We have three and have to try to keep people from giving us more toys. It doesn’t work and we get rid of about 1-2 kids worth of toys per year.
You could outfit a kid’s room with toys pretty respectably from scratch with $30-40 at the thrift store or garage sales, plus maybe about that much again at Target to fill in the gaps (bucket o’ LEGO and a base plate or two, or some dolls that still have their accessories, or whatever). Could stretch that second amount further with some good Ebaying, I bet. Drop another $30-40 every couple years (even for bikes—$10-30 at a garage sale) and you’re good until they start wanting electronics (and then you can just say “cool, get a job”)
The only toys my siblings and I ever needed in our childhood was Lego. The incomplete sets my parents bought in a garage sale when I was 3 were still in decent condition when I left home for college. Every additional set we bought (or were given) in the meantime blended flawlessly with existing sets, so none of it ever went to waste. Forward & backward compatibility at their finest!
same here, we pretty much only had lego (a lot was second hand) and stuffed animals as kids. now, for my own children lego and compatible bricks is the only thing that survives here. pretty much every other toy breaks after a few weeks.
Why spend? Just start ordering large and/or strangely shaped stuff online. With free shipping you can always order a single piece and your kids will grow up thinking that cardboard is in free unlimited supply /s
You could outfit a kid’s room with toys pretty respectably from scratch with $30-40 at the thrift store or garage sales, plus maybe about that much again at Target to fill in the gaps (bucket o’ LEGO and a base plate or two, or some dolls that still have their accessories, or whatever). Could stretch that second amount further with some good Ebaying, I bet. Drop another $30-40 every couple years (even for bikes—$10-30 at a garage sale) and you’re good until they start wanting electronics (and then you can just say “cool, get a job”)