Shopping for Toys The Smart Way
How to minimize toy expenses by allowing children to try out cheaper
alternatives.
By: Bruce Bahlmann
We've been talking about buying our children a number of new toys lately
as their current ones are losing interest and some have even wore out.
However a couple trips to various toy sections of large super stores "just
to look" or even browsing online stores don't exactly help minimize your
task ahead of you. Bringing children along is even that much more
challenging as they often find too many toys they like - many of these seem
a little spendy for our tastes.
One helpful suggestion for "toy shopping" which I'm convinced works
pretty well and instills some good in kids is to talk about "going shopping"
with your kids, but be very clear that we are only going to "look at toys"
and NOT buy any. It may take a few times for this to sink in, but I've found
that kids really do like to go look at toys and play with them (as best they
can) within the store during the "visit". It is pretty interesting what kids
do with this time. In fact, we talk a lot about what our kids want for their
birthday - which may be anywhere from 6-11 months away. We believe this
gives kids the framework they need to "plan ahead" and consider what they
really do want. As kids experience this shopping, things change, on the way
to go shopping they first say they really want one thing, but on the way
home they really want something else. We ask them loads of questions as to
what they want and when they change their mind, we ask why. Ultimately, the
"shopping" exercise helps kids narrow the mired of choices and prevents us
from buying things that the kids only seem interested in but actually are
not sure if they will like it.
When our children become animate about a very small group of toys (which
may take several shopping trips), rather than drop real money to buy them on
the spot we take one additional step - we take them to the dollar store and tell
them if they can find one of these toys they have told us they really want
in the dollar store, they can have it. Surprisingly, the dollar store often
has at least one and sometimes both toys - (which are similar only much
cheaper made versions of the same toy they want).
When they get home, we watch how much time they spend with their new toy
and whether they come back to playing with it. If the toy receives frequent
attention, we begin thinking of buying the real thing. If not, we look at
the dollar store as an important part of the process as it saved us a sizeable chunk
of money.
Here is an example of how we have used this method:
 One toy I personally wanted for my son was a
Lego set - it was a personal
favorite of mine growing up so I wanted to provide a similar environment for
my own children. However, Legos are NOT cheap. A very basic set is like $5
(which comes with only a dozen pieces) but anything of any size is generally
$35-50. Very few Lego sets anymore come with with just a bucket of pieces
for children to be totally creative with. Instead, they come in sets that
make a very specific thing like a car, house, space ship, etc. While after
you make such a specific thing once, few people rebuild it - rather they
just move on and build what ever inspires them. Meanwhile you pay for that
one special thing more than you actually pay for the individual legos as
they are all like fractions of a cent to manufacture.
With the choice of Legos definitely on the horizon, we began to talk more
about it and as we did both children expressed interest in a set of their
own - so we were no longer just entertaining a $35 purchase but one $70 or
more. We went to Walmart and various other stores and looped through the toy
isle during our normal shopping to see what they liked. My daughter settled
on wanting a house and my son just liked the thought of building cars and
towers. So, off to the dollar store we went. For $2, we got a couple basic
sets and my son was captivated by them. He played with them every day for a
week until he started to get frustrated with the cheap legos because they
often would come apart. My daughter had a similar experience only she wasn't
as experimental as my son. We ended up buying real lego sets the following
week and the kids still are pretty engaged with them. While I think it is
hard to go wrong with legos, its not for everyone and they still cost a
pretty penny. For my son it was definitely worth it as he no longer gets
frustrated by the legos not staying together. Plus the kit we bought had
lots of new parts in it for him to play with - he loves them!
 As for my daughter, well, she too is pretty interested in them and built
a fire engine tonight. She complained that she couldn't find instructions
for building anything but a house. I then realized she had not yet
understood what kind of toy legos were. So, I proceeded to tell her:
"What is in front of you
is virtually the same as what is on your desk in your room - blank piece of
paper and some crayons. It is totally up to you what you want to do with
the Lego parts that lie in front of you. Think of it like a blank piece of
paper but with much more diverse set of colors, shapes, and possiblities."
After that speech, you could start
to see the gears turning as she dug about the box of parts and assembled
something she was proud of. They loved to hear us ooh and aah over their
creations and only get more motivated to come up with something even more
crazy or interesting.
So, in this case, we spent about $72 in all, but in many other cases, we
were only out $2 before the kids decided that a certain toy that they wanted
wasn't all they thought it would be once they got it home and tried to play
with it.
I call this the common sense approach to negating the effects of
advertising on adults and kids with respect to toys. This method can really
help you save money as well as reduce the clutter of unwanted toys within
your living space.
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