Revive Old Toys for Extra Christmas Savings (and Sanity)

Advertiser Disclosure ▾

This page contains affiliate links from which we receive a compensation. Like many publications Wise Bread is supported by affiliate commission from partner companies whose products appear on our site. This may influence which products we write about and the location and order in which products appear. We aren't able to cover every product in the marketplace.

Wise Bread Picks

• Travel Rewards Credit Cards
• Cash Back Credit Cards
• 0% Balance Transfer Credit Cards

It has officially begun. My four-year-old has tuned out the real world in favor of loud Saturday morning commercials advertising the best of must-have toys. Every new ad has him wide-eyed and drooling. Only once each has ended, does he break the gaze of the TV long enough to look at me and shout, “I WANT THAT!”

If the television were alone in this conspiracy, maybe I could handle it. Newspapers, magazines, and catalogs clog up my mailbox with announcements of the season's hottest toys. (For more on an alternative to the catalog craze, check out what the Simple Dollar had to say.) Trying to explain why it was impossible to have every toy on the market just seemed to frustrate my son. We attempted to limit the number of times he was allowed to say, “I want that.” Then we forbade it altogether. This was simply met with a sullen, “I have no cool toys, Mom.”

Determined to do something to show my son that he was far from lacking in his possessions, I began a whirlwind of activity today. I developed a system that every parent should consider before the holiday season gets too far underway. Here’s how it works:

Clean and Cull – You probably need to get around to it anyway, so pick a day soon to clean your child’s room top to bottom. Move furniture, dump out toy boxes, weed out too-small clothing, and throw away trashed books. Commit to doing something purposeful with every item you encounter in that room. (For a little inspiration and some tips on getting it done, you may want to refer to Andrea’s How to Get Rid of Your Junk. Dust as you go, and have a big trash bag handy.

Sort and Stack – Toy boxes are a nightmare. In addition to several missing kitchen utensils and a few of my hubby’s tools, I found crackers, pacifiers, dirty socks, a dead fly, and some dried-up pieces of play-doh in my little ones’ toy box. After removing the garbage, we took each toy and put it with its appropriate play set. Dinosaurs, trucks, crayons, blocks, and puzzles were each reunited with their respective families and given a home in an empty baby wipes container which was then labeled and decorated with a photo of the object for easy reference.

Pass it On – Have a good used toy that just won’t be missed? Put it in a box to go to charity. Do both the charity and your reputation a favor and resist putting anything broken or filthy in the box. Santa’s watching you…

Give Your Favorites a Facelift – Has Buzz Lightyear seen better days? Older toys that haven’t seen daylight for awhile may need a little air and a premium spot on the toy shelf. Using a baby wipe or a sanitizing cleaning cloth, give the old guy a good wiping down. If batteries are dead, take the time to replace them now. You’ll thank yourself later.

Once you have finished the enormous chore of finding purpose to every toy in your child’s room, take a breath. Then show your little one what you have done. If your kid is like mine, they will be amazed! Once they see a room full of clean, organized, and useful toys that work the way they remember them, they will feel blessed again! My son looked at me and smiled as he said, “Mom, I have cool toys again!”

This evening there were just under four commercials for stores advertising toys on sale for the holiday season. My son, however, didn’t notice. He was busy in his room, playing with the toy train we got him last year for Christmas. Maybe he won’t miss this year’s coolest toy after all.