Disney has developed a new subterranean nerve center to combat lines as they happen. Pirates of the Caribbean too slow? Launch more boats and deploy a Jack Sparrow actor to distract customers. Fantasyland overflowing but Tomorrowland bare? Send out a mini-parade to lure guests over. Sounds like the basis for a fun new real-time strategy game. [More]
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All Mega Pops Removed From Shelves, Foreign Particle Concern
By 10.25.10
After a scare about metal flakes in Mega Pops lollipops, Colombina has asked store owners to remove all Mega Pops from their shelves as they investigate the candy for foreign particles. [More]
Metal Flakes Found In Lollipops
By 10.22.10
Better check your kids bags for Colombina Mega Pops this Halloween. A test of the lollipops found tiny metal flakes in them. Family Dollar has recalled the pops, which were also sold at a few other discount stores, and the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services has issued a warning. [More]
Start A Co-Op Preschool
By 9.29.10
Preschools can be a giant chunk of change, so some parents are banding together and forming their own unofficial co-op preschools. Tuition is minimal and mainly goes to paying the teacher (that they get to choose), and they save on overhead by rotating the location between different family’s homes. There are definitely some considerations to figure out. People who’ve done it before advise: [More]
What's The Best Way To Help Manage A Relative's Finances Without Jeopardizing Your Own?
By 9.14.10
A tipster wants to know whether adding his name to his mother’s accounts will open him up to credit issues should something go wrong. [More]
GPS And ID Card Tracks When Your Kid Gets On And Off Schoolbus
By 9.1.10
Before the kid gets on the bus, he has to swipe his electronic ID card. When he gets off, swipe again. The $16,000 kid-tracking system rolled out in a southwest Illinois suburban school district this week lets the school know where every bus and child is at all times. Parents and school administrators say it’s a welcome relief, but is it too Orwellian? [More]
Should There Be A Families-Only Section On Planes?
By 8.25.10
Who among us hasn’t been trapped on an airplane with a howling baby or a loudmouth 4-year-old who thinks the plane is his playground? So maybe it won’t come as a surprise to you that a new survey says most travelers would be just fine and/or dandy with having a families-only section on flights. [More]
Breastfeeding Moms Stage "Nurse-In" At Arizona McDonald's
By 8.23.10
A manager at a McDonald’s in Glendale, AZ, recently asked a woman to leave the building after she began nursing her baby in the restaurant. That manager is obviously not a reader of Consumerist, or else they would have been prepared for the inevitable backlash, which came this weekend in the form of dozens of moms staging a “nurse-in” inside the McD’s. [More]
Should Parents Be Fined For Smoking With A Kid In The Car?
By 7.2.10
I’ve never smoked a cigarette in my life, but I sure inhaled my fair share of my mom’s, dad’s and stepfather’s tobacco when I was a child. Surely one of my earliest developed motor skills was learning how to roll down the window in our Chevy Nova. Now a bill under consideration by the New York State Assembly seeks to put an end to such behavior by fining adults who light up with a child in the vehicle. [More]
Who Keeps Trying To Kill Our Babies?
By 4.27.10
This “Recalled Baby Products 2009-2010” graphic from the website hugamonkey is massive, and it shows how many types of products were recalled over the past 16 months. You can use it as a reference tool to see if there’s anything in your home on the list, or to remind yourself why you’d rather have a houseplant. [More]
Self-Described Toy Tester Will Go Through Your Stuff If You Pay Her
By 12.29.09
Every time there’s a warning or recall over lead-tainted toys–and it hasn’t happened much this past year, but check out our archives from a couple of years ago–lots of people get up in arms about not being able to trust the government or big business. Well, one woman has bought herself an X-ray flourescence (XRF) analyzer and now hires her services out to worried families, reports the Washington Post. For a fee, she’ll come to your house, point her gun at your kids’ toys, your heirlooms, the fishtank, whatever you ask her to test, and then tell you whether you should throw it out. [More]
Apparently, People Are Smacking Each Other Over Crying Children In Starbucks
By 12.8.09
Brooklyn Heights blog has an eyewitness account of the aftermath of one customer (allegedly) smacking another customer in the back of the head over a fussy child.
The smacking-aftermath witness says: [More]
Am I Responsible For My Parents' Debt?
By 11.13.09
Jay’s parents have gotten quite, uh, spendy with their retirement income, and now they’ve got a lot of debt they can’t pay off. This has become Jay’s problem not because he’s a party to any of the debt, but because they’ve put him down as a reference and now bill collectors are harassing him.
Stroller Company Maclaren Knew About Amputation Risk 5 Years Ago
By 11.12.09
The British company Maclaren knew that its recently recalled strollers could potentially lop off a tot’s fingertips over five years ago, reports the New York Post, but it didn’t bother to alert the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).
Parental Control Software Co. Sells What Kids Say On The Internet
By 10.3.09
If you’re a company like Echometrix that sells parental control software, you’re sitting on a whole bunch of data about what teens and children say and do on the Internet. What to do with that information? Use it to make your software better? Well, of course. But why not sell aggregate data to marketers, too?
How Do You Tell Your Kid That The Sales Clerk Is A Big Phoney?
By 7.31.09
There’s a great post over on WiseBread by someone called the Frugal Duchess, about how her 10-year-old kid was schmoozed a little too successfully by a sales clerk at a tween clothing store in the mall.
Teach Your Kids To Lie For Fun And Profit
By 7.31.09
Is it okay to lie and make your kid lie if it saves you money and time? This mommy thinks so.
Four Financial Tools All New Parents Need
By 6.27.09
The baby’s on the way! You’ve got a crib, toys, and a rapidly approaching delivery date. So what else you do need? Kiplinger shares the four must-have financial tools that no new parent should go without…
