Your Disney Fund

This is a guest post from my friend Natalie at MeettheMagic.com

One of the greatest discounts found at Walt Disney World are offered to those who are in the military.  Here are all of the great discounts:

Accommodations:

Shades of Green

Great accommodations are offered to those in the military at the Shades of Green.  Shades of Green is tucked nicely across the street from Disney’s Polynesian Resort.  The resort offers low rates and spacious rooms which will accommodate up to 5 guests.  The rooms are compared to those held by Disney’s Deluxe resorts!  The resort was completely renovated and expanded in 2005.

Before you get to excited, consider the following necessary qualifications:

• Currently an active duty personnel including Department of Defense civilian employees, National Guard and reservists, 100% disabled veterans and retired military who served 20 years or more.  Qualified personnel can book up to 3 rooms, allowing friends and relatives a stay at the Shades of Green.   Honorably discharged veterans who have served less than 20 years can stay at Shades of Green only during January and September.

Some additional details of the amenities for Shades of Green:

• Inclusion in Extra Magic Hours (Extra hours before and after the Disney World parks open, a privilege held by all Disney Resorts)
• Ability to walk to the monorail at Disney’s Polynesian Resort for use of the bus or monorail.  Free parking at the theme parks is not available.
• On-site transportation to all theme parks.  This is exclusive of the Disney bus system.
• Transportation from and to theOrlandoairport is not included.

Disney Property (only for October 2, 2011 – September 30, 2012)

If staying in a non-Disney resort is not your speed, you can still save plenty of money!  Here are the current deals for the military on property:

• Military discounts of 30% off Value Resorts, 35% off Moderates and 40% off Deluxe and Deluxe Villa Resorts are now available for stays 10/2/11-9/30/12.  (Some dates are not included (blocked out) for this offer and will price at full rack rate: those dates probably include 12/26/11-12/31/11 and 4/1/12-4/12/12.)  These booking can be room only or include a Dining Plan.

To qualify for these discounts, be sure to bring in your Military ID to show at check-in.

Tickets:

Active or retired military can purchase up to 6 4-Day military tickets.  When purchasing these tickets, you must choose one of the following options: Park Hopper OR Water Park Fun and More.  The price per ticket is $138 per ticket.  If both options are wanted, the 4-Day military tickets with both options cost approximately $165 per ticket.  Tickets are taxed unless purchased at Shades of Green or from a military base.  On property, tickets can be purchased at theMagicKingdomticket booth or at Downtown Disney’s Guest Relations counter.  Be sure that the military member has their military identification when the tickets are used.  These tickets per this offer must be used by 10/1/2011, the date they will expire.

This is really a great Strategy!  A search online found that the following parks offer FREE admission:

• Sea World” parks inOrlando,Fla.,San DiegoandSan Antonio
• “BuschGardens” parks inTampa,Fla., andWilliamsburg,Va.
• “Sesame Place,” a children’s play and water park, nearPhiladelphia
• “AdventureIsland” water park inTampa
• “Water Country USA” water park inWilliamsburg

If you are interested in these theme parks, please be sure to verify that the offer still is available before heading out for your park adventure!

Natalie has been visiting Disney World and Disneyland with her son (currently age 5), husband and family for her theme park fun since 1978! Natalie’s passion for Disney has now combined with her Certified Public Accounting license to help other afford the vacation to Disney of their dreams! Be sure to check out http://MeetTheMagic.com for Disney articles from Cast Members and also many on trip planning and trip reports. Also, find many more Strategies for Paying for Disney posts at http://StrategiesforPayingforDisney.com.

This is an incredible guest post from my reader Vikki.

“HOW many gift cards do you want to use to pay off your room??”

The Cast Member on the other end of the phone didn’t believe his ears when I said I planned to use SEVENTEEN gift cards to pay my room balance shortly before our family trip to Walt Disney World. Together, it took us 30 minutes to enter all of the numbers, but it was the best-paid half hour of my life!

One of my favorite “Couponing to Disney” strategies to save money for our trip is buying Disney gift cards in advance. Those 17 gift cards totaled $1350, enough to pay off my room balance. I calculate they saved me about $400.  Maybe you’ll be able to use some of these ideas to save money buying Disney gift cards before your trip:

1. Gas reward points – Kroger (and other) grocery stores offer fuel points for buying groceries and gift cards. Often the gift cards will give you twice the points. Right before school started, my Kroger was running a special deal that offered FOUR times the fuel points for buying gift cards. Under that promotion, I bought $250 in Disney gift cards and got 1000 points, enough for $1.00 off per gallon. That meant a savings of $20 for filling my van’s 20-gallon tank. Savings: Up to 8 percent.

2. School promotions — My son’s high-school marching band requires hundreds of dollars in fees, but our Kroger-brand store offers 6 percent back to his account when I buy anything (including gift cards) at the store using a gift card linked to his account. I add money to the gift card (using my Disney VISA, of course), then use the card to buy groceries and Disney gift cards. I get the fuel points mentioned above AND 6 percent into his band account for trip and uniform fees. I made over $125 in the last year for his account between groceries and gift cards. Savings: 6 percent.

