Spending money on Visa or Amex gift card for 5 year old

[Terry's Angels]

Hi all,

I would love some advice/opinions about this. My dd got a Amex giftcard for christmas and fell totally in love with signing her name in the "credit card box like Mommy". So to control spending and so that DH won't buy the princess everything she sees, I thought we would buy her another (or reload if possible) the gift card with $100 bucks for eight days and tell her that when it's gone it's gone. My DMIL says that is unfair and we're setting ourselves up for a nightmare. DD is not really spoiled and I think that she's old enough to understand this type of limiting.

So my question i, has anyone else done this with a five year old. Any success, failure? Woudl you do it again? TIA

 

[Forevryoung]

I think the main problem with stuff like that is that you "dont know how much is left" unless you keep track... and at the age of 5 thats a lot of math for her to do in her head... It's probably a lot easier to have her use something more concrete.

 

[lorimc]

You could always take cash and have it converted to Disney Dollars at the parks. I think a 5 year old would have an easier time understanding that when the money is physically gone, that they have no more to spend. It might be a much more difficult task to explain why the "credit card" doesn't work.

Good luck with whatever you decide!

 

[Darcy03231]

Another vote for the disney dollars! At that age I think she'd have a hard time understanding why the card won't work anymore. When we started taking our kids on vacation when they were young we gave them a certain amount of money and told them it was theirs and when it was gone that was it. Anything they didn't spend was theirs to keep and spend later. Everytime they wanted to buy something I would let them know how much they had left. It really didn't take long at all for them to grasp the concept of how much things cost and what would be left over.

 

[Terry's Angels]

I never thought about Disney Dollars. They seem like a good idea. Where do you buy them? At the resort?

 

[Elmo888]

I agree with the Disney Dollars. My DD6 understood this. I think that you can get them at the Disney Store (DD was given the Disney Dollars by her aunts), and I'm sure that you can get them at WDW.

I just wanted to add that there were a few things that I really wanted to buy my DD, so that was over and above her Disney Dollars (she had $35). I really wanted her to have some ears with her name embroidered and a stuffed animal. After that, DD6 decided what to buy. I held onto the Disney Dollars, but I could tell her how much she left and if she could/couldn't afford something.