I am pretty minimalistic when it comes to kids toys, though my husband might think differently. We have some blocks, trains, dress-ups, craft supplies, and some imaginative play things. My kids prefer creating things (you know, out of toilet paper tubes and duct tape) and playing outside (riding bikes, climbing trees, building forts). The toys mostly get used when friends or cousins come to play.
While it’s exciting at first to be inundated with new toys and gadgets at birthdays and holidays, they easily fall by the wayside and end up creating kid clutter. In fact, for our kids’ birthday parties we often ask their friends to bring canned food to donate to the food bank instead of a gift. Our kids like to be a part of giving to a good cause.
Still, grandparents and close family and friends want to give the child something special.
The Gift of Education
College is becoming more and more expensive. Today’s youth will need more than one source to fund their education. Even with scholarships, working part-time, and college savings, many students still end up taking out loans to cover their education. Making contributions throughout childhood gives the child a significant financial head-start on their post-secondary education.
Kids probably won’t remember the specific toy you got them, but when their future lies before them and their pockets are empty, they will remember those who lovingly contributed to make their college dream a reality.
Giving with a ScholarShare Account
ScholarShare, California’s 529 college savings plan, makes giving easy. You don’t even have to leave home. In fact there are several options of ways that you can contribute. With all gift-giving options, the minimum contribution is $25.
- Open a ScholarShare account for the special child in your life
You can enroll and submit your initial contribution online or print the enrollment materials or have the enrollment kit mailed to you. ScholarShare provides printable certificates that you can present to the child (or parents) when the you open the account and make a contribution. If you go the route of opening a new account, you will need to know the social security number of the child beneficiary.
- Contribute to an existing ScholarShare account
If the child already has a 529 college savings account started, you can make a deposit into that account. Download a gift deposit form from the ScholarShare website. You can mail it in along with your check or you can give it directly to the account owner to deposit in their account. You can also print a certificate to give to the child to let her know that you are investing in her future.
- Respond to the invitation to contribute
As the owner of the 529 plan account, the parent (or grandparent) can invite others to contribute to the account by sending out an email (or letter). When logged into ScholarShare’s website, account owners can click on “eGift” to create an invitation for friends and relatives to make a 529 contribution for any occasion, whether it’s a birthday, holiday, bar mitzvah, or just because. This makes it easy for others to contribute. Gift-givers can either click through and make a contribution electronically or they can mail in a check.
They’ll Thank You Later
The kids won’t realize the impact of your gift immediately, but they will soon enough. The parents will be grateful that they won’t be cleaning up, tripping over, replacing batteries in, or breaking up a fight over your gift. Plus, they know that a financial gift to contribute to their child’s education is worth a lot more than a new toy or another shirt.
How About You?
- Is anyone else a toy minimalist? How do you handle the influx of gifted toys?
- Has anyone asked friends or family to contribute to college funds instead of giving a traditional gift?
I have teamed up with ScholarShare to spread the word about the 529 college savings plan. I will be compensated for my efforts. As usual, the words and opinions here are all my own.
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Agreeing to the comment chain. I love the 5 $1 bills idea. Growing up I had one set of grandparents with many grandkids, and they send $5. The other set (with 9 grandkids) contributed $100 to my education annually. Honestly, I remember being a bit bitter about that. If they had sent me $5 and contributed $95 I would have enjoyed it more as a kid.
I LOVE the experience idea. We have been doing that more and more. I love the idea of dinner and a movie. We were given tickets to Disney on Ice one year and had a blast (plus we didn’t mind spending a few dollars on a Monsters Inc construction hat when we were there). We took our kids to the Harlem Globetrotters one year, it was so fun! We’ve started doing that with birthdays as well, instead of a birthday party, one friend and a fun activity (although with older kids it definitely gets more expensive).
Thanks for this reminder as we come close to Christmas.
In order to be more minimalistic about toys, I have thought about encouraging my kids to donate a few toys after they get new ones. I’ll ask them to get rid of them a few weeks after Christmas or their birthday, so they don’t associate these happy days with getting rid of their things. I just feel like if my kids have too many toys, not only will the house be cluttered, they will be ungrateful.
That’s a great rule! Kids play better in an uncluttered space too.
I can say from experience that you are totally right on not needing so many toys. I was an only child, and I got A LOT of gifts during the holidays. Looking back though, there is one thing that sticks out to me. Playmobil sets. I LOVED LOVED LOVED them. They’re probably the only toy I don’t mind having been giving way too much of, because I played with them constantly. I could list every set I have, but that would take hours. And yet, I will never in a million years regret the excess that I had of those toys, because I would entertain myself for weeks with them. (and I plan on passing them on someday) It’s a delicate balance between frivolous spending on toys just for the sake of having more, and buying toys that really encourage a child to be imaginative, like Playmobil did for me.
That being said, I would have loved a secret money fund to help me after moving out of my parents’. :] When I have kids, I think I’ll make a yearly mention of the “secret fund” to the relatives if they would like to contribute, but if they want to get a gift then I’ll ask that they all get together to buy one larger gift rather than a million little things. Once my friends in high school did this for my birthday and bought me a light board for illustrating. I still use it today, it was a fantastic gift!
I love that you call it the “secret fund!” That will make a nice surprise someday!
I’m a grandma (actually, a great-grandma 18 times) so I may see the gift situation a little differently. Because I have so many & most are scattered around the country, I send little ones a card with 5 one dollar bills. They are impressed much more than they would be with 1 five-dollar bill. haha They get to go to the dollar store & buy worthless junk that breaks before the week is out but they have had the fun of spending their own money. As they get older they learn about saving but that is their choice too. I think there are lessons to be learned & joys of childhood not to be missed. If you want to contribute toward education, teach them to learn. Everyone of my grandkids are going to college on full scholarships & grants. They also worked summer jobs.
I like the idea of five one-dollar bills instead of one five. My kids would definitely think that was cooler!
We are pretty minimalist in our toys. We can fit all of the toys into 2 small Uhaul boxes (16-3/8″ x 12-5/8″ x 12-5/8″). When I decided to simplify my life 11 years ago I let my family know that we’d prefer experiences over toys they all seemed to love that idea. Dinner & a movie at home has been a favorite. Now that we all live so far away it’s usually the same dinner & movie but several hundred miles apart while they use Skype to chat.
Experiences make great gifts. My kids chat on Skype with my parents too! 🙂