3. Sales on gift cards — Twice now in the spring, I’ve seen packets of three $15 gift cards ($45) trigger a $5 Catalina coupon that you can use on your next transaction at the store. Watch the gift-card area of your grocery store for special promotions and read local money-saving blogs. Savings: 11 percent!

4. Minimum-purchase deals — Sometimes stores have coupons for $10 off of a $50 purchase, or a soda deal that only works if you spend $25. If your total is going to fall short of that magic number, buying a Disney gift card can raise your store total so you can use a dollar-off coupon or discount. In the $10 off of $50 example, you’d save 20 percent!

5. Gift card bonus packs — In the past (and hopefully again soon), Sam’s Club has offered a $100 gift card for $98.87 that included a bonus $10 Disney Store gift card. You can use the $10 bonus card to buy T-shirts, plush, or light-up toys at the Disney Store before your trip, also a money-saver itself. Savings: 10 percent.

6. Disney VISA card – 1 percent Disney cash back, $200 offer for signing up. The Disney VISA runs special offers for certain categories in certain months – make sure you watch the mail for these offers. I had an offer for 3 percent back on groceries and gasoline over a three-month period. If you can shift your spending in those categories to your Disney VISA, you can earn extra points. That’s 2 percent extra savings (plus the whopping $200 sign-up bonus).

Each time I bought gift cards with a discount or rebate, I put the cards in a safe place and transferred my extra savings to my Disney fund.  This way I slowly built my stash of gift cards and earned cash toward other trip expenses.

If you know you will be visiting a Disney park in the next year, you could park all of your savings in an account earning 1 percent or less. Or, when you find a deal on Disney gift cards, you could purchase them as you go, and save while doing it. With a $200 VISA bonus plus roughly $200 I earned buying gift cards, I saved around 30 percent!

(Thanks Vicki!)

This is a guest post from my friend Natalie at MeettheMagic.com

Insurance is an important part of life. It is a necessary expense once you have purchased items that are of value. Insurance is typically first purchased when someone buys their first car. Often when we purchase that first car, we forget to think about the extra costs per month we will need to spend on insuring our new asset. Another important asset to insure is our homes. Who knows when we may have a fire, tornado, or other natural disaster to take possession of our home sweet home!

I had long been paying my auto insurance when I purchased my first home. It was then that I discovered that discounts are often available to individuals that have “multiple lines of coverage” (or auto and home insurance with one insurance company). I was excited that I was getting a price break on my insurance.

Since this time, I have been an avid questioner of my insurance company to ensure that I had all possible discounts available. In addition to the multiples lines discount, I receive a discount for being accident free. About 2 weeks ago, I called my insurance company to find that I was not receiving a discount for having a home alarm in our home. We do have a home alarm and have since added this discount to our policy. This saved me nearly $150 per year!

It is definitely worth a 5 minute phone call to your insurance company to see if you are receiving all discounts on your insurance you are entitled to. I hope that this saves you some money on your insurance, money you could instead use to help pay for your vacation to Disney!

Natalie has been visiting Disney World and Disneyland with her son (currently age 5), husband and family for her theme park fun since 1978! Natalie’s passion for Disney has now combined with her Certified Public Accounting license to help other afford the vacation to Disney of their dreams! Be sure to check out http://MeetTheMagic.com for Disney articles from Cast Members and also many on trip planning and trip reports. Also, find many more Strategies for Paying for Disney posts at http://StrategiesforPayingforDisney.com.

Photo Credit: PopCultureGeek.com

This is a guest post from my friend Natalie at MeettheMagic.com

One of the more popular pastimes at my house of late has been WII gaming. My son and I love to curl up together in our chair and play Epic Mickey or Kirby Epic Yarn. The time spent laughing together as we play is priceless. One thing I had found to be difficult when we first stated playing together and before we owned either of our Epic favorites was how to find a game that would be good for both of us to play and enjoy.

As we began shopping, we were in our local Game Stop and I mentioned that I was leery of buying a game because of their price. (For those of you who do not have a local Game Stop, this is chain business that sells new and used video games.) I just was not interested in purchasing a $50 game and deciding after playing it for an hour that it was not something either of us enjoyed. The employee at Game Stop informed me that games purchased from them are returnable if you have any problems with them within 30 days after purchase. They went further to say that should I not like a game, I could exchange it for a new one.

During our shopping for the Epic games, my son had wanted several other games such as ones that featured Dora, Spider-man, etc. He is only 5 now and really is not that great at working the controls yet so my willingness to purchase him a plethora of games is just not there. Then one day as I was checking out some book and movies from my local library, I hit the motherload! Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed a WII game on the return counter. I know I did a double-take! I got the attention of a librarian and asked if they had WII games there for rent. She said, “Yes, we have a few SHELVES full of them in the media room!” Excited, I ran right back there to check out the selection. I grabbed a Dora game for the little one and a Mario Brothers for myself.

