The Mom Crowd

UPDATE: 

Julie Vallesse says not expect a crack-down on Feb. 10th. Also, more about exemptions on Bloomberg.com. 

Baby Cheapskate has a new article stating that CPSC is hearing all the calls and emails and may be reconsidering the affect on consignment shops and yard sales.

I received this Thursday morning from San Antonio Fox News Anchorwoman, Bianca Vanezuela – ” Looks like legislators are taking note. Check out yesterdays LA Times. Local Goodwill says they arent to worried. Nationally they are working closely with the powers that be and believe changes will be made before February
10th. I’ll keep you posted.
Bianca”

Here is a link to the most recent LA Times article:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-lead7-2009jan07,0,6917858.story

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If you haven’t heard yet Congress passed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) that will go into effect on February 10th of this year. Retailers, toymakers, thrift stores, yard sales, hand made toy producers and consumers of used clothes and toys will all be affected. Some are even calling Feb. 10th National Bankruptcy Day, because of the severe impact they believe the law will have on the economy.

What You Need to Know

The CPSIA limits the amount of lead and phthalates in toys, mandates third-party testing and certification for all toys and requires toy makers to permanently label each toy with a date and batch number. (Handmade Toy Alliance)

The lead paint limit is currently 600 ppm for children’s products. It will be lowered to 90 ppm on August 14, 2009. (CPSC Requirements)

The CPSIA was created in response to the enormous number of product recalls every year and the inability for the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) to properly prevent dangerous toys from being imported and sold.

Up until October of 2007 the CPSC had already issued 544,000 product recalls due to high amounts of lead.

The law says that a “children’s product” means a consumer product designed or intended primarily for children 12 years of age or younger. This includes clothes, toys, children’s books, cassettes, CD’s, printed game boards, posters, and other printed goods for used children’s education.  It also applies to some furniture “Furniture articles include, but are not limited to beds, bookcases, chairs, chests, tables, dressers, desks, pianos, console televisions, and sofas.”

How Does This Affect You?

The cost of children’s goods will rise, because manufacturers will have to pay for expensive third party testing. The cost will be passed along to the consumer.  (HTA)

Small businesses and handmade items may go out of business, because they can not pay for the third party testing. Etsy shop owners may go out of business.

Items that have not been tested by Feb. 10th may be considered hazardous and will not be available to resale and thrift stores may have to clear out their inventory if each item can not be tested by Feb. 10th. Goodwill and shops like Kid to Kid may be forced to shut down!

You may not be able to resell children’s items through yard sales, Craigslist, or Ebay unless the items have been tested for lead.

The official US Consumer Product Safety Commission’s website about the CPSIA does not list the penalties for breaking the law.  The Consumer’s Union says the civil penalty caps have been raised from $5,000 to $100,000 per individual violation, and from $1,250,000 to $15,000,000 for aggregate violations.

What is Going on Now With the Law?

Congress passed the CPSIA in July 2008 and signed by the President on August 14, 2008.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission enforces the law. They met on Monday of this week and determined that certain natural fibers like wool will be exempted.

The CPSC is still considering finding an exemption for Resale, Thrift and Consignment Shops according to the Minneapolis-St.Paul NBC affiliate.

According to the timeline for the CPSC not every thing has been finalized yet.

Senator Hatch says that lawmakers can still alter the regulations and make exemptions, “The CPSIA was not intended to harm the kinds of small businesses for which you are concerned. It is apparent, however, that the regulations may need to be altered to make exemptions for certain categories of products and businesses.”

Let Your Voice Be Heard!

Against:

Write Your Senators and Your Representative

Write to the CPSC

Vote on Change.Org

Sign a Petition

Join the Facebook group – Help Save Toys from the CPSIA

Become a Fan on Facebook

Join the Twitter group: Twittergroup #CPSIA

Take this survey about the economic impact of the regulations

Contact Your Local News Media Outlets

Share about the law on your blogs

For:

Visit the Consumer’s Union of the United States website.

Keep Up With the Latest Updates

Fashion – Incubator Forum

CPSIA Central on Ning

Homemade Toy Alliance Facebook group
What have you heard about the CPSIA? Do you agree with the law? Is it too soon to tell what is going to happen on Feb. 10th?  

You didn’t miss anything if you didn’t watch the 20/20 special on Extreme Parenthood on Friday night. The show covered the ‘Orgasmic Birth’ documentary, women with baby dolls as babies, extended breastfeeding, surrogate mothers, and finally the ‘Business of Being Born’ documentary. All the segments came from a “What are they thinking?” and judgmental perspective meant to provoke fear. But really, can you expect any more than that from John Stossel?

