how much spending money for 3DS?

[Skyw]

How much should I put aside for my son for spending money? I want to use this as a learning tool but I have no idea what things cost. I was thinking he could buy at least 2 things.......I figure stuffed animals and action figures will cost at least $20. Am I right?
thanks

 

[wdwdancerwannabe]

A small stuffed animal character was 10-15$ and that was two years ago

Is this for your three year old son .... or do you have three sons?

Do you want the spending money to include meals?

When we bring spending money, we budget it per day. That way - if we spend all of our money for today, we'll be able to spend more tomorrow.

When we went, it was dd4 and dh and myself. We budgeted $200 per day for the family - but we were on the DDP. We didn't assign a $ amount per person.

Though - if I took more than one child - or an older child - I would give them a certain amount for the entire day.

 

[bellarella]

Santa brought each of my 2 DDs (4 and 6) $20 in Disney dollars. DH and I aren't big on souvenirs, but felt this was a good amount to budget for them. Our plan is that they will probably get one or two small things of their choosing. On top of that DH and I may (or may not) spring for additional little things like a balloon or ears. We don't want the focus of the trip to be about shopping, so we wanted to give them an amount that would allow them to get one "decent" souvenir, or a couple of smaller things.

 

[Skyw]

A small stuffed animal character was 10-15$ and that was two years ago

Is this for your three year old son .... or do you have three sons?

Do you want the spending money to include meals?

When we bring spending money, we budget it per day. That way - if we spend all of our money for today, we'll be able to spend more tomorrow.

When we went, it was dd4 and dh and myself. We budgeted $200 per day for the family - but we were on the DDP. We didn't assign a $ amount per person.

Though - if I took more than one child - or an older child - I would give them a certain amount for the entire day.

We have a three year old son. Just money for him to spend at the stores....You know those gift shops that are everywhere!!

 

[karibritt01]

Santa gave each of my kids a $20 gift card in their stocking, to start them off. Between now and our trip (June 17) they can earn $2 a week by cleaning their rooms, helping out around the house, good grades in school, etc. Some weeks we may give them a "bonus." Before we go, we will take their money to the Disney store, and load it to their gift cards. That way they each have their own money, that they earned, to spend as they see fit throughout the week. We may buy something little here or there, but mainly they spend their own money.

 

[MariDisney]

We have a three year old son. Just money for him to spend at the stores....You know those gift shops that are everywhere!!

I think for a 3 year old the amount doesn't matter so much because $20 and $2000 mean pretty much the same thing at that age. I do think $20-30 would allow him to get 1-2 things he's be interested in and maybe 2-3 little things like lollipops or whatever. I just wouldn't expect him to think through "well, I'm not going to buy this animal because it's too much, I'll buy the smaller one instead". Have an awesome trip!

 

[Skyw]

so maybe limit how many items as opposed to how much they cost? I think that might work better for him. In all honestly, a hot wheel is pretty cool to him and they cost $.97.

 

[snowy76]

so maybe limit how many items as opposed to how much they cost? I think that might work better for him. In all honestly, a hot wheel is pretty cool to him and they cost $.97.

That might work unless he goes for the $60 Main Street Train! My kids would've done exactly that.

 

[hvivona]

We spent about $1000.00 last year in souvinears. It was our girls' (ages 4,6,8) first trip and we let them buy whatever they wanted. I started saving about six months ahead of time and deligated that money for "junk" only. This year we'll probably cut that numer in half because we found it difficult to get all of that home. The amount is different for everyone. Its really about what you can budget for.

 

[flying_babyb]

How about for a single girl who wants a few souvineers?

 

[MSSANDRA]

I agree that a three year can not really understand the value of items. It will be much easier for you to decide some of the items that she might enjoy and let her have one of them each day. For example today you can get a balloon but that is all. Or today you can pick a princess outfit but I can only spend __ amount so I will tell you which ones we can pick from. I think that making her understand that she can not have everything and that sometimes you will say no is the most important thing. I would handle it just as you do when you go to the store at home. i would have no problem letting her have pretty much what she wants IF that is in your budget but if it not just reinforce what ever way you do at home. DS is NOT a want kids and I do not think he was ever asked for anything that he did not get at WDW but that often means one thing the whole trip and some times I even encourage him to choose one thing. My DN on the other hand would easy spend 1000.00 a day with out thinking twice if you let him.

 

[wrldpossibility]

FWIW, we got back a few weeks ago and have three sons: 7, 5, 2. We gave each of them (as their Christmas gift from mom and dad) $100 to spend in WDW. We didn't buy anything for them in addition to this, except a few shirts. Before we left, I had bought autograph books, lanyards, and a few pins each to start trading (on Ebay), so they had that ahead of time.