This was so exciting! I could now at least try out the games before buying them or just be able to play a variety of games for FREE! Before seeing these for rent at the library, I had looked at purchasing an account at Game Fly. However, the accounts are fairly expensive at $15.95 per month for 1 game rental at a time or $22.95 for 2 game rentals at a time. I think I will just stick to my free rentals from the library that last 3 weeks!

Be sure to check your local library. They are always adding new and exciting things that can entertain and save you money!

Natalie has been visiting Disney World and Disneyland with her son (currently age 5), husband and family for her theme park fun since 1978! Natalie’s passion for Disney has now combined with her Certified Public Accounting license to help other afford the vacation to Disney of their dreams! Be sure to check out http://MeetTheMagic.com for Disney articles from Cast Members and also many on trip planning and trip reports. Also, find many more Strategies for Paying for Disney posts at http://StrategiesforPayingforDisney.com.

This is a guest post from my friend Crystal at CounselorMom.com

My mother and I have saved quarters for the past couple of years. You could say she especially has a bit of a quarter saving addiction. Each time we received a quarter in change it would automatically go into a coin bank or jar. We live in separate houses so we each have our own coin bank. Sometimes we would break left over dollars just to get quarters back, which would automatically go into our quarter fund. We have saved other coins besides quarters, but the primary goal was to save each quarter since they add up a lot faster. As a stay at home mom who doesn’t work outside the home, I make sure to save every coin I get my hands on and put it in the coin jar. My 4 year old son loves to participate also as all of his money goes to our Disney fund. He has a special piggy bank just for his money in which he has already saved over $40 this summer just from grandparents giving him coins and dollars!

Earlier this year my mom gave me all of her quarters to count plus any other additional coins she had saved. The grand total for just her quarters alone was over $300! After tallying the rest of my money and hers we have saved about $500…in just under 2 years! I was surprised at how much these quarters add up! The pain has been rolling the quarters for the bank! Instead of using it for Disney this year, we plan to use it for my children’s college fund. ($500 might not sound like a lot for college but putting it in a college account or other savings account that accrues interest for several years can go a long ways)! However, we plan to use this exact same technique again to add to the Disney fund for next year so I’m sure we can rack up at least $250 or more for our next trip on top of the money that my son has been saving in his piggy bank.

Crystal is a blogger at CounselorMom.com.

If you live in one of the states that charge you a deposit when you purchase canned and bottle drinks, you could take the money you receive when you return them to the store and add it to your fund. You have already paid the deposit and it’s already been deducted from your grocery budget, so when you do return the bottles it’s what we call Found Money.

My friend lives in a deposit state (I do not), and she was able to add $15.90 to her fund when she returned her cans and bottles to her local Kroger Store.

Want to find out how to find even more money in your budget? Be sure to check out all the ways to add to your fund!

(Photo Credit: Sweet Repeats)

Natalie has been visiting Disney World and Disneyland with her son (currently age 5), husband and family for her theme park fun since 1978! Natalie’s passion for Disney has now combined with her Certified Public Accounting license to help other afford the vacation to Disney of their dreams! Be sure to check out http://MeetTheMagic.com for Disney articles from Cast Members and also many on trip planning and trip reports. Also, find many more Strategies for Paying for Disney posts at http://StrategiesforPayingforDisney.com.

As you may recall, a months ago I mentioned ways for you to save by selling your items in consignment sales. You should be able to find a variety of these sales in your area if you search online for your city’s name, then the word “consignment”. If you are looking for a specific consignment to participate in, add that to the search. For example, if you live in Orlando, Fl and want to consign children’s clothing type in your search engine, “Orlando, Fl Children’s Consignment Sales”. This will give you a list of places to add your items to. Other ways to find local consignment sales is by searching the garage sale listings of the newspaper or through your local Craig’s List. I recently added my son’s clothing to a consignment sale being sponsored by his preschool. His school made 10% of the proceeds and the consignors made 70%. The remaining 20% went to the ladies who hosted the sale.

When I set out to do this consignment sale, I knew it would be a great deal of work. For these types of sales, all items must be washed, pressed and labeled. The label includes the price, description and the size of the item. The process took several hours, as you can imagine. In participating in past consignment sales, I know I am not too successful but the amount you can earn per item can be significantly more than what can be earned in a garage sale.

To help me make more for my money, I decided I would go ahead with the consignment sale with the thought that after I had completed the sale, I would add the clothes to a garage sale. Even further, if the items do not sale in the garage sale I will be participating in, I already know that the consignors for my son’s preschool plan on holding another sale at the school in the Fall. With so many opportunities for selling these items, I feel confident that most will be sold. I will simply assign one price to each item and keep each item priced at the same amount for all 3 sales. This way, all of my work was done at one time and all I need to do is bring the items to the second and third sales.

And what to do if I still have items left over after all three sales?  Well, I will simply donate those items.  This will help me later on with saving money on my taxes!

I hope you are able to save some money through garage sales and consignment sales too! Please check back in after your sales and let us know how much you have saved toward going to Disney!