I soon began following 20/20’s judgmental hinting and wondered about some of the women presented. Like the women caring for dolls as their own babies, but I have to admit I fast forwarded through that segment. I also had an issue who the lady who used her own eggs and inseminated herself in her apartment for her surrogate babies.  I sought to understand why women extend breastfeeding up to 6 years.  The show was shocked and appalled to find women still nursing 2 ½ year olds, but used that as a springboard to other families who are nursing longer.

I found myself agreeing with the women in the two brief segments about birthing. I liked how both of them explained that they don’t want to replace medicine or go back to the olden days, but just want to give women more options when it comes to labor and delivery.

An “Orgasmic Birth” or home delivery isn’t for everyone. However, I think my husband is up for the orgasmic birth experience. He was watching the show with me and said, “Dude, we’re making out during delivery. Hells yeah!”  I am not sure I would really feel comfortable doing that with people watching, no matter how much they told me to “lose my inhibitions” while they lit tea lights around the room and playing some dirty Janet Jackson music.

I found myself relating to the woman in the hot tub when she talked about making her own breathing pattern or Lamaze to relax. I recently told my friend, Kim, about how I made it through birth with no medicine with my breathing patterns. With each contraction I made 10-12 low “O” sounds to get me through them. As I was re-enacting the sound when we started cracking up laughing realizing how sexual they sound when you aren’t in a delivery room.

One of our authors, Amelia, has written about Oxytocin here on The Mom Crowd. She wrote,

“Oxytocin is responsible for producing contractions in the uterus which in turn dilates and thins the cervix so the baby can pass through.  Your body also releases oxytocin when your baby is nursing and when you have an orgasm.”

So it doesn’t surprise me that some women would feel an orgasmic release during labor.

Overall, the show didn’t give you any real useful information. It felt more like entertainment. I just hope people don’t come away from the show linking the crazy baby doll moms with moms who choose to opt to deliver differently. The “hard hitting” journalism of 20/20 was a bit of a disappointment. Maybe Veronica Corningstone from ‘Anchorman’ would have done better job reporting.

• The Crunchy Domestic Goddess also found the show a disappointment. Check out her anticipation of the show here and her re-cap here.

What did you think of the show? What do you think of this new “Orgasmic Birth” phenomenon?

Happy New Year!

“Marilla, isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?”
-    Anne of Green Gables

I am sure by the time you have read this on New Year’s Day that you may have made a mistake or two. It’s okay. But there is still time to work on the year and save us from paying Stupid Tax with our finances. Making some clear financial goals for your family will empower you to feel in control of your money. Money is fluid and needs to be told where to where to go. Otherwise it just runs through your fingers like water.

There are several bloggers who are bold enough to share with the world their financial goals. One of Heather’s goals at Dime Savin’ Diva is opening a Christmas Club Account. 

“Open Christmas Club account for Christmas money. This would be in addition to our savings and debt snowball, and our goal is a minimum of $40 monthly.”

I would love to save all year for Christmas. Rather than squeaking it out of our budget in December. Really, Christmas isn’t a surprise. It comes at the same time every year!

Tiffanie at We Like Money wants to pay off two credit cards and get her total credit card debt under $10,000.  My husband and I paid off our cards in order of the smallest amount up. While we were paying them off I called to have the APR lowered. They weren’t very kind to me and it gave me more motivation to get them out of my life. Paying off credit cards is an awesome goal.

Megan at Counting My Pennies wants to “Save at least half of this year’s “extra” paychecks plus half of any work-related bonus checks.” If you get paid bi-weekly and base your budget on two paychecks a month, then a few months a year you get paid a third time in the month. Saving money from these “extra” checks is a great idea.

Frugal Babe is saving $200 a month into their car savings account. I know this is something that we are going to need to do soon, if I want to buy a Sequoia in cash. How awesome will it be to walk into a dealership with cash in hand and haggle? No arguing over APR rates while hoping you get a good “deal.” Frugal Babe is also saving for solar panels!

I’ve Paid For This Twice Already… is working on Student Loan Debt. She shares some great advice about their efforts, “As long as we keep focused on moving forward.” I agree! We just need to stay focused and moving forward in our goals even if we mess up.

Here are 14 goals that I came up with that may help you pick your financial goals for 2009!

1. Make a plan to pay X amount of dollars per month towards your debt all year. Stick to it!

2. No Insufficient Fund (NSFs) charges for 2009.

3. Start an Education Savings Account (ESA) for each child.

4. Track your spending for 3 months using Quicken or Mint.com.

5. Create a written budget before the 1st of the month and list it in priority order to get paid.

6. Create a Christmas fund and put at least X amount of dollars a month into it.

7. Have a monthly budget meeting with your spouse before the first of the month.

8. Only use a cash system for groceries, dining, and clothing.

9. Change your W-4 if you are expecting a large return, then you can bring more money home each month.

10. Create a Love Folder before the end of March.

11. Read a financial book such as: The Millionaire Next Door, The Wealthy Barber, Richest Man in Babylon, Your Money or Your Life, Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Maker Over or Financial Peace Revisited.

