Big Ticket Items, Save Some Money

Tonight we gave Eva her birthday gift from Allison’s parents. They bought her a big toy. A big toy is one that requires over an hour on assembly and makes noise and is fairly expensive. They had us pick it up and wrap it for them (because they live in Florida). Allison and I had decided upon the specific toy because we knew that Eva would get a lot of fun out of using it. The toy is called the Laugh and Learn Home. On one side of the facade it looks like the outside of a house and on the other side it is the inside of that house.

The toy retails for $65.00 or more, it was over $70 at Toys ‘R Us. We had a 15% off coupon but with tax it was still around $62.00. To me that is a bit much for a kids toy that she’ll probably use for a year or less and lose interest. But it is so cool so and we weren’t paying for it so why not. I bought it kept it in the front hall.

A couple of days later I stopped at a local second hand kids store and they had not one but three of these toys for $24.99. I looked them all over and decided to buy the one that had the least amount of wear and tear plus the most amount of accessories. Basically the most complete set I could find.

The Laugh and Learn Home is a Fisher Price Toy and I knew from assembling other Fisher Price toys that the instruction books list out replacement parts that you can buy. When I got home I went online and looked up the toy on the Fisher Price website and sure enough I could buy the accessory pack that included the shapes, balls and plastic pieces of mail, plus all the screws and hardware. I also could buy other parts that might have been broken or even the sticker sheets. I picked out the sticker sheet and the accessory pack and it only cost $7.00.

Save money buy secondhand

After a little gentle cleaning and a reapplication of the new stickers this toy was in nearly out of the box condition. All that and we cut the cost in half. Oh and I didn’t even have to build it. And clearly she loves playing with it.

Come and Knock on our Door

Come and Knock on our Door
Photo-A-Day #1288

Mimi and Grandpa Dano are staying with us for the weekend. They came up for Eva’s 1st Birthday party. We’re having it this Sunday. More baby cakeplow pictures! This is Eva and Grandpa Dano playing with Eva’s new Toy, The Laugh and Learn Home. This was the toy that we originally bought at Toys ‘R Us and then returned it because I found it at the second hand store. Eva is having so much fun with it too. Big Weekend ahead too.

If you haven’t seen it yet you might want to take a look at my Ultimate Fry Sauce Recipe Contest. I think that you will like giving it a try, so far I’ve received a few very tempting recipes and am anxious to make them for the taste testing day. Don’t miss out, you have till the end of the month to get in your entry.

You might have noticed my sidebar has a new ad. I’m working with SocialSpark on their new affiliate program. The first affiliate is an awesome one called Pexagon Technology and they make Personalized Flash Drives. The other day I got a personalized T-Shirt and I think that a bunch of Personalized Flash Drives would complement that purchase very well. Especially with regards to what the T-Shirt is all about. Of course at this time I can’t say anything more about the message of that T-Shirt, but as soon as it arrives I will be able to talk about it more. The great thing about this affiliate program is that it is the only one that is 100% transparent. So if you decide to purchase some Personalized Flash Drives you’ll be supporting me and my blog and I would appreciate that in a very real way. Any support in monetary form that we get from this blog goes to helping Allison spend more time with Eva. For that I am very grateful.

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