How many people do you have in your family? I see you're in PA, would you consider driving down? We rented a van to drive to WDW and back (there were 5 adults on this particular trip) and it cost about $300 for a week (plus about $300 round trip in gas). If you're planning on staying longer than a week, it may be cheaper to turn the van in once you're down there and renting another one for the trip back. It takes us about twelve hours. We leave at about 7-8 p.m. on a Friday night, get to a cheap hotel (like $50 a night cheap but we do our research before we go and make sure it's in a good area) at around midnight, wake up and get out by 8-9 a.m. and get to WDW about 4-5 p.m. on Saturday. This comes out to about $140 per person (since there was five of us and the cheapest flight I've ever been able to find for us is $200 with all of the taxes and fees so we're saving about $300). But if time is an issue you may not want to spend that much time travelling (although it's nice to not be controlled by the weather and airports; it took us 10 hours to fly home in 2005 because of weather).
I'm sure you enjoyed
free dining but honestly you can enjoy WDW restaurants without doing the dining and be able to enjoy other discounts. Back in August (before the free dining promotion started) we stayed at POR for $94 a night (a king bed room which is more expensive than a standard) with the public room only discount code. I also buy our tickets from undercovertourist.com through the mousesavers link and this saves us about $25 (depending on what tickets you get). We eat 2 TS meals a day and for the two of us (and generally share a snack) and it comes to about $120 a day total including tip. Sometimes we do 1 TS meal a day and obviously it costs a lot less. We don't normally order the most expensive thing on the menu, anyways, plus we're not people who like dessert with EVERY meal. We also sometimes share meals for lunch so this helps out with cost too. The Dining Plan is not the only way to be able to afford WDW restaurants.
If we go to WDW for 9-10 days we space out the days we go to the parks. I'll buy us a 6-7 day pass and every two days we'll take a day to just hang out at the resort, go to DTD, go for a walk around other resorts, drive to Celebration, read a book by the pool, rent a boat, go to a water park, or mini-golfing, etc.
Since we drive and I love soda, I'll pack a case of soda's to keep in the room. This is cheaper than buying a refillable mug at the resort or buying drinks (it's also nice to have it already in the room and not have to go all of the way to the food court area, especially if I'm in my PJ's
). I also bring a bottle of champagne to enjoy one night sitting out on the balcony
.
I just wanted to add that it's cheaper to stay offsite but I just can't give up EMH's and you said without ruining the experience
(missing EMH nights would ruin WDW for me for sure!)
We need help saving money without completely totalling our expirence. HELP!!!! We need some 
