When my wife was pregnant (19 or so years ago), we looked around and found a lot of old, vintage Fisher Price toys for our daughter. She grew up with one of these record players as well as the Little People farm and car garage. The pull telephone, the cash register, and the "radio". When you're 2 years old, you have no idea that this stuff isn't new. BTW, we didn't do it to save money, this stuff is pretty pricey. We did it because these toys were designed to let kids be kids rather than encouraging them to grow up before they should. Many of today's toys seem designed to create shallow consumers focused on looks and possessions. Note that we didn't stick to this for more than a couple years. They say that much of your personality is pretty well solidified after the first couple of years.

One of the things you need to be aware of if you try to duplicate this is that the vintage Little People can be a choking hazard. Our daughter didn't stick stuff in her mouth like many kids do, but we still only let her play with some of this under supervision.