How do you manage all the toys?

Hatboxer

Earning My Ears
Joined
Sep 21, 2019
Hi all! Long time lurker, first time poster here. I’ve really appreciated the tips in this family forum. My question to all of you is: how do you handle your kid wanting a million toys and souvenirs at disney? Do you give them an allowance of sorts to spend how they choose, allow them one or two special things, or just give up and buy them what they’re asking for within reason?

Some background on my experience: my older kid, now 6, is obsessed with gift shops. He loves “things” in general. On his first Disney world trip, I bought him a couple things but it got pretty annoying to keep negotiating with him on what he could/couldn’t have. Then the next short trip, to Disneyland, I told him I’d get him one thing each day that we were there (only two days / two things). I thought that would nip it in the bud but then it became a fixation for him to the point that all he thought about was what he’d get that day. I guess what bothers me the most is the fixation on stuff more so than the actual cost of it.

We are headed back to WDW soon, so I want to figure out a way to set his expectations going in. Little brother is now old enough to want equality in “stuff” so I’m trying to think of a better way to handle.

Thanks for any advice!
 
When DD was 7 we gave her a “budget” of sorts. I forget the amounts but maybe $5 per day. We told her she could spend it on little stuff each day or carry it forward to combine with the next day’s amount - more days of saving meant a bigger souvenir, or little stuff each day meant no asking for something else at the end. She did fairly well over a week - some small treats and a stuffy (Stitch?). We used Disney Dollars but you could do the same with cash or gift cards.

Enjoy your vacation!
 
When he wants something see if taking a picture with him holding it or wearing it will work. When my granddaughter was 7, she expected me to buy everything. She was happy with just the picture.

Put money in an envelope, yes cash, whatever you think is appropriate with their name on it. Explain that is the souvenir money and when it's gone, it's gone. Have them pay for their own souvenirs, they will see the money exchanged. Why cash? Because at that age even if you give a set amount on a card, they think you just need to get to a bank machine.
 
No experience at WDW (yet), but what has worked in general for my 5 yr old is to tell her to put it on her "wish list". She knows that she may or may not get things that are on her list, but it seems to satisfy her.
 


We let each kid spend $50 for the week on whatever they wanted. My 6 year old spent a lot of it right away and my 10 year old spent it more wisely. Also, I find the gift shops are decently easy to avoid because they are in such predictable spots - after every ride, lol! So, when we exit a ride, I don't even stop in the gift shop if I'm not willing to buy them anything, or if I want to look for myself, I say you can't get anything.
 
If my daughter doesn’t have her own gift cards she is limited to one plush and one set of ears per trip. We’ve been on 5 trips in 2 years and she knows better than to ask for a bunch of junk.
 
We set limits before the trip, such as, mom & dad will buy you a hat/ears, a shirt, something from Candy Cauldron and one special treat that we've seen on youtube (my youngest was obsessed with the Peter Pan float) and anything else you pay for yourself with your gift card.
 
Are you able to avoid going into the shops until a set day/time? Let your chid know you'll only visit the shops at a certain point in the trip.
It will help take the temptation off of the table....and your DS may not worry about it as much.

Just a thought...
 
I got my daughters into pin trading with cheap sets I bought online in advance (after I made sure the pins were authentic!). That way they always felt like they were getting something, but I didn't have to spend any money. It cut down on whining immensely!
 
I use a combo of strategies others here have mentioned. Setting limits going in (and sticking to them) is key.

Before the last trip, I bought some Disney t-shirts, and planned them to roughly correspond to the parks we planned to visit (Pirates of the Caribbean on our MK day, etc). My kids sometimes do "blind packing" where they put wrapped items in their suitcases (in this case, new t-shirts), but don't know what's in the packages. Allows them daily surprises, but doesn't take up too much room in my suitcase.

They knew going in that they could each get ONE souvenir of approximately $30. Of course, they found lots of items at each park they wanted, but my stipulation was they had to wait until the end of the trip because if they bought something on day 1, and decided they liked something better on day 5, they would be out of luck. They were also not allowed to buy something in the morning because I was not going to carry anything around all day (and I knew they'd eventually get tired of carrying things themselves and ask me to put it in my bag - nope, not doing it). So while we might walk through a gift shop on the way out of a ride in the morning, there was no negotiating happening because there would be no buying.

When they found something they wanted, I took a picture of it, and then the item was on the "maybe" list. On the second-to-last day, they could look through the pictures I took, and decide if they wanted to go back for one of the photographed items or look for something else on their remaining parks travels. Most of the time, the act of taking the photograph satisfied the the desire to "have" something, and when they went back to the pictures, the impulse to have THAT item had passed. Disney is all about capitalizing on "impulse" buys. I feel like if we can control the impulse, we can minimize wasteful spending. FYI - my kids rarely use the souvenirs they finally settled on (as I predicted) - it was really just about getting something that looked cool in the moment.
 
We used to plan our trips about 8 months ahead so we made Disney Chore charts it had 12 rows with 12 squares in a row as they did extra chores they got a sticker and if they filled up a row they earned that item. (Example was like one row was Mickey Ice cream, one for Mickey ears, one row was ride photo, one was t shirt a couple were toys under a certain amount this was way back before photopass includes ride photos my kids are old now)
They filled in the rows that were most important to them first and knew what they could get before we left home,
 
My older son sounds quite similar to your child. It's nice to see I'm not alone! He was almost 4 on our last trip and I definitely struggled with him wanting to buy something in every gift shop we passed. I limited him to one purchase (within reason) per day. We also take short trips. If he wanted something too large or expensive, I was honest with him and told him it was too much money and/or too big to pack in his suitcase to fly home. He did ok in the end. While there was definitely some whining for more than his allotment, it never became overly obnoxious. I would prefer if he was able to ignore all the toys around him, but I had to step back and face it that it's hard for a 3 year old to do that. Disney puts a gift shop at the end of every ride for this very reason! It is normal for kids to want things they see. The best we can do as parents is to set limits and keep explaining why in an age appropriate way. Eventually I figure he'll be old enough to fully understand.
 
I remember my parents NEVER bought souvenirs anywhere...and if they did it was ONE souvenir during an entire trip, under x dollars (maybe 10-ish)

The last time we went to Disney was with my inlaws, they spoiled my kid rotten....but that's what grandparents were for. Next year I'll probably get her something small from every park or she will. Her money tin has a ton of money and she's only 3.
 
We gave our 6.5 year old grandson gift cards for every occasion-birthday, Christmas, Valentine's and Easter the year before our trip, and he knew exactly how much he could spend! He is also gift shop obsessed, so he would purposely try to hurry through them and not look, because he knew he wanted the banshee at AK on our last day! He had $100 in gift cards, which is rich to a young child! We researched what a banshee would cost (they are cheaper than originally now!). He did have enough for a couple of other things, one in GE, and a couple of pins. But it was quit a lesson in budgeting for him! He was so proud that he came home with $12 still on one of his gift cards!
 
I will probably get slammed for this but on last years trip I gave each girl $800 for a 10 day trip (I was very poor as a child). The older girl (18) spent maybe $150 total she could find so little worth the prices there. She told me that she was going home and hitting Amazon. The other was 9 then between Star War and Pokémon she murdered hers but she didn't ask for anything else,
 
@KenHutch Honestly I don't see anything wrong with that either. I learned a long time ago not to criticize how other people spend their money. I figure my kid's souvenirs right now are part of my overall budget. Spending an extra 50 bucks isn't going to break the bank.

Plus we're on vacation, I can be a tighwad the remainder of the times. It's not like she gets a toy every time we go to target.
 

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