• The Story of my Great Disney Discount: Part TWO

    Sep 7

    Missed Part One of the Great Disney Discount? Click HERE to catch up!

    BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP

    Again, we interrupt this already in progress program to bring you an ingenious frugalista revelation:

    What if I (dare to say) purchased our Disney souveniers BEFORE we got to Disney?

    This idea ran through my head in the middle of the night, about a year ago. It was right before consignment season (which is my big shopping time for clothes, birthday, Christmas, etc.) and I remembered seeing a Disney toy that was for an infant that I had tossed into the pile to consign. The toy was practically brand new, and it dawned on me that they probably sell those toys in Disney World for 4 times as much as I paid for it new. Gosh, if I would save THAT much on a new toy, imagine if I bought barely used/new toys at the consignment sales and stocked up for the upcoming Disney trip?

    FAST FORWARD

    Now two consignment seasons & two Target clearance events have gone by since the idea first rang in and I have a pretty good pile going to take with us on our trip to Disney in December. I have decided to wrap each “Disney Surprise” in fun, festive wrapping paper for Addison to open each morning (and if we have enough) each evening. What kind of things am I planning to purchase/scavenge for ahead of time?

    • Minnie Mouse Stuffed Animal (purchased already with dress-up clothes)
    • Disney Hats & Character Hats (purchased already)
    • In-car Disney Movies for ride down (purchased already)
    • Souvenir Signature Book (This is going to be a tricky one, and I may have to wait to get into Orlando to find one that is blank)
    • Disney Themed Outfit & T-Shirt (Purchased already at consigment, monogramming white top with Minnie Mouse ears and initial, I’ll take a picture for you guys soon)
    • New Luggage for a Little Princess (still searching for cute, Disney-appropriate luggage ;)
    • Coloring Books/Activities for the Car (still searching)
    • Sunglasses (still searching)
    • Etc. (I am still adding to the list as I look at pages and pages of Disney souveniers and idea sites)

    Any ideas of how you frugally did Disney souvenirs or ideas of more items to add to the list?

    Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. When you use them, you help support this site. Thanks so much!

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    Aubrey

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    September 7, 2010 by  
    Categories: Articles

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    • michelle

      You are off to a GREAT start!! We have been to disney 13 times!! I do very much what you are talking about! Be on the look out after Halloween. You will be amazed at the disney things on clearance days and wks after. Crowns, wands, shoes, dresses, etc. As for the sovenier book. I just kept scouring every store imaginable looking for journals or small notebooks. Target had a lot of disney during back to school. But, find a friend going down before you and ask them to pick one up for you!!

    • Nancy McKenzie

      My daughter did this for her three girls and it worked great. Each night one of the Disney characters they had seen that day, (Cinderella, Jasmine, etc.) left them a letter and a gift on their pillow which they found when they got back to the room. They were so excited to come back each night to find their present!!

    • Kerry

      Sounds great so far! I did much of the same for our two trips, and it worked out perfectly!! As for the autograph book, I made my own… modeled after several I saw on etsy. Got one small spiral book from Michael’s (40% off coupon) covered the front with some Disney scrapbooking paper (about $.89), and a few stickers from my scrapbooking collection (free!), and tied ribbons around the spiral (either free from your collection or spools are about $1 many places). Worked perfectly, cost less than $5 to make… and it’s personalized and homemade… You can get great ideas searching etsy, and you don’t really have to be terribly artistically inclined to make a really nice one!