I’m curious if others here are like me: extremely sentimental collectors of a variety of stuff, and buying souvenirs on vacation has become a big way that stuff gets into our house. I have a hard time letting go of things and tend to buy something if I really want it b/c I might not see it again. Hence, we’ve bought a looootttttt of things on our trips since I started planning a lot of trips for us 10 yrs ago. With multiple kids we end up with multiples of souvenirs etc. I figure that they’ll take some of it when they leave the house eventually, hence I will buy both of those magnets I like instead of limiting myself to one, for example. I am curious, is this you too? Or do you limit things a lot? If so, what is your methodology?
I limit myself to ONE special thing each trip IF I see something I really want.
The one time I got two was my Feb 2021 trip - I got a Guardians of the Galaxy print at FOTA and a Neytiri sculpture in Pandora. I was going to wait until July (my birthday trip) for Neytiri, but something told me to get her in February and that would be the tangible thing for July. In this case it worked out - they were totally out in July!!
I do try to focus more on the non-tangible things - one trip it was Caring for Giants, another it was Up Close With Rhinos. July it was a Capture Your Moment photo session - and limit the tangible things to something super collectible that I really want. And then it is ONE per trip (again. Feb I did get 2, but I didn’t get a tangible thing in July).
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we like to buy items that dont last forever but give us a good while.
e.g Coaster, kitchen spoon rest, food trays, tea towels etc
That way we get some value and they are around to provoke that little memory every so often.
I also get a new mug each trip and retire the old one.
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My kids each get their own giftcard ($50) to buy what they want, usually translates to 1 or 2 items. As a family, we get an ornament on every trip (Not just Disney trips). That’s about it. I’m guess I’m not much of a merch/collectible person. We tend to value experiences over things, so I’d rather spend money on special events (for example) and make sure we have Photopass to help capture the experiences than stuff we have to wrangle home and then store.
Is the souvenir collecting causing problems? Financially? Excess clutter? Disagreements on how much stuff is appropriate between members of the family? If any of that is happening….yes, I’d probably try to limit.
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We’ve gotten better over the years of only buying those things we will actually find useful. For me, it tends to be a clothing item (hat, shirt, sweatshirt) that I know I’ll actually wear. Other souvenirs are things we will USE in the house (mugs, ornaments, decorative pillow, etc).
With the kids (when younger), we usually have provided them with enough money to buy one thing, so they take their time deciding. As they’ve gotten older, they have to spend their OWN money, so, again, they are quite picky about what they buy.
I would say a vast majority of the souvenirs at Disney are fairly worthless once you leave the bubble. Even the more pricey items, such as my son’s BB unit he built in SWGE, sees very little action these days.
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I personally hate having “stuff” just to have it. Any souvenir I pick up is going to have a purpose or use. Mainly I have stuck to getting the Starbucks mugs (and one Jedi mug from Batuu). I occasionally get tee shirts (but Disney’s ones shrink something fierce so it’s rare) or hats (gotta be just right though!)
I have a couple of display things in my office. But otherwise I do limit myself but not by force, by choice.
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Years ago a friend told me that instead of ‘souvenir’ type things they got a piece of art to remember their trips. In her house I saw paintings, print art on the walls. It made me start thinking about things collected on a trip. The kids always get to pick ‘one’ thing and I let them pick w/o interference other than a price tag that was too high; they mainly picked a stuffed animal. At this point the only thing I collect are pins and earrings and only if they sing to me. I’ll look at mugs but they have to sing as well and be the right shape b/c some of them are a-stupid-can-drink-out-of-them shape. Now that I have grandchildren I do buy things for them. I find it makes me happy to buy things for my grandchildren. I don’t need another Minnie Mouse doll but my great granddaughter that loves Minnie surely needs another 
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I have a few of this kind of thing too. 
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Photos of sku numbers. Because with that info you used to could get it from Disney merchandise or whatever.
Then, when home again, do I really want/need this thing?
We never needed that thing once we got home.
My sister’s grandkid had a bunch of Disney beany babies. We’d always bring most of them - we drive - with us to WDW.
Before leaving the house tho, we’d have a discussion about who was missing. Like here’s Lady, but there’s no Tramp. So for souvenir, we’re looking for Tramp.
Also, one beany baby each day got selected to come to the park. Tough to need a souvenir when you’ve got one under your arm.
Your kids are older. Nowadays my sister’s grandkid is more likely to buy a pin. Those are done much as the beany babies were. Some selected each day for trade with a couple for show.
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Yep. My Guardians print and Neytiri sculpture fall under that.
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Suitcase space and weight is the main curb on my souvenir buying. I’d love to buy so many of the mugs but I try not to buy any at all. We buy a lot of T shirts.
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I have a pin addiction. They’re small and I do display some of them on my bulletin board at work. Both girls have bulleting boards with pins. And we have a lot of fun pin trading. I almost always come away from a WDW or DLR visit with at least one pin.
My other souvenir go-to is a magnet (I have a lot of National Park magnets on my fridge!) and/or a reusable shopping bag. I have a lot of National Park shopping bags (and Disney) ones too. I used to use them all the time but now I mostly use drive-up. Bonus is that shopping bags and magnets are relatively inexpensive and we have a use for them.
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You’ll have to pry my pins out of my cold, dead hands.
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We have very few souvenirs. An ornament once in a while. Maybe a special mug or shirt… for this one or that one - maybe.
Now that we have moved - I’d be hard pressed to buy any darn souvenir. Or mug.
I am likely to print out a great photo and frame it.
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This is how bad I am. I buy pins I don’t really like simply to trade them. When I could instead just buy the pins I want.
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Oh I forgot about the ornaments. I do get those sometimes too
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They don’t take up a lot of space and disappear for months at a time. Easy to forget
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But always bring a smile when they come out each year 
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and the memories.
The Minnie peppermint ears ornament from our MVMCP trip in 2019 brings all the good feelings back.
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