Introduction
Sam:
On this week's episode of the pRETTy happy podcast, we chat with Usree Bhattacharya who talks with us about her family's Rett journey, and we finally get the answer to my longtime question: Is Augmentative and Alternative Communication (also known as AAC) its own language?
Sarah:
But first, we talk about ways our pretty happy shop saves you money on adapted toys.
Sam:
All that and more on today’s episode. Today is Monday, April 17th – Let’s start the show!
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Sam:
Welcome to the pRETTy happy podcast. My name is Sam.
Sarah:
And I’m Sarah and we're the parents of Zoey, a child with Rett syndrome.
Sam:
We’re so excited to have you guys back for another great episode. We have some good stuff to talk about today, but first Sarah, how are you doing today?
Sarah:
I’m a little under the weather. I’ve been a little bit sick. I've stayed up too many days in a row and my body is telling me that that is not something that I should be doing. so, I'm a little congested because I wasn't listening.
Sam:
No. Nope, you weren't unfortunately, but now you've learned right.
Sarah:
Probably not.
Sam:
Probably not.
Sarah:
It's this terrible cycle of parenthood where it's like, I don’t feel like I get enough alone time in the day so I stay up late to get more alone time, and then I -- I don’t get enough sleep, and then I think, “Oh I should go to bed early,” but then I don’t get enough alone time in the day and then I stay up late and it's a bad cycle. And then my body's like, “Cut it out!”
Sam:
Yeah, it's a -- that's a very bad cycle
Sarah:
It is.
Sam:
Then again I do the same thing the only difference is that my body doesn’t turn against me when I did that.
Sarah:
Right!
Sam:
Yours does.
Sarah:
It does! it 100% does.
Top Three
Sam:
Well let's jump into our Top Three for the week and Sarah you've got it again for this week.
Sarah:
So, we decided that today we wanted to talk about our pRETTy happy store. It is on our website, prettyhappy.place, and we wanted to share with you guys some of the ways that we save money for us and for you in our store.
#1 Adapted Switches
Sarah:
So, number one is our adapted switches. so, these switches are 3D printed and we put them together ourselves. And they were designed by a dad whose daughter has CP. And I will link the files for the 3D printed switches in our notes so if anybody wants to print these they are available like the files are available so you can print them yourselves. but we wanted to have these in our store because switches are expensive. and these are not expensive, but they are quality switches.
Sam:
For context, when Sarah's talking about expensive, we are talking about like $60.00 USD for some of the switches that you can buy online. And, I mean, obviously, one of the barriers to entry when it comes to 3D printing these switches is going to be a 3D printer.
Sarah:
Yeah, that is true.
Sam:
However, what we have found is that most public libraries, most schools, and many community centers now have 3D printers available for the community to reserve time on or rent or you know…
Sarah:
Typically you pay for the filament or the time spent on the printer.
Sam:
Yeah, and filament just so you know that’s the plastic.
Sarah:
Yes, sorry.
Sam:
These rolls and it's all wound up and yeah. but we've calculated out the cost and I mean if you include labor, you're looking at about $7.00 USD - $8.00 USD per switch. If you're not going to include labor you're looking at about $4.00 USD to $5.00 USD for all the materials including your energy usage so your electricity. and yeah, so $5.00 USD versus $60.00, it's definitely worth looking into especially if you're considering or if you're in a situation where you need a lot; maybe the school that your child's attending doesn't have access to something like that they don’t have the funds yet to be able to buy those things or maybe something breaks and it's in the middle of the year in their budget doesn’t allow for that, you can 3D print these yourself
Sarah:
Yeah, and they -- like I said, they are a quality product, and what I mean by that is they are very sensitive to touch. So regardless of how much pressure an individual can place on the switch to get it to activate, it literally with the touch of a finger -- the very light touch of a finger -- it will activate, which is fantastic for a lot of individuals.
Sam:
Yep, yep absolutely. so, we have those available in our shop they are $15.00 USD and they come in a variety of colors. and they can be used in many circumstances; all that's on the end of them is a 3.5-millimeter headphone jack sort of thing. so way back in the day when we all used to have headphone jacks in our phones. you know. and Bluetooth was thought to be bloatware, you would have to plug in your headphones, right? And that same sort of jack -- essentially what’s being done is we're using that same material and equipment to be able to connect to various things. and we have shared in the past that these types of switches, which I mean it could be ours it could be one that you 3D print or if you already have a switch that uses one of those headphone like jacks, also known as 3.5-millimeter jacks, they can be plugged even into an adapted Xbox controller. So, you can do a lot of cool things with them. we are still exploring some of the stuff that you can do with them, but if you've got any ideas of ways that it can be used, definitely send it over to us: email, voice message, whatever it is, reach out to us on our social medias because we would love to hear how you use your switches in everyday life.
