August 2005 – Sydney, Australia. Sydney mothers have discovered a way of providing their children with high quality children’s educational toys and they’re only paying 20% of store price. These mothers aren’t spending hours in discount stores or second hand toy stores. They’re buying high quality, highly sought after children’s educational toys and instead of paying $100 they’re paying only $20. They’ve organised themselves in groups of 5 or 6 and each mother is buying a toy worth $100. These toys are then circulated within the group so that the group has toys to the value of $500 - $600 and each child has a one month turn with the toy before passing it on to the next family.

Ute Fumeaux, CEO and founder of child-educational-toys.com is a mother of 3 who empathised with the thousands of mothers who find it tough finding the extra cash for those high quality children’s educational toys on the market.

But then, Ute came up with a great idea, one that to date has probably saved her 100’s of dollars…………….In fact this idea has saved 4 of her friends 100’s of dollars. It was such a simple idea, that when Ute shared it with 4 friends in her mother’s group, they laughed. It just seemed too simple not to be something that everyone did.

The idea?

Toy Sharing

Hang on let’s clarify. 5 mothers of boys and girls of similar ages got together – had a look both on-line and at the multitude of toy catalogues in the mail box. They each chose $100 worth of high quality (relatively unisex)

They then set up a share system or toy library system with the toys. Each family had 1 month turns of each of the toys. At the end of each month the toys were rotated within the group.

Now let’s have a look at what this meant firstly for the children:

• New high quality educational toys each month.
• Just when they were bored/no longer using the toy as often, it went to someone else and a new toy arrived.
• More space to play as their rooms were less cluttered with toys
• There was more money available to the family for other ‘necessities’.

And then of course from the parents perspective:

• Because new toys were circulating every month, there was always an answer for “can I have…”
• Money saved
• Less unused toys lying around the house
• High quality educational toys were available to their children.

This process may seem simple but we all know there are 1000’s of families feeling the pinch who still like to be able to provide high quality children’s educational toys for their children. Well why not try Ute’s idea and save yourself 100’s of dollars and be able to give your children their toys?

www.child-educational-toys.com

About The Author

Ute Fumeaux - Mother of 3 beautiful children and CEO of www.child-educational-toys.com

fumeaux@optushome.com.au