I agree that a 3 yo can't understand the value of money very well, but he could understand that he has his own and when it's gone, it's gone. It will actually work in his favor that at his age, he will probably prefer the less sophisticated (cheaper) stuff. My sons all came home with some $. Here's what they bought that I can remember:

DS7:
a Mickey watch ($30)
Star Tours toys (about $30)
spider monkey plush at AK ($15)
one more pin ($7)

DS5:
chip and dale plushes ($20)
Star Tours toys (about $30)
mickey ear hat ($12)
more plushes (about $25)

DS2:
3 monkey plushes (he was wild about those!) ($35)
Pooh hat ($20)
Cars "matchbox" style cars ($15)
a few other little things (about $10)

They didn't get too much (for a first trip that lasted 10 days), but you can see they needed almost $100 each. I think it would have frustrated them to not have enough for a few good items. I did strike pre-emptively (sp?) when I could with the pins and lanyards, as well as lots of glow sticks and toys I bought ahead of time at the $ store. So they were not tempted by that stuff, which can add up.

We didn't limit how much they could spend per day, but warned them of their running tally throughout the stay. We didn't have any "gimme" moments. Sorry to get longwinded...I thought about how to do this carefully before we left, and agonized over it, so I hope this helps someone else!

 

[susykt4]

My parents gave each of our kids $50 in Disney Dollars before our Jan '06 trip. It was almost hard to spend that much on DS3! He loves cars, trucks and trains more than anything. What DS really liked were Hotwheels sized character cars that were I think $4 each. He also really loved a Hotwheels bus (maybe 8 inches) that was $10. A year later he still plays with all his Disney vehicles. He's never been into stuffed animals.

DD was 5 1/2 and even she wasn't overly excited about souvie shopping. She got a box of My Little Pony stuff and a few Disney beanies with her money.

We didn't spend much time shopping in the parks but we did walk through the Pop gift shop every day on our way to/from the buses. My kids enjoyed their souvies but shopping was far from their favorite part of the trip.

 

[sleepinbootie]

We started a points system 4 years ago and use it everywhere there is going to be any type of gift shop. Kids start with 5 points every morning, if they behave well they get points, if they behave poorly they loose points (totally arbitrarily and they loose points if they constantly ask how many they have). Every night of the vacation if they have 10 points they get $5. We have sometimes let them get more than 10 points and carry over to the next day and we have also sometimes "loaned" them the money if we weren't going back to a place where they could get a specific thing.

This started out as trying to keep them well behaved in line (DS10 & DS7 tend to get into it in enclosed spaces for long periods of time). It has really worked for our family. They have given each other points and cash when each needed it. Really nice to see. Of course, DS10 always saves till the last day and buys one thing and DS7 uses whatever he has each morning to buy candy but what can you do
Have a nice trip!

 

[flying_babyb]

spider monkey plush at AK ($15)
one more pin ($7)
Pooh hat ($20)
Cars "matchbox" style cars ($15)
a few other little things (about $10)

I love this!! this is so useful. Youve helped me start a budget at least. How much do tee shirts for kids usally cost? a sweatshirt for a adult?

 

[pezpam]

DD wouldn't have grasped the concept at 3, but I will say that giving her a set amount of money at WDW has really taught her a lot about money and budgeting.

On our second trip (DD was 6, I guess), part of my package was something like $100 in Disney Dollars. That happened to be $10 a day, so I decided to let DD have that much each day. She could spend it or save some and have more the next day, which seems to have helped her more than just giving her the whole amount at once would. Every kid is different, but adding the saving concept to the budgeting concept worked for us.

It's amazing how much more discriminating kids can get about what they 'want' when it's their own budget on the line.

 

[disneymomof6]

Id have to say disney is one of the only places that I can totally lose my mind with spending money on "stuff".... after about 2 visits I realized that there is such a magic about being there that makes everyone want to deck themselves in stuff that people would normally never wear. Before we ever went to disney I never thought I would see my husband wearing disney garb... but something about it makes it tough to resist. Remember that before you go GA-GA on everything there... I dont have things that I regret purchasing but I do sometimes wonder what in the heck I was thinking and why I thought I needed to have so much.... adult sweatshirts are around $40-$50 and up id say. I have since limited myself to a nice sweatshirt and a snow globe, xmas ornament from each trip. My kids each get $100 (I have 6 kids) but like others have said.... they just find the things that interest them and it doesnt matter if all the money is spent or not.... it isnt about the $$. My daughter got the mickey ears and postcards and a tshirt... she spent $50 and was more then happy with it. If you start out telling your kids they can get anything they want how do you ever go backwards and start teaching them they cant have it all?

 

[ndgqmiller]

When we were there in October we spent about 300.00 on stuff. 2 adults and 3 kids, but before we left we purchased autograph books for them to make and pens and they each got a goodie bags: One movie in each bag ( for the trip down), and new cd, favorite snacks, for our daughters stickers and disney princess pens and markers, for my son baseball cards. Put that in each of their seats, when we got in the car they were very excited and kept them busy on the road trip. I will probably double our souviner money next time. My favorite thing I said a lot in Disney was "We are here to do Disney, not buy Disney" But I still hated saying no. Goodluck if you ever find the magic number let me know LOL!

 

[flying_babyb]

I know for sure i must get tee shirt!! I work in a preschool thats run by a dis-addict who goes to WDW each year with 14 relitives. The kids there know im going. Do they sell like little suckers cheap?

 

[disneymomof6]

Where in wisconsin are you from?


Suckers cheap... I dunno- they have a confectionery there on main street so you never know they may have some.