Thursday, May 30, 2013

Can anyone give me some American based toy companies that are not linked with lead poisoning?

Q. I have a 6 month old daughter and I am getting concerned with all the recalls in infant/toddler/children's toys. If you also have any great ideas about bottles and so forth. Much would be greatly appreciated.

A. Melissa and Doug . . . . AWESOME toys that are made in America and can be found at Toys R Us. Their products are also high quality and usually wooden (as opposed to plastic). They also focus on educational value as opposed to TV character association.

Quote from their site:
"Additionally, we specifically test our paints and coatings very frequently, to be sure our toys meet or exceed government recommendations limiting heavy metals and lead in children’s items. We have cabinets full of thousands of passing test reports, and these passing results have been verified by 3rd party independently accredited testing laboratories, considered by many to be the best scientific laboratories in the world."

Their site: http://www.melissaanddoug.com/


What is a good website to buy infant/toddler things?
Q. I am a daycare provider. I am looking for websites to buy things for my infant and toddler classrooms. Things such as toys, board books, etc. Lakeshore and a few other catalogs seem to be very expensive. I was wondering if anyone knows of any really cheap places to buy these things, where do you buy yours?

A. lakshore is very good but yes I agree, very expensive. You may just want to stick to stores such as walmart or target if you want the cheapest prices.


How do I price items for a garage sale?
Q. Is there a percentage-of-retail-price to use? I have mostly infant/toddler items including a pack-and-play, very gently used toys, etc. Would I be better off on ebay or a resale store?

A. Typical rule of thumb; customers at garage sales will pay ten cents on the dollar; so if you bought something for $10, asking $1 would be about right.

If you don't want to go through the hassle of having a garage sale or selling the items on Ebay, I highly recommend donating the goods. When you donate something you can get a tax refund for 1/3 of the item's value, so if you paid $10 for something you would get about $3 back. My husband and I did this last year when we cleaned out our basement. Instead of having a garage sale, we called the Salvation Army and they came and picked everything up. It was SO EASY and we got $1,100 back in tax refund just from the items we donated.

If you do decide to donate the items, make sure you get a receipt from the organization and keep a list of all the items you donate.

Good luck!





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