This inspirational story comes from my reader Katie….
I’m absolutely obsessed with your blog! I’ve been following it for a while now just for the deals that you post, but I decided this month that I’m going to start Couponing to Disney! I have a 2 1/2 year old daughter and we’re hoping to get pregnant with #2 sometime this year. So I’m thinking we’ll plan to go to Disney in 2013… so I have a while to save!
I just started and already I have over $50 saved!!! I love it! I’ve been a bargain hunter for a while now, but it’s amazing how much more disciplined I feel with this goal in mind. And it helps my waistline too :) I would usually gather up my extra change and go to the vending machine at work – now I save that $1 and put it in the Disney fund!
The main reason I wanted to write you was to tell you of another way I thought of to Coupon to Disney. I don’t think I’ve seen this on your site before (but I’ve been known to be wrong before!). Recycling cans and bottles! I know not all states charge a “deposit” on cans and bottles, but in the ones that do, it adds up fast! I live in CT and we are charged $0.05 per can/bottle that we purchase. So when you buy a 12 pack of Diet Coke, you’re automatically charged an additional $0.60! Most people put their recycling out on the curb for the town to take, but my husband and I save every single can and bottle! My husband even collects cans from coworkers who would have otherwise thrown them away.
I just went recycling this morning and it probably took me 30 minutes total to recycle 3 huge garbage bags of cans and I made… $21.20!!! If that were an hourly wage, it would be $42.40 per hour! I’d take that salary any day! I recycled 424 cans! Most of them were our own, but many of them were from my husbands co-workers, which is free money! We still have a few more bags in the garage to bring in too! We usually let them pile up over a few months and then do large batches at a time – but you can recycle however you want!
Anyways, just another idea! Thank you for all that you do – your site is genius! I can’t wait to go to Disney on money that was all “found”!
Do you have an inspirational story to share? Please include it in the comments below or feel free to email it to me. I would love to feature it on Couponing to Disney!
How do you find places taht will take money for recyclables?
We took all of the cans we had in December before we left for our trip. We promised the two younger kids they could split the money. We made $44 off those cans and they were happy to have $22 each to spend.
When we took our first trip to Disney (Feb 2010) my kids collected cans. They asked our family/friends to save them, we would pick them up and go recycle. This was a way for them to help out for the trip. The money they earned from the cans became their spending money for the trip, and let me just say, there were zero answers with the word “no” while we were at Disney. :)
Recycling is a great idea! It is a way of helping the environment and your pocket! I have been recycling various items throughout the years. I must say that it can become overwhelming accumulating the materials if you have a limited space. I use to recyle white paper for cash now only recycle because the program does not pay for white paper. However, I ran a business at home so I went through lots of white paper. I also had friends and family recycle their paper from work or home. I would store in the boxes the paper came in. The recycling center was near the grocery store therefore I passed often and it was not out of the way. They allowed individuals to set up an account and you could let it build up if you did not want to get a few dollars each time. To many people, they felt it was not worth it, but it didnt take hardly anytime to drop off and to cash out. I still recycle newspaper and cans for cash, which I feel is free money!
My father-in-law recycles the cans for cash too. He actually dumps out the garbage can and backs over all of the cans to get them as flat as possible. He then sweeps them back into the garbage can. This allows him to fit a lot more cans into one garbage can or bag and so he can make fewer trips to the recycling center (definitely a plus with gas costing almost $4/gallon!)
I took a truck load of cans a while back and got about $33 for them. The next time I only got about $3 for about half as many cans. I guess the price can fluctuate quite a bit! But on my last trip I took an old rusted red wagon with only 3 wheels and got $13 just for it! So check around your house for old metal, you just might have enough to put some cash in your pocket!
I’m in MA and we have the deposit return as well. Usually five average-sized garbage bags equal $20 or so, depending on how much we stuffed in there. LOL
CA was really great, as they did it all by weight. Definitely easy ways to make money.
I live in CT too, Katie :)
We always redeem our bottles and cans and I take that money and add it to my Disney Fund! In my office, all my co-workers know they can bring their cans to me, usually when I come in the morning I have a few waiting for me on my desk!
i live in Michigan and we have a 10 cent deposit…those things are like gold, LOL!! When my hubby was in college he drove a garbage truck and since we live in a tourist area, sometimes we’d make more a week in pop cans than he would his paycheck!!!! It was quite humbling for him, but the money was so worth it!!! I think the most we made was $412 in one week!!!
Wow! That is a lot from cans!
We have a local guy that collects cans from the roadsides. He has made his living doing this, for the past 20yrs!!! I might add some good money, for free product and a few hours of manual labor.