12. Reduce fixed expenses by 10% per month. Look at your mobile phone bill or cable options, shop around insurances, save on electricity in your house by weather stripping, etc.

13. Create a Giving Fund and give to causes that you believe in.

14. Attend Financial Peace University class or a Dave Ramsey Live Event.

Hopefully a few of these will give you a jump-start in your goal planning. My husband and I will be finalizing our goals soon. One of our goals is to finish our last debt item, Sallie Mae. Although, I am not sure she will be completely gone at the end of this year, but we can set a goal to have that debt to a certain number and take chunks off of it. I also have a goal to stick to our cash system and not to slip up with our debit card.

Let’s start 2009 financially fit! It is a new year with no mistakes in it… yet!

Are you setting any financial goals this year?

As you can tell I didn’t get my post up about financial goals today. I have them written (really I do), but I just couldn’t make a cohesive post last night or even tonight for that matter. My mom broke her hip and had surgery to place a pin in it yesterday.

On Sunday my 56-year-old mom got stuck in the hallway and couldn’t move while we were making the four hour drive home to San Antonio from visiting my parents for Christmas. Apparently she had fallen about 2 weeks ago and didn’t tell anyone and she was finally in severe pain. Luckily my brother and sister cajoled her to go to the Emergency Room Sunday night. Turns out that it was broken and she had surgery. We drove back to Houston the next day.

Before I even knew about the hip stuff I had planned on coming back to Houston to clean my parent’s house before I gave birth. I just didn’t know it would be so soon. Today is the only day that my Super Duper Cleaner Sister-in-law was able to help clean the house. My mother is a pack rat and her ability to adequately clean after three inside dogs, three cats, four fish tanks, and one bird cage has waned over the years. We attacked today. I threw out tons of garbage and stuff I hope my mom doesn’t miss. She is also diabetic and I had at least one garbage bag full of sweets. She may buy them again, but at least it will be fresh sweet stuff.

My mom is doing well. She refused therapy this morning, but did get up for physical therapy this afternoon. It will still be a while before she is home and walking. She thinks she is going to be home in a couple of days. I am not looking forward to the fight about going into the inpatient rehab facility. But that is for another day.

One more thing, did I mention that my family has lots of family drama and I am the only one that everyone is speaking to? I get to be a peacemaker and go-between in all of this. Oh, and I am 30 weeks pregnant and I have a toddler with me. Needless to say, I am exhausted.

Thanks for letting me whine a little here at The Mom Crowd. I am sure I am not the only child to have to start caring for a parent or has to do their own version of Clean Sweep on their parents house.

I am taking a break from visiting and cleaning tomorrow afternoon and I am looking forward to finishing up my goals series. Please come back soon and check them out!

The New Year is a great time to reflect on 2008 and set goals for 2009. But why should we add more pressure to our lives by setting goals that we may or may not obtain? Goal setting helps you focus your energy and set your priorities. You take control of your actions and time, rather than letting time and money slip through your hands wondering where it all went at the end of the year.

Accomplishing goals boosts your self-confidence and gives you a ton of motivation to make your life better. Even if you are satisfied with how your life is going, setting a goal and the challenge of seeing if you can meet them is incredibly motivating and enjoyable.

The key to taking pride in meeting your goals is to set SMART goals. Don’t just throw random resolutions into the void hoping that they will somehow be met. Create goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely.

One goal that my husband set for himself was to read one non-fiction book a month for the entire year.  He could have said, “I would like to read more non-fiction books this year,” but how would he have known if he met it?  His goal is SMART.

The goal: To read one non-fiction book a month for the entire year.

specific: one non-fiction book
measurable: one book a month for the year
attainable: challenging to find time to read, but not too far from reach
realistic: reading non-fiction isn’t a chore for him
timely: there is a timeframe for his goal.

On New Year’s Day last year my husband and I found a family member to babysit our baby while we went out to lunch and discussed our goals for the year. We will probably do the same this year. We set goals as a family and separately as individuals.

Sharing our goals with each other brings us closer together in our marriage. He also holds me accountable for mine, but only if I ask to hold me accountable! Conversely I don’t nag him either. It is just a fun exercise to even express our goals and dream out loud to each other. We like to set goals for different categories such as physical, financial, spiritual, social and intellectual.

Over the next three days I am going to post ideas for SMART goals in the financial, physical, and intellectual categories. I hope you come back and join me as we discuss our goals in these three areas!