If there’s one thing that Disney’s good at, it’s getting people to spend money.

After spending an embarrassing amount of money on our first trip to Disney together (so embarrassing that you get no details), Kevin and I came up with a system to keep it from happening again.

It might come in handy for other folks, so I figured I’d share it here:

Summed up, we get two Things per day.

Starting check-in day and including checkout day, we each get two Things.

Things can be banked, but not borrowed. (You can save them but you can’t use tomorrow’s today.)

You don’t have to use them all. There’s also no guilt if you do. That’s what they’re there for!

Things can’t be broken down farther. Even if what you want to buy is cheaper than a Thing cap, it’s still one Thing.

Things are no more than 25$, unless the item you’re buying is costs more than one Thing, then there’s a 5$ wiggle room. (A 60$ item would cost 2 Things.)

If you don’t have enough Things, you have to spend your own money.

We have spent Things on everything from pins (see a small portion of Kevin’s collection, above) to the Lego Cinderella’s Castle kit. (That took me a week-long trip to save up for. WORTH IT.)

It’s been a pretty kick asterisk system for us for a few years. Since we don’t go anywhere except Disney (because, you know, Disney) I can’t vouch for its efficacy anywhere else but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work.

Here’s hoping this is useful for someone!

Do you go overboard at Disney? How do you keep your vacation spending under control? Are you a pin trader? Let me know!