Shortly after Thanksgiving last year, I took advantage of a great $50 deal on a Little Tikes play kitchen that is regularly roughly $90 to $125.
However, while scoring the great deal was easy, putting the kitchen together took a little more work. My husband and I spent the duration of my then 16-month-old daughter’s afternoon nap assembling the new toy.
As all parents with napping kids know, naptime is some of the only free time you’ll get. So, when I next bought my daughter toys requiring assembly – the Little Tikes Cozy Coupe and Little Tikes easel – I knew I didn’t want to spend precious naptime or time with my daughter doing toy assembly.
Luckily, I hit on an easier and less time-intensive toy assembly method that is today’s hint. The strategy: Hire a TaskRabbit. They aren’t just helpful for kids’ birthday party clean up, furniture assembly and first-year photo book making. They’re great at putting toys together too.
Here’s what I did: I hired a TaskRabbit with extensive furniture assembly experience to come by one evening and put the two toys together. I posted links to the toy instructions in my job posting, so the TaskRabbit knew to come by with the required tools.
To me, the $56 (plus tip) I spent was well worth it. The TaskRabbit was able to do the assembly job much better and quicker than my husband and I could, and we didn’t have to worry about finding – and spending – time to put the toy together. Plus, I made sure to look for deals when I bought the toys in the first place, so I figured I wasn’t really losing money.
To be sure, I’m not the first parent to hire a TaskRabbit for toy assembly help.
On its blog back in 2011, TaskRabbit suggested hiring a “little elf” (aka a TaskRabbit) to put Christmas toys together after the holiday, sharing a toy assembly task that one mom had posted. And I came across a host of tasks similar to the one I posted on TaskRabbit.com, for everything from Cozy Coupe to tricycle to Barbie Dream House assembly.
What are your tricks for making toy assembly a little easier and less time intensive?
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