Lots of great ideas!!
Another great way to make your money make more money for you is to move all the change you have saved in your jar into a savings account on a regular basis. Lately, I've gotten offers from INGDirect that they will add an additional $25 to the account if I open it. It then earns a pretty decent return compared to my local bank. So, after I've saved up the coins for a while, I plan to deposit that money into the savings account.
And, while I like Disney Dollars, I usually don't pick them up until just before my trip - they don't earn any interest sitting in an envelope in my house.
The Disney Visa gets used for everything in my family -- even my mortgage -- and then we pay it off on-line once a week. In a single year, we've earned $275 in rewards just for using the card. Right now we're average between $40 and $50 per month since we've moved all credit-card-payable transactions to the Disney Visa. And since we keep it constantly paid off, we have yet to pay a finance fee. Also, Disney vacations paid with the card often earn double points!!
If you do Character Meals, I recommend getting the vouchers ahead of time to save a little cash. I've used
this place to get tickets in the past.
Because we usually go twice a year (husband in the biz, doncha know), we love all the perks of the Annual Passes and save bunches on rooms, dining and shopping. Mousesavers.com has this great
annual pass calculator to help you figure out if an AP will save you cash.
Good luck!
Eileen