we emptied out "Disney" jar....I've gotta brag!!

[DFSquare]

We have been saving since we planned the trip (Thanksgiving?). We took a Pringles can and wrapped it in paper that I had put clip art of their favorite charaters on.

They know this is the Disney Can and have been collecting money as we are out and about (lots of coins on the ground) and if you leave money laying out, it's in the jar before you can tell them it's not Disney money!

We empty our can monthly for several reasons: 1) so it won't be spent elsewhere, 2) the can is small, and 3) we opened a savings account just for the trip and the boys take the money in each month and the tellers make a big fuss over how much they've saved. They get stickers for the passbook and larger ones to wear that say I'm learning to save at XXX bank.

Since we also homeschool, counting each month and then doing the math in the passbook (how much do we have now? how much more do we need for our budget?) is part of school. hehehehehe, sneaky mommy!

Dawn

 

[Dcat2u]

We counted our change bucket recently (saving since last summer) and we have $463, the girls counted the pennies and they have $52. We decided to switch to the AKL and surprise the kids!

 

[kild]

I always steal the quarters.


Maybe I should get a better coin holder

 

[vhoffman]

I started the change jar thing and "seeded" it with loose change in various jars around the house. However, its hardly grown at all. Then we realized, we hardly have change because we hardly ever use cash. We put everything we can on American Express for the FF miles. I just came back from Mcdonald's and used the AMEX card there. It works for us (the AMEX thing). Our last three trips we had free airfare and the last trip I had enough AMEX points for a voucher for a rental car that just about covered the price of the car. We're going to Hawaii this June and it just kills me that we are actually paying for airfare! However, the FF miles the trip generates will give us enough for another Disney trip. So I guess that's better than the coin jar. Although we do keep a coin jar, it just doesn't grow very fast.

 

[MommaBear]

Here's another idea! We have $50.00 Cdn taken from our account every week and placed in a seperate account that requires both mine and my husband's signature in order to withdraw. We started this the week of Christmas 2003 and hope to have over $4000.00 CDN by July 2005. If all goes well I might also put our income tax return in the account which could send it up to the $5000.00 mark. If exchange rate stays as low as it is that should give us close to $3600.00 USD for our Disney / St. Petes Beach Vacation.

$50.00 a week doesn't hurt as much as pulling the whole amount from your savings the week before you go.

Also Florida kids head back to school earlier than mine. 1st day of school in Canada is the Tuesday after Labor day. While we are down their I plan on doing some clothes shopping for my boys so that when we arrive back in Canada I will already have their school clothes and new shoes which I put away for a few weeks until they head back to school.

We did this in 2003 and saved tons of money plus the boys loved shopping at JC Penney and picked up quite a few jeans and shirts that were not common brands up here and they received lots of compliments from their friends!