Well it seems to me that we in Malaysia are suffering from high inflation and boom in our economy, we have to import in foreign labour for undesirable jobs that none of our citizens wants to work at. China, Indonesia and Singapore are also booming, an example would be a dessert I bought a month ago was $ 1.20 in local currency and currently is selling at $ 1.80 which shows high inflation... The job market is also good with 2 jobs available for 1 worker, leading to high wage growth, hence we have to import in labour. We found out after March 2009 that we were not going to go into a Recession, imagine our surprise when we were told we were going to go into a Recession, we suspect we were saved by China's boom and growth ! You should publish post on how to spend all this excess money in Asia, there are tonnes of money being made here !
Six Cheap and Fun Children's Items at Target (They're Plastic Free!)
I found myself in between an errand and an appointment today with time to kill. There was a Target store right next to the eye clinic my husband needed to go to, and we had about thirty minutes before it opened. He grabbed a table at the snack area to study, and I decided to cruise the aisles for penny pinching inspiration. What I found were six different items for children to have fun with this summer. All were plastic and packaging free, and all were between thirty-nine cents and five dollars.
Let's get real. Whether it's on the home front or in the classroom, keeping children entertained is rather hard to do without excess plastic and packaging. It takes a fair bit of forethought and the conscious selection of activities and toys. While not all art and entertainment supplies can be purchased without plastic, several can. Here are the ones I found today.
Postcards.
In the dollar bins at the front of the store, were stacks of tear-out postcard booklets. They were all done in bold colors with kid-friendly graphics of animals, footballs and more. They were longer in length with generously spaced address lines on the back for small handed little people with large penmanship. All booklets contained eight postcards. That's less than fifteen cents a piece plus postage for a fun educational activity during summer break. If you really want to cheap it out, however, children can create and design their own with index cards. Here's a link to an article with some directions.
Puzzle books.
Word puzzles are fun for kids of all ages. For a buck a pop plus a pencil, children can enjoy days of entertainment.
Poster board.
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Different colors were different prices, but all were under a buck. The least expensive was the white poster board at thirty-nine cents. Let the kids have fun with art materials they already have kicking around the house. They can celebrate a book from that week's trip to the library or create a colorful advertising poster for that night's family puppet show.
Sketch diary.
I liked these because they were more notebook in nature as opposed to the traditional flip pad design. Sketch paper with a metal spiral binding and paperboard covers is basically what we're talking about here. They were under five dollars in price, with enough paper to provide several week's worth of nature and still life sketches over the summer.
Floor pad.
Larger pieces of paper in a tear off pad suitable for floor work. Fit some into beverage boxes for an affordable marble painting activity, or use wide crayons to create art work suitable for that much white space.
Tear-off construction paper pad.
Paper bag puppets, folded paper art projects, or torn paper mosaics on the poster board mentioned above would all be ways to use this particular art supply item effectively.
These were my top picks for package-free entertainment for the kids. We have one or two additional articles here on Wise Bread as well. For other Target shopping tips, check out this piece by Linsey. Have you noticed any other affordable product kids might enjoy?
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I also would like to buy those stuff you mentioned, at least for future needs, but Target Store is almost 3 miles away from where I live. By the way, it's a good list for the next weekend though.
You know, there are probably a few other items there too. These are just the ones I noticed between the dollar bins and art supply aisle. I didn't even hit the toy section, as we only had so much time to hang out there. I'd be interested to see what others have noticed for kids overall at Target that were low on packaging.
I used to love drawing on the large pieces of paper on the floor. I remember outlining my whole body and decorating myself with crazy clothing. Ahhh, good stuff.
We can always find cheap and eco friendly ways to entertain kids. We don't need to buy some cheap toy that will probably go in some landfill a year later.
Paper! I love it.
I frown on any children's toy that doesn't encourage creativity and/or imagination. Every family should have a generous stack of paper and drawing supplies for everyday use.
Great finds. Glad you said plastic and not petroleum products. I would be willing to bet there is oil somewhere in the equation for all those products. Paint and laminate is the one that comes to mind.
Hi Margaret,
You know, as much as I have to admit that a fair amount of crap goes into those bins, I have routinely gotten some really great scores there as well. Refrigerator note pads, fitness jump rope, stocking stuffers around Christmas, a silver clutch when I needed one, the list goes on. It definitely pays to check them out from time to time, even if you only use them for a back up gift drawer or a way to stock up through the year for Christmas. Definitely some affordable birthday party items here too.
Mind you, it's not at Target, but some newspapers will give you the ends of newsprint rolls (apparently, the end bit is unusable in the presses they use). My kids think long rolls of paper are way fun. You can also get a huge roll of butcher paper at Costco.
I regularly purchase end rolls of newsprint paper from our local newpaper. These are the ends of the huge rolls of paper that they run the paper on. They sell them for a few dollars, depending on how much is left on the roll. It's great fun for older kids to trace their bodies and add features and clothing. Toddlers love this as well. For large groups, I unroll the paper down the hallway and let them have at it. We have made wrapping paper at Christmas time by letting the kids step in tempra and walk around on the paper. The activities you can do are endless.
You know, when I was in the classroom I liked to do large sheets of butcher paper for the kids to trace each other each time we would study a new body system. Even fifth graders liked this. Since each grade has different skill sets when it comes to detailed drawings of circulatory and other sytems, they always came out age appropriate. Labels, color coded, the whole bit. It's fun. LOVE the wrapping paper out of painted footprints idea.
