Shopping Goals: December 2015

"A Charlie Brown Christmas" is playing softly in the background.  The soft glow of Christmas lights are emanating from my daughter's room as she watches a marathon run of "Gummy Bears" on the Kindle.  My son is running back and forth happily playing with a chunky string of beads speaking in his own language how happy they are making him. 

You know, times like this make you take a deep breath and smile, realizing how very rich you are in this world.

Anyhow, when it comes to shopping goals for last month...well the outcome wasn't so great.  Since we didn't have any money to speak of, most of the goals went unmet.  We did manage to get an extra turkey for the freezer this year as our local Safeway affiliate had turkeys for .78 lb when you spent 50.00, so I was able to get a turkey for that price during normal shopping.  I was also able to pick up two hams for 1.38 lb at Fred Meyer one week and I found oranges on sale for really cheap (.78 lb) and got some for the fridge.  My daughter has since decided she loves oranges, so those are almost gone, but I'm happy we had them.

Other than that, not a whole lot got accomplished, but I was happy to get what we managed to swing in our normal grocery budget, so I'm not complaining.

December's shopping goals are pretty sparse as we are pretty much out of money and any money we get in will be shoved directly into savings to save up for January's bills. 

I do, however, have a change jar, and I'm going to make that go as far as I can to get a few things this month.  Mainly a few stocking stuffers.  I'll be making some stocking stuffers for the kids too, but want to make sure they have a few treats in there (and honestly, I'm creative but making a Hot Wheel's car ain't gonna happen *laugh*).

We are going to be working on a severely reduced grocery budget this month to conserve what money we have, so the other items listed will be worked into my 50.00 per week grocery budget for December.

Now, December used to be a huge month for shopping for me.  After Christmas clearance was my baby for finding gifts for the next year, especially when it came to the adults in the family (dishes, etc) and back when Target was new up here the first couple of years they were open their toy clearance was just awesome...90% off and abundant back then...how I miss those days.  Actually, ahem, I still have a few toys hoarded from Christmas clearance shopping trips of yore where a deal was too good to pass up and so I'd buy the toys and save them.  I'll be raiding what little is left of that hoard this year for a few gifts (including at least one for local charity toy drives, which I try to donate at least one toy to every year if I can).

Now a days the only thing I would really hit would be Target for their after Christmas clearance on wrapping paper and gift wrapping doo dads.  However I have managed the last four years to get wrapping paper for .50 or less at Target , so I'm hoping that by stretching out the wrapping paper I have already that I won't need to buy any more for next year if I'm careful how I wrap.  I think I can make it work.

Shopping Goals December 2015

Regular Stores:

• Hershey-etts filled candy canes (one of our local stores has these on sale for 1.00 through the middle of next month, so I'm going to try and get two for the children's stockings and one for my son's school for reinforcers).
• Small things of Play Doh (for stocking stuffers.  These usually go on sale for less than 1.00 at some stores)
• Hot Wheels Cars (Target).  For son's stocking.
• 1 LED light bulb if on sale (I stole the nice bright LED bulb I had in my sewing lamp to put in the kid's bathroom when their fan light burned out.  It's pretty dim in there without one, so I wanted an LED in there because it's turned on so much, so now I'm down a lightbulb).
• Water Softening Salt (I don't even want to check, but I'm pretty sure my salt reservoir is probably empty by now...doh).

Thrift Stores:

• Watch for tools for husband (he collects vintage tools of certain brands, so I'm HOPING I've learned enough to get him a few cool things *laugh*).  Must be 1.00 or less per tool if possible.
• Toys/other doohickies that the kids might like in their stocking for 1.00 or less.