Kids' Spending Money - Cash? Disney Dollars?

[snicker-doodle]

We're heading down to Disney the Saturday after Thanksgiving and my 3 DD's (at my request) have their own jars of saved money. It's amazing - my girls are 3, 5 and 7 and even the 3 year old understands the concept of her "Disney Money" and how doing chores gives her "monies" to spend at WDW.

Anyway - they've all earned between $130-$160 to spend during our week at WDW. I've read some old threads which suggest placing an equal amount of money in envelopes, so they have a daily spending budget. I like that idea a lot.

Should I get Disney Dollars for all/most of their money? Or, should I just go with cash, equally divided into their daily envelopes? Other ideas??

 

[FamilyGuy]

Our local charter one branch offers a one time chargeable M/C which we intend to purchase this week for each of our kids. The best part is that there is no addtional cost for the cards if you are a bank customer. Just giving them $100 a piece. Makes more sense to us than travelers checks or disney dollars. The only dowwnside is that we (mom and dad) will be holding the cards for the kids though. If they were small denomination Disney Dollars, I would trust the kids with them.

 

[BevS97]

we gave our dd $5 each morning in cash - she spent some of it offsite so cash made more sense than Disney Dollars. We actually held the purse but she was able to have it when ever she asked for it. She was actually amazingly frugal with her own money and saved upto $30 before spending any of it. When faced with, that light up pooh bear is $13 - thats 3 days money, it suddenly didn't seem quite so attractive.

 

[dzneelvr]

I'd be hesitant to bring that much loose cash along with that age of child. What we did when the kids were little was to keep a running tab of what they spent and do a spend-down. DH and I would pocket the cash and apply it to the credit card.
DD had her "tab" and DS had his.
We made no judgement calls about what they bought--it was totally up to them. But once the tab was at zero, there were no more purchases.
(to keep it simple, we charged them the purchase price rounded to the nearest 50cents. That taught them the concept of tax as well.)
Once they got to be teens, they could bring real money, but it's too easy to misplace it when you aren't used to carrying a wallet or purse.
Have a great trip

 

[mjatgoofy]

I would go with the disney dollars. You can go get them at the Disney Store in the MOA. We do the same thing with our kids. They get very excited about disney dollars. Add to the whole disney experience. Have fun!

 

[Brian Noble]

You might think about back-loading the envelopes, so they get more (or even most) of their money in the last one or two days. That way, they can spend the early part of the trip comparison shopping, and on the last day or two can have "shopping day". This can avoid the situations where Susie buys something on day one, and then sees something on day two that she would have much rather have had. We also hold the money for the kids, and help them with the "if you buy this *and* this, you won't have enough left to buy that" questions, but we let them buy what they want with it.

 

[LynnTH]

We went earlier this year and my kids were 5 and 2-1/2. They both had about $200 in spending money we had saved from Birthdays and Christmasas and stuff. I bought half in Disney money and left the rest in cash. They each had their own wallet for their money (which I held on too) and they were very good at making choices even at their ages. My 5 year old new he wanted something at Target when we got home so he made sure he left a certain amount of money in his wallet so he could get to toy at Target. We did not have to use any of our money for their souveniers and we didn't have to constantly tell them "no" on items as it was their money - which was the main goal. It worked out quite well and both came home with money (use the Disney Dollars first just in case). Thanks.

 

[tjmw2727]

I did what dz mentioned and kept a running total for my girls. They had a fun time deciding how and when to spend the money. Each night we would tally up the recipts and deduct it from the balance so they knew how much they had heading out the next morning.

Some of the cart's and moving vendors (seguay etc) don't take the cc'ds and a few places can't take the Disney Dolalrs. It was easier for me just to hit the room charge or use my cash and save the receipts - YMMV.

I did advise them to wait a bit into the vacation so as not to spend to much on impulse and then not have enough later if they found someting really great. At 7 and 9 they did well about that esp if we knew for sure that we would be at that park/shop later in the trip and if they still wanted it they would get it then.

It was nice to let them make the decisions to spend or not and use the spending money to teach without feeling like a scrooge!

TJ

 

[snicker-doodle]

Thank you to everyone who responded - after reading the posts, I think I'm going to deposit their money in my account (woo-hoo....just kidding!) and then give the girls their own checking account that we'll deduct their expenditures from. Kind of like running a "tab" which was mentioned. Like some of the others, I just don't want to be responsible for that much cash at WDW and my DD's are too young to hang onto it themselves.

If they want an item, I'll pay for it either via room charge, cash or credit/debit card and then at the end of the day, will "balance their checkbooks" in our room. I'm going to make their own little personalized checkbook off the computer. I talked with my girls about this idea and they were completely fine with it - the 3 year old is too young to understand, but the 5 & 7 year old were really excited.

Thanks again for your comments!!!

 

[DisneyMomx7]

We give them Disney dollars. My kids are 7, 5 and 4 and I put each of their disney dollars in a separate envelope and show them when I pay for something how it comes out of their envelope. I let them buy whatever they want (even if it is junk) because it is their money. I think it helps them understand the value of money when they see it come out of thier own envelope. I'm sure the people that work in the stores groan when they see me having to pay separate for each item, but I'm trying to help them learn the concept of "everything cost money".

 

[Mom to Jordan]

An Idea for the 3 yr old might be to print her some" money", that she can spend. NO not real money! . Print her paper money to exchange for what she wantes to buy. For a small child she can see how much she has and how much she has left. I might would even do this for the 5 year old but she might want the check book like the older one.

One way that we cut impuse spending is that I refuse to carry anything in the parks. That way they have to at least think about it till the end of the day or take the job of carring it. Don't tell them about room shipping!

It took me a while to give up control of that kind of money to child, but it works much better when you do. I only hold veto power for a snack too close to a meal..

Good luck and have a blast.

 

[tjmw2727]

Originally posted by snicker-doodle
Thank you to everyone who responded - after reading the posts, I think I'm going to deposit their money in my account (woo-hoo....just kidding!) and then give the girls their own checking account that we'll deduct their expenditures from. Kind of like running a "tab" which was mentioned. Like some of the others, I just don't want to be responsible for that much cash at WDW and my DD's are too young to hang onto it themselves.

If they want an item, I'll pay for it either via room charge, cash or credit/debit card and then at the end of the day, will "balance their checkbooks" in our room. I'm going to make their own little personalized checkbook off the computer. I talked with my girls about this idea and they were completely fine with it - the 3 year old is too young to understand, but the 5 & 7 year old were really excited.

Thanks again for your comments!!!

That is almost exactly how we did it, my girls are 7 and 9 and it was great! I used lotus and did a checkbook like sheet and printed a few, I made it quite large as my 7yo needed room for her larger numbers The girls actually liked sorting out the receipts and putting in the $$. I also had a column for money earned as allowance day was during the trip and my older dd did a couple really over and above special things that I gave her a bit of extra spending money for.

Have fun!
TJ