Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act could make our lives worse

In our quest to save money, many of us with children shop ebay, yard sales, children's consignment, etc. However, there's a law that was passed called The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act could stop all that. According to The Los Angeles Times, as of February 10th all items for children will have to be tested to be lead free before the can be sold. This could possibly mean it will be illegal for consignment shops, thrift store, yard sales, even ebay sellers to sell children's items since they wouldn't have been tested for Lead making them hazardous. The law was written to protect children from products made with lead products. While it was a well intended law, it could potentially hurt a ton of businesses as well as hit our own pocket books. Several people are trying to get the Consumer Product Safety Commission to amend the law so that it doesn't hurt the resale industries.

Let's all hope that this gets amended before we loose one of the best ways we've found to cloth our children and even recycle our children's outgrown toys and clothes. This could really rock a lot of our worlds.

PAPERS! PAPERS! GET YOUR PAPERS!...

Sunday's papers that is. On a tip from Saving Money Ideas, I've learned that this Sunday's inserts will be a wonderful New Year's gift. With a total of 5 different inserts, three Smartsource inserts and two Red Plum (Valassis) inserts, the possibilities are endless. This basically amounts tons of savings and swaps for the avid couponer. How does she know? She pointed to Taylortown Preview to see a complete listing of the coupons that will be in this weekend's paper. So I ventured over and WOW! What an awesome resource. Her dedication and hard work/time really pays off. She offers a preview of the upcoming weeks insert coupons AND offers them for sale including past inserts. Of course, they are on a "While Supplies Last" basis but if you are looking for a particular coupon, she's more than likely got. Or if you just can't remember when a coupon came out or if there is one for a particular product, she has a search feature that works by pressing ctrl + F to pop up a search box at the bottom of the screen. To see what's coming click here: Taylortown

JANE4GIRLS has done it again. SmartShopper tool/toy

I've got an added post today. My Favorite blogger Erin of JANE4GIRLS posted about an amazing new tool called the SmartShopper. It's somewhat of a PDA of sorts but for groceries and basically any shopping list/errand list. She has a wonderful display video on her site linked above. Basically, you enter in your items, cue it that you have a coupon then when done it prints out a list for you. Small, compact and easier to keep up with than you big ol' notebook paper list or like me Multiple list. Hope over there and check it out. She even has a totally great giveaway with one of these. Yes this is my shameless attempt at winning one but it is also a wonderful tool that could simplify many of our lives. So go! Go check it out!