The Save Money for Disney Thread (Tips Included)

[eyor44]

I take surveys and read emails at InboxDollars because The Today Show said they were legit but the money is sparse ($.50 a survey; however this is $30 extra a month to put toward Disney just for taking about 2 surveys a day, or $60 if you do 4, etc).

How do you make so much on InboxDollars? I rarely seem to qualify for any surveys.

 

[zazu1971]

Make your own pizza.... much cheaper and everyone can have exactly what they want on theirs.
Also have 1 night a week where you try not to spend ANY money on food. (ie: leftovers or something like that... sometimes my mom invites us for dinnerm always nice. )

 

[MomofM&M]

Upon email request I am back. Just finished medicine wards at the VAMC and I am tired. 30 hour call every 4th night tires ya out.

So much for the Bell Commission, eh?

 

[RichieTruxillo]

Bell Commission? I am barely in compliance hehe. Barely made it home today, had my first call on ICU, kept everyone alive but didnt get any sleep at all due to the work it took. More than 30 hours straight on duty though is a violation. They are *just* keeping me within work hour limits.

Never seen many people make much with inboxdollars, though I have considered advertising there for some of my ebay websites before.

I ordered the Disney Vacation DVD today...thinking hard about staying at the polynesian Keep saving and keep the tips coming

 

[RichieTruxillo]

Wow! had a yard sale today, made over 300 bucks. Plus my wife finally got rid of the last piece of her "Ex-boyfriend" jewelry collection as an added bonus.

Even sold my old Nintendo and games. My closet feels liberated. It's worth the time to do a yard sale on a Saturday. Plus I love all the old people that come by and try to haggle with me. They crack me up

 

[TNKBELL]

Wow! had a yard sale today, made over 300 bucks. Plus my wife finally got rid of the last piece of her "Ex-boyfriend" jewelry collection as an added bonus.

Even sold my old Nintendo and games. My closet feels liberated. It's worth the time to do a yard sale on a Saturday. Plus I love all the old people that come by and try to haggle with me. They crack me up

Confuscious say" Someday you will be old and cracking people up!"

 

[DisHokie]

not perfect for everybody.. but i babysit to make extra money! I make great money and can say no if I can't do it

 

[Hedy]

Check out Heateatreview.com. If the publish your review, you get $20 or $5-I just got my first one approved!

 

[RichieTruxillo]

will check it out 8)

 

[butterflygirl3]

I have it installed with firefox, they just switched from google to yahoo today to give increased payouts. There's some problems with getting the plugin installed today. Give it till tomorrow and it should work again. I got an email back today.

Back to packing Love the posts, keep em coming.

Hey, could you please tell me how you make money using the yahoo search engine? I use yahoo all the time, I think this could work well for me. Thanks, mary

 

[RichieTruxillo]

Hey, could you please tell me how you make money using the yahoo search engine? I use yahoo all the time, I think this could work well for me. Thanks, mary

Sent you a private message, check your inbox.



To the rest of ya, got my vacation planner DVD this morning. excited to look at it but I am post-call and sleepy so it'll have to wait till later 8)

 

[iNTeNSeBLue98]

This may be a bunch of repeats, maybe refreshers.

1. I round down every deposit and round up every debit/check/auto-payment in my check register. I keep track in Excel and used to use the savings for something not budget for. As of this month I have vowed to transfer that savings to my ING account. For August, I had saved $15.

2. In addition to rounding off the transactions, I am going to round down my payroll direct deposit to the nearest $10 and transfer the remaining dollars to ING too. I realized over the weekend that I could have saved $161 if I'd started doing this at the beginning of the year.

3. I'm going to start saving $1 bills. I never thought I would be able to do this, but I'm going to give it a try. I don't often have cash due to my payroll checks being direct deposited, but when I do I will try to stash those ones at the end of the day. I'm going to hide them in a WDW Planning DVD (where I hope DH doesn't find them). I also labeled the case with a sticker that says "Do not throw away", just in case someone decides we no longer need the video. The case is by my desk, a place no one other than me really goes looking for anything.

