If you’re out shopping with a preschooler who is hanging off your leg, begging for this, that, and the other thing, there’s no better place to be than a thrift store or a yard sale. Where else will your kid actually have buying power?
The best thing about thrift store toys for your preschooler is the cost. Often, you can find huge bins of Lego for a few dollars. Go in with a mental list of what you’re looking for. Dress up clothes? Lego? It’s easy to leave with junk just because it’s cheap. Of course, if your child has an allowance like mine does, this is a great opportunity to talk about the relative cost of new and used objects and teach some good financial management. It’s also a chance to teach your preschooler that it’s not necessary to buy something just because you have money in your pocket.
Speaking of junk, what about all of the fad toys out there? While my daughter is not yet a slave to the whims of childhood toy fashion, she does get focused on having particular toys. When this happens, we go to a garage sale. By the time the preschool or primary set get into a fad, it’s often gone on for a while and you can find the older kids moving on to another toy and selling off their fad toys. Give a toy with a limited lifespan a little more life.
Of course, a huge factor in our decision to focus on garage sale, thrift store, and hand-me-down toys is the environmental impact of buying all new toys. While my daughter has new toys, most of her toys are secondhand. She’s giving them years of additional use instead of using new toys that use new energy and resources to create. And this way, I feel little guilt recycling most of them when she’s finished. They go off to another thrift store for another child to play with.
Does your child buy secondhand toys? Stay tuned for tomorrow’s blog…an exploration of the bad and the creepy side of used playthings.