#2 Searching for Deals
Sarah:
Number two is that we buy our toys on clearance. Now the reason that we do that is so that we don’t have to mark the toys up for adapting them nearly as much. We can save you guys money because it saves US money. We get them at a lower cost, therefore it's a lower cost to you guys when you purchase them.
Sam:
Now we’re not always able to get these toys on clearance. Sometimes it's just a sale and so it's a little lower than retail cost, but the idea is to try to resell these brand-new toys as close to retail prices as possible. we all know as individuals connected to the special needs community that adapted toys are too expensive and oftentimes we’re talking about toys that individuals aren't even interested in. They’re very generic toys; I remember looking at one over Christmas where it was just a reindeer; there was nothing fancy about this reindeer. in fact, the reindeer was 5, 6 inches tall -- a very small reindeer. they were charging $60.00 USD for this thing and I even found where you could buy the exact same reindeer toy -- now granted you have to buy it in bulk so you’re looking at maybe 500 to a thousand of these toys that you'd be buying in bulk to get this price -- but $5.00 USD.
Sarah:
Holy cow.
Sam:
$5.00 USD for these things and they were selling them for $50.00 USD or $60.00 USD
Sarah:
That's ridiculous.
Sam:
It’s disgusting. Now obviously these companies they’re -- they are trying to turn a profit which we totally understand; we get it. You know, as a business, you have to be able to make a profit, but at the same time not that much!
Sarah:
No.
Sam:
Not that much! like we are already so stretched as is when it comes to medical supplies and doctor visits and then everything else just to get through everyday life. We can’t afford a $60.00 USD dinky little toy.
Sarah:
And I think they are using parents’ -- I don't want to say ignorance but -- ignorance on how to adapt toys to markup these prices. and maybe ignorance has a negative connotation and I don't mean it in a negative way, but if people knew how easy it was to adapt toys they wouldn't be able to sell them at such high prices, is what I mean by that.
Sam:
Yeah, absolutely. and it is daunting -- it is very daunting when you pull out that little circuit board and you're trying to figure out what everything is doing. If you don’t have any sort of background in that, it’s daunting, it's scary. and the great thing is there's now so much in the special needs community so many people who are trying to help others get access that you can simply Google it, YouTube it, whatever it is, and you can get some more information on it. So, our toys are going to be cheaper than pretty much anywhere else. Now our stock is also going to be a little bit lower, unfortunately. We will admit that because you’ve got to remember this is a little out-of-home operation.
Sarah:
And the other thing is we’re not trying to compete with big companies is the other thing that you have to remember. We are not trying to make a huge profit margin on these toys; we are trying very, very hardtop keep the cost as low as possible so that they are affordable for anybody who is not interested in learning how to adapt to them. and for those who are interested, I try really hard to make sure that I get a video of each toy that I adapt so that we can then turn those into tutorials so that others can learn how to adapt to those toys. so if you don’t want to buy them from us, that's great! but will still help you be able to adapt them yourself
#3 Recycled Shipping Materials
Sarah:
And number three, we try really hard to save money on shipping. I know that's always a sticking point. Unfortunately, we are not Amazon, and we have to charge shipping. But that being said we try and keep that cost as low as possible; so you only get charged as much as it is to ship. and we don't charge you for the materials to ship the toys or the switches.
Sam:
Yeah, what we do is -- unfortunately because we are massive consumers of Amazon -- we keep as many boxes as we can and we use those boxes; we recycle them to send stuff out to people. we also keep the packing supplies that come…
Sarah:
Inside, yep.
Sam:
So, whether it's the, you know, the -- the air…
Sarah:
Pockets.
Sam:
Thank you, yeah.
Sarah:
I don’t know what they're really called.
Sam:
But any of those internal packing supplies, you know, we try to recycle those as well. Not only is it good for the planet to reuse those, but also it saves you money because we are not having to go out and buy that as well. so we've tried our very best to keep this whole operation as cost friendly as possible to you and uh yeah. if you have any questions about the store, how it works, or maybe you’re interested in a particular product and seeing if we can get it on the store, please reach out to us: send us an email, reach out to us on social media, whatever it may be, we'd be happy to talk with you and share with you what we can and can’t do. Remember: we're a little homegrown operation; we're not doing this full-time even though sometimes it does feel that way. but it is a labor of love, and we do our best to try and make this community even better and just make it a little more bearable for all of us.
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Interview with Usree Bhattacharya
We do our very best to make this show as inclusive as possible. Unfortunately, transcribing each episode of the podcast takes many hours and at this time, we are not able to afford full episode transcriptions. We do upload each episode to our YouTube channel. There you can turn on closed captions to follow along. It's not a perfect solution - we know. If you are interested in helping us fully transcribe our episodes, please send us a message. Thanks for your understanding.
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