Monday, November 30, 2015

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.

7 comments:

  1. I love the after Christmas sales.

    I need to finalize my homemade list...sighh.

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  2. Erika, when my daughter was younger, I used to make her scented play dough using kool-aid packages (or cheaper store brand equivalent). Here's a link to the recipe: http://www.kraftrecipes.com/recipes/kool-aid-play-dough-148569.aspx. It makes a big batch with each packet and could easily be split for each of the stockings. One time I made it to use in the loot bags for my daughter's birthday party. If your children are not allergic to the kool-aid ingredients, perhaps you could make this for their stockings!

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  3. *Laugh* I won't wow you with the tale of the time I made that and my son got ahold of it. He likes to eat play doh so I guess the Kool-Aid play doh was even more of a temptation. Oh the stains that play doh left in the carpet. The carpets in our old play were permanently stained partially due to that stuff. I was impressed.

    Oddly, play doh itself seems to come out of the carpeting here alright without dying the carpet permanently, so I'm trying to stick with that. Although, I guess I could make the home made stuff and not add any coloring to it. Maybe glitter instead or something? Hmm.

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    1. Too funny! I was thinking that homemade play dough would come out of carpet easier, but you proved me wrong! Hhmmm, I know that you can use kool-aid to dye real sheep wool, so I'm guessing those carpets were wool based, not synthetic. If you have synthetic carpets now, I would think the dye shouldn't be a problem. Synthetics don't usually take dye's very well as they are basically a plastic material. I could be wrong though.

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    2. I'm not sure. I'm far from an expert on carpeting, but I do know that red and orange anything doesn't like to come out of our carpet here.

      After talking to my husband we decided to nix the Play Doh period as my daughter hasn't been very responsible with things like that lately. I think I've got a good back up plan, though, to give to her that won't cost anything. If I can find it *laugh*.

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  4. Ericka, I would love to send you some Hot Wheels for your son!! My husband purchased a ton of them at a clearance sale, and we use them for gifts, toy drives, and Operation Shoebox. It would bless us to be able to help you. joannzmt at gmail.com

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    1. Thank you so much for the offer, but my mom beat you to it *laugh*. She called me and told me that she was sending the kids some goodies, no objections from me or else ;). So, she's sending me a pack of Hot Wheels to empty into his stocking with the other things.

      Thank you again for the wonderful thought. I really really do appreciate it!!!

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