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This post is part of our Three Gs For The Holidays event. Visit the announcement post to get involved in fun giveaways, get shopping ideas from our Gift Guide, and learn how you can help children in need this holiday season!

Just because you may not see a toy on the shelf in a store, doesn’t mean it is out of stock. Use these nine tips to find even the toys that are the most difficult to get your hands on.

1. Communicate with your local stores to learn their stocking patterns.

2. Talk with store stockers just to learn how they run their store.

3. Store employees are more likely to talk with collectors than dealers - I don’t recommend lying… but, I would be careful of the wording. They will figure out that you are a dealer/reseller when you visit buying the same things over and over.

4. Talk with customer service folks - Don’t assume all employees have the same level of information. Sometimes they have information the stockers don’t have. Where a stocker may not know when they are getting a shipment of a specific toy, the customer service folks may be able to tell you.

5. Avoid the big stores - check out drug stores, grocery stores - even smaller online toy stores.

6. Visit grocery stores/drug stores in less affluent areas.

7. Visit Out of the way cities.

8. Look behind other toys on the shelves.

9. Look under shelves in hidden storage areas - and places employees would hide toys.

Jenni Hunt is the author of The 2008 Holiday Toy Guide which provides you with a list of the most popular toys - many of these toys are going to get harder and harder to find as we get closer to the holiday season. Be sure to use these tips to find these great selling toys.

We’d like to help out those who are less fortunate this holiday season, so we’ll be donating some toys to Toys For Tots! But, since there’s only so much we can do, we encourage you to make a donation also. You can donate toys or cash to Toys For Tots, at your nearest Toys For Tots drop-off location. You can also donate a cash gift online via credit/debit card by visiting the Toys For Tots Online Donation page. With your help, there’s no limit to the amount of smiles we can put on childrens’ faces this year!

Hey everyone! I hope you’re all enjoying the giveaways. We’re not even halfway done yet, so stay tuned for lots more!

I just wanted to write a quick post on how to link directly to a Twitter status update (aka a tweet) since I’m getting quite a few people wondering how to do so when entering the giveaways. So here’s how:

First, make sure you’re logged in and on the “Home” page of Twitter. On the right, click on “updates”. Locate the tweet you’d like to link to, and find where it shows how long ago the tweet was tweeted (ex: “about 2 hours ago”). Click that and you should be taken to a page that displays only that specific tweet. Copy the url in the address bar, and paste it where ever you want to link directly to that tweet.

That’s it! Hopefully this helps those of you who were confused on how to do this!

How many people forgot about Grandparent’s Day? Apparently so did the retail stores. We tried our luck trying to find gifts for Jayden’s Grandmommies and Great Grandmommy, but we couldn’t find any t-shirts or inspirational plaques or trinkets. We found some cute cards that played back a recorded message along with a song, but the cards we wanted played country and circus songs! We ended up printing a few pictures of Jayden out and slipping them into regular cards. The Grandmommies loved them especially since they didn’t even know it was Grandparent’s Day!

There’s just something about greeting cards and pictures that makes us feel all warm and fuzzy inside! How many of you just melt when you read a greeting card or view photos of loved ones? Why not share the warm and fuzzies with family and friends? At PS Print Printing you can easily turn any image into custom postcards for any occasion affordably. Utilize PS Print’s postcard printing service for the upcoming holidays and events in your life by printing out custom postcards as greeting cards, announcements, invitations/party pluggers, and thank you cards! With the holiday season right around the corner, be sure to visit PS Print to create memorable greetings that you can share with the whole family!

With so many people to buy for, shopping for the holidays can become financially stressful. The kids all want a Wii, plus they need clothes. The tots are fine with clothes from Target but the tweens are into expensive name brands. In addition, you have friends and family to buy for and you don’t want anyone to feel left out or call you a cheapskate behind your back.

Here are some ways we save money while shopping. They can be applied to shopping for the holidays and may keep you loan free!

Use coupons & coupon codes: Check out your local papers and even magazines for coupons. Even if the coupon is for something that you don’t think you’re going to purchase any time soon, clip it! There are many resourceful sites online where you can not only print out coupons but grab codes to use at the checkout of your favorite retailers. Some of my favorite places to find coupons are Coupon Chief and Retail Me Not. Both sites are powered by bargain hunters alike. Coupon Chief even has a Pays-2-Share program which allows you to get paid each time someone uses a coupon that you submit.

Shop with iBakeSale: iBakeSale turns everyday savings into cash-back for you and fundraising dollars for your community. iBakeSale has partnered with hundreds of merchants to offer up to 20% cash-back rewards on every purchase. All you have to do is shop from iBakeSale or install the Shopping Bag browser plugin. Whenever you land on any of the select merchants, a pop up will let you know that you can get cash back from iBakeSale. You can use iBakeSale with coupon codes and sales as well! Whether you choose to keep all of your cash-back rewards or donate them to your favorite organization is up to you. We’re listed as an organization, search for Mommy Daddy Blog. Yes, we are fundraising. Any donations are accepted with deepest gratitude (is that right?). Who would have thought that it costs money to maintain a blog?

eBay: Whatever it is you can find it on eBay, whether it’s brand spanking new or in excellent used condition! You’ll be surprised what you can luck up on below the price of retail. eBay has coupon codes too!

Never Pay Retail: Over and over again I hear parents complaining about how they just bought so and so some new clothes that they grew out of or destroyed very quickly. Shop the clearance rack, hello! JcPenney has many racks of lovelies. You can find outfits for less than $4! We do it all of the time! Looking for name brands? Shop stores like Marshalls and TJMaxx who sell factory seconds. It’s possible to find items for less than $4 in these stores as well! You just have to look! The kids want stylish gear to wear to school but you can only afford to buy them 5 outfits each at retail. Don’t have them repeating the same 5 outfits! I’ve seen this so many times going back to school after Christmas. Kids would come back looking fly for one week only because their parents didn’t shop clearance!

Buy in bulk: When the seasonal items go on sale clearance, grab them at the speed of light! You may have to save some of the items to use for the next year, but hey you got them next to nothing! Baby Dagny had an 80% off Labor Day sale. I quickly snatched up a 6-pack of wubbanubs marked down from $90 to $18!

Using these tips should help you save, save, save, and avoid having to take out icky cash loans! Many people turn to loans to help bail them out of the sticky financial situation called Christmas. Sure, everyone absolutely LOVED the gifts you got them, but now you have thousands of dollars accumulated in interest. If you absolutely must take out installment loans, I suggest getting one with the lowest interest rates possible, then paying them off ASAP! You don’t want to have to start the new year off with a pile of debt!