4. I work a PT job on the weekends. I don't include that income against the household budget, and for the next 3 months it will go towards Christmas shopping. Starting in January I will leave it all (or most of it anyway) for WDW. I looked back at earlier this year, and I made about $1000 in 5 months...that's a good chunk of my WDW budget!

5. Occasionally I earn tips at the PT job. I usually use it for lunch during the week, since I cut that expense out of the household budget when we bought our house. Starting last week, I decided not to spend the tips, and will stash that money with the ones in the secret DVD case.

6. When the occasion arises that I shop online, I check to see if I can earn a % of the purchase back from Quick Rewards. I don't buy a lot online, but when I do, I can earn a few $$ back that can be redeemed through PayPal.

7. I recently decided to start taking advantage of my rewards CC. I'm going to make payments more often, using money allocated for things like groceries, etc. and earn back 1% of my purchase. Dining and travel expenses earn 2% and buying a specific brand of gas earns 5%...unfortunately, the nearest station is 10 miles away so I won't be able to cash in on those rewards. I must make sure to get that balance paid down, otherwise the interest against those purchases in worthless against the finance charges.

 

[shelby101301]

Great thread! Still making my way through 13 pages...

I do mystery shopping. Usually if I am required to buy something, like a Hallmark card or a drink, I am reimbursed plus $5 - $25 per shop. Larger items not so much, like glasses, but I save those shops for when I really do need glasses, as those pay $100 (and you can still use any coupons you have or take advantage of any sales).

I do the change thing too

I pay the kids an allowance for Disney. FAce it, the kids suck up a lot of money so I pay them $2 and $1 a week and that is all the money they will get. If they choose to spend it before, then the have nothing at disney. So far, they have both chosen to save it.

I redid my grocery budget to make room to save monthly vacation money. I don't buy juice boxes or prepackaged snacks any longer, We use reusable drink and snack containers. Saves considerable - about $50 a month and it's green too.

We only brown bag, even on weekend trips when we go out as a family, We pack a cooler full of healthy food instead of eating out. Everyone's used to it and it saves a lot.

So then I take the extra and depost it into my vacation fund.

My bank does a vacation club, just like a Christmas club.

We also get reimbursed for DH cell phone which he uses for work. I cash those checks and dump it in my vacation envelope instead. It add's up too.

We;re just coming off of summer trips, so it's pretty low, but our fund is at $301.33 for our Feb trip. Based on what I am putting away each month, I think we'll be fine.

I should roll our change and see what we can add

 

[RichieTruxillo]

I'm not too familiar with mystery shopping. What does it entail and can anyone do it?

I could never save $1 bills Sometimes it's the only thing I have to eat off of when I'm on call overnight. You have no idea how good a Snickers bar and a coke tastes from vending machines when its 3AM!

I should brown bag it more often though, i hear it saves a ton of money. I probably spend too much money on food

 

[iNTeNSeBLue98]

I hear ya Richie. I've been trying to take breakfast & lunch everyday. Often my GF decides we should go to the pizzeria for lunch, and we take turns buying. It's less than $5 each, but $5 is $5.

Saving the $1s is going to be a challenge. I don't usually have cash on hand since my paycheck is direct deposited. DH cashes his check and hands over the cash for me to deposit. I will keep any ones of that, yesterday there were none. I kept a $10 out of the deposit, but spent $7 on seven $1 items at a "sample sale" here at work and broke $1 to buy a flavored coffee from the machine (0.55 in the change jar, and the first I've had all week).

 

[RichieTruxillo]

Just made 40 bucks doing an odd job but I spent part of it on gas and the other part of it went toward purchasing a script for my ebay stores. Trying to break the $300/month mark now. Sure came in handy this month because the hospital accidently forgot to pay everyone on direct deposit last week which resulted in 300 bucks in overdraft charges! OUCH! Luckily they are going to make good by it. Just takes time.

I let the cat out of the bag to my wife because I need her help in saving. It's going to take a team effort to get the money together for this spring. We are going to shoot for late march as it's around her birthday and our anniversary

 

[fofinia]

Check out Heateatreview.com. If the publish your review, you get $20 or $5-I just got my first one approved!

