Small change adds up to big bucks!

[onajourney]

We put out a big jar for change and told the kids it would be for Disney souveniers. Well, we still have 2 months to go and the jar was full, so we dumped it out, sorted and counted it.... $152!!!!! The kids were SO excited. (And so was I because that was more than I had budgeted for souveniers) And that was after I took out the money for their pressed pennies. The other souveniers I had planned was the pick-a-pearl in Japan (already bought the cages/chains for them on ebay) trading pins, which I am slowly collecting, and some custom shirts I am having made and/or making myself. With three kids, they will have $50 each to spend on something that means something to them. I know my son will want to build a light saber, my youngest dd wants minnie ears, and my older dd will wait for her special treasure to reveal itself to her there. They took that to the bank and put the odd 63 cents back in the jar as seed money as they hope to get it half full before we leave. I have a feeling they will be asking Grandpa and Grandmas for change now.

 

[cassiez76]

yay!!

i use to save my change to go to the casino's. then i hardly ever went and just started to save the change anyway. one time i cashed it in and was able to buy a plane ticket!

i have this big clear cookie jar that i got a little over 4 years ago. i haven't touched it! it's half way full. i know there's at least $100 (i put a bill in there). i can't wait to take it to the bank in 2 weeks to find out how much is in there.

that's our spending money.

my mom has a ton of change we cleaned out from my grandma's house years ago and she's taking that...finally....to the bank to get the bills for it.

 

[LIBLULA]

We have been saving our change since returning home from Disney last September. I brought it in last week for our upcoming trip to Disney and it was $635.00!!!!!!!! I was shocked!! The most we have ever saved was around $400.00.

 

[ShortyNBug]

My girls each have their own jars to save money in until we go in Oct 2010. They are already looking for change everywhere so they can put it in their jars. I started off their jars with all the change in my change cups but I think I may have to keep it now to help defray some of the costs.

I just have a feeling they'll have "too much" if it's possible. Santa is bringing them each $50 in disney dollars and they've asked everyone for money because they think the more money we have the sooner we'll go. They don't know I have this planned and they don't know that whatever they save is theirs for the trip. I've decided I'm going to have them pay for BBB with theirs too. I was going to have my mom buy it for them for Christmas but I'm not sure how without just getting the cash.

 

[Leajess99]

WTG!!!!!! I just counted and rolled our change that we have been saving since January and it covers the cost of our resort and some extra plus the kids have $150 or so in Disney Dollars. We had some extra change so that went back in the bank for next year's trip.

 

[LPNmom]

I love the coin jar!!! We are going to cash in ours in a week for our upcoming trip....hoping there is at least $100, we have been putting change in for over 8 months. We do this every year for our family vacations always gives us at least $150 in fun money.

 

[tgriff3]

We have done this too and just emptied it today. We saved up almost $600!! I am beyond thrilled. I had no idea we would save so much!

 

[Mom2apirate&princess]

Inspired by this thread, my daughter and I just counted up our change that we have been saving for Disney. We are at $150 and still have many months to go! She got really excited and started looking for more loose change all over the house )

 

[DisneyAndRedSox]

It is shocking how fast it adds up. Our change jar (a biscotti jar form BJ's) had about an inch of change in it. Normally we wouldn't have cashed it in with so little change, but I was opening a vacation acct at the bank and DD wanted to use the change machine in the lobby. We figured $20-30... it had $56! Not too bad and now we are inspired even more to dump spare change in it.

The only draw back, we were at the Boston Public Garden yesterday and we had NO change for the meters since we empty our wallets all the time!

 

[mindy5648]

The very first thing I have to do when I get to disney is get to a park and get a bucket of popcorn! From then on while we are on our trip every time we come back to the room we empty the change in our pockets into the popcorn bucket. The of the of the trip we count it out all out and exchange it for dollar bills. That is how we tip mousekeeping it is great! We usually have between 15 and 20 dollars! We get to leave mousekeeping a great tip without actually feeling like we used out spending money

 

[LWatson]

Our boys both have banks w/ money in them for their souvies. Both have over $70 each, and we still have 58days to go, and Daddy hasnt brought home his change jar from deployment yet either.

Part of the reason they have so much though is I started clipping coupons when I saw a friend save $20 on their grocery bill, and so the money that was saved by clipping coupons I get back in change from the cashier and split it between the boys. Now we have never had $20 to split (she is way better at it than I am), but I have split $10 between the 2. Usually though its just $2-5.

Their Grandma & PawPaw are sending them some spending money too (offered on their own.)

 

[bankgirl05]

3 years ago,when my DS3 was born, my DD14(then 11) decorated a 5 gallon water bottle with Disney stickers and stuff, we put "mikey's first Disney trip on it. that trip got postponed, and when he was old enough Mikey started dropping all of the coins we collected each night into the bottle. It became a bedtime routine to do "circles" (what he called change) and then DH started dropping in ones and occasional 5's and 10's!!! Last year that bottle became so full Mikey could reach in and pull money out! So we started a second bottle, and added a third child! So now "Mikey's first Disney trip" has turned into "Mikey and Audrey's(DD1) first trip and Laura's Freshman year celebration." and I began dropping any "found" money in there,like money found in the washer (found a $50 once DH was a little mad, but he agreed to the "rules") I also clip coupons and shop store sales like the previous poster, and that money usually goes in there too!!! DH is a Wawa coffee addict, so every time he buys a cup (3-4 times a day) he gets like .79 change, so it has been adding up and up!!! can't wait to cash it in, the little ones won't care so much about having thier own spending money but DD14 will be able to find something special for herself that she might not have gotten otherwise, and maybe I'll have enough for a "bounce back" ressie or a DCL ressie down payment dying to go on the Alaska Cruise in 2011!!! I'll try to post pictures of our bottles so y'all can see 'em and I'll let you know next month how much we saved up!!! my Dh thinks there is close to a thousand dollars between the 2 bottles though!

 

[diamondpixienc]

We have been saving for our first trip in Sept 2010 too! My DS(6) & DD(4) are taking part in the saving as every time they find a penny or change of any kind "Look mom - Disney World money" and we put away in the savings jug. We haven't counted it yet but we may be doing well as we have 1 & a half i think 1 gallon Hawaiian punch containers filled and counting so. I hope we can save as much as some of you guys. Over 600 bucks that is awesome.

 

[DisneyAndRedSox]

I also clip coupons and shop store sales like the previous poster, and that money usually goes in there too!!!

I found out you can apply coupons to pervious purchases at Target and they give you cash! I bought something and forgot a coupon, next time I brought them in and I figured it would go back to my credit card. Nope, they handed me cash! So now I hand DD the money for her Disney bank and she is pyched to save the money for vacation.

 

[nettii]

We do this every year too. Last year we saved $1000. yes $1000.! we always put in our change, we also put our bottle money in. any found money, which could be change in the couch to an extra money coming in you didnt expect. We also put in ones and fives-The dollars that end up tucked in your pocket or in your change purse. Also part of that $1000 was money from selling some gold. Good luck every one!

 

[kevschickee]

It sure does I have close to $400 in change right now!!!