in 2012 and I’m saving the extra money to add on park days and spending money.
I sent you an email with pics of our Disney box about a month ago, did you get it? Hope all is well! Congrats on making the top 3!!!! Should have been #1!
We started doing this about 6 months ago…well, we counted it 2 days ago & it’s added up to more than $233!! Woohoo!!
My kids “helped” me make our jar pretty last week. I added vinyl to the jar. First I downloaded the Disney font and some Mickey’s free from the internet and then I used my Sure Cuts A lot program to design the jar, then I cut the vinyl with my Cricut. Our jar is all pretty and reminds us every time we put $ in why we are saving.
My kids get $10 allowance each month and my son had $5 in his spend jar this month, I asked him if he wanted to keep the $ to spend or put it in the Disney Fund…he chose the Disney Fund! YEAH! I just turned in all the change and it totaled $55.91! My bank will count it in their counter for FREE!
Well since I won my cute bank from a giveaway here our old jar system was put away. We have the same cute bank as above, and the whole family is involved. If the kids find a coin on the ground they’ll drop it in, and hubby and I put change in whenever we have it. Right now we’re saving for church camp this summer, but we hope to hit Disney again in 2012.
We save our change in an old Huggies wipes container. Our daughter decorated it with markers and Disney stickers to make it more festive to save. She even named it our “huggy bank”.
I do this all the time!! I don’t even think about it, I just put the change in my son’s dog bank for safe keeping. He loves to dump it out and put each coin back. It is painful but I guess it helps reinforce identifying coins ( he’s 2). Hopefully we’ll have enough to help pay for a DW trip.. Good luck to all of you!!!! Happy Easter!!
We not only don’t spend coins, we don’t spend dollar bills either. The savings is paying for our vacation this year. We are hoping that it pays for our Disney trip next year!
I have done this for years. I never pay with change. You will be surprise how much change you can save.Julie, I like your tip don’t use dollar bills. I am going to try that too.
I do this all the time! I am constantly emptying my purse into my Disney bank. It adds up so fast. My two nieces are even doing it!
I have been doing this for years and it’s always amazing to me how quickly it adds up. When I find paper money I didn’t know I had (in a pocket or at the bottom of my purse), I add that in too. Every bit helps the fund grow!