Thanks for this. I went and put in a review. But then I noticed you have to put in 5 reviews before you can get paid. And it does say you can review something that has all ready been reviewed. So I was wondering if you reviewed something new or previously reviewed? I sent in a review. I think it got approved. Or maybe just sent for approval. 4 more to go....

 

[shelby101301]

I'm not too familiar with mystery shopping. What does it entail and can anyone do it?

I could never save $1 bills Sometimes it's the only thing I have to eat off of when I'm on call overnight. You have no idea how good a Snickers bar and a coke tastes from vending machines when its 3AM!

I should brown bag it more often though, i hear it saves a ton of money. I probably spend too much money on food

I think you would be shocked at how much it can save. Just even buying that snickers and coke at the grocery and stocking your locker would make a huge difference - especially if you buy it on sale.

My local grocery store has 24 packs on sale for 5.99 That's .25 a can as opposed to what, .80 a can from the machine? If you work 5 days a week, 4 weeks a month, that's $132 in a year... Don't even get me started on $4 latte's...


Mystery shopping is easy and anyone can do it. you sign up with companies and then apply for shops. They give you guidelines to look for, like were you greeted in 10 seconds, was the employee wearing a name badge, did they use the company's catch phrase etc. You then go back and write a narrative - not less than 100 words, not more than 500.

Sometimes they have you buy something, sometimes not, sometimes you buy it and return it an hour later. Items can range from a $2 card to a computer! (you don't get to keep the big items but rather, must return them)

Once I went to the airport, was escorted through security and did 11 different restaurant shops. I was given X amount to spend, reimbursed, and then of course paid around $12 a shop. It took me 2 1/2 hours, I wrapped all the food up and packed it in "my carry on" and ate for several days on it...and made $140 to boot.

once I had to get car insurance quotes for 4 companies online - that paid $60. Once I had to call a handy man service and ask a question - it only $5 but it took me all of 2 minutes.

Some companies will have you go to the movies and look for signage or trailers. Some will have you go to stores and check endcaps for displays. There's a wide range of things you can do.

It used to be all under the table. Now they are requiring SS#'s for tax reasons..

Anyway, when I'm short on cash...I look around for shops.

You pick the shops you want to do. Shop every day, once a week or once a year. HTH!

 

[KigerKat]

I haven't read through all of the replies, but here's a few ways that I know of:

Mystery Shopping - I haven't done this for a while, but you can actually make some money from it. Not as much as some people advertise, but it can add up if you are fairly consistent with it. There's a lot involved with signing up, but once you're done you start to get emails every day with open shopping opportunities. Apply for the ones you want, especially if it's a place you're going to anyway.

Mobile Notary - Apply to be a notary public in your county, then sign up on sites such as NotaryRotary.com. Some let you sign up for free, some may have an upgraded listing that charges you. I've only signed up for free. If you have the spare time, it's easy money. You travel to someone's office or meet them somewhere and notarize documents for them. You charge them for your time and travel, whatever you think is suitable. If you are familiar with closing documents, you can start notarizing at loan closings for attorneys. If you are reliable, they'll keep calling you. Those can pay about $100-$150 each.

Paid Market Research studies - If you live near a metropolitan city, look up market studies in your area. They typically hold these groups at all times, to try to make the study available to as many people as possible. You may have to sit somewhere for an hour or two, but they tend to pay around $75-$100 per session. Plus, you might get to try new food or drinks!

And I noticed on the OP first post that he listed blogging for cash, but it doesn't pay until you acculuate $100. Try writing for eHow.com - they pay once you have $10 built up. You write short, step-by-step instructions on how to do something. You are paid per visit to your article. Not a lot, but if you blog in other places or post on message boards a lot, you can get your links out there.

Just a few other suggestions!

 

[DisHokie]

RichieTruxillo - You must be at Carilion in Roanoke.. We live in Blacksburg and I saw it all over the news.. Crazy how they can mess up that bad on people's paychecks!!