Making the Most of Your Christmas Budget

By Angela on September 14, 2016

It’s technically still summer and autumn colors aren’t even here, but I want to talk about Christmas just a smidge. Even though we only give 2 gifts to our kids, Christmas stresses me out if I don’t plan ahead. Far AHEAD. Truthfully, sometimes I still freak out—but this helps. It’s what I’m doing today, so I thought I’d screen capture a summary of my movements and thoughts as I plan.

I made a little video for you showing how I budget for Christmas and how I buy each item at the lowest price possible. I hope it helps take some stress off of you this holiday season!

Here are the video notes plus some extra stuff that the video missed:

Plan to set aside money every month for Christmas Gifts, and know what your total budget will be by the end of the year.

2. Make a list of all the people you need to buy for and put a dollar amount by each name. This list total should equal the amount you’ve budgeted for the year. You might want to add some extra lines for Hostess Gifts or other unexpected exchanges.

3. Next to each name, brainstorm gift ideas. I use color codes to tell me if it’s just an idea, or if I’ve placed the order etc. I also write in the actual amount spent so I can track my spending and not just the budget. If I buy more than 1 item, I add a line so each item and actual price is on it’s own line.

4. When shopping on Amazon, first make an account at camelcamelcamel.com. Then copy the item URL to camel and ask for an email alert when the price drops to your target zone. Since you’re planning NOW you can afford to wait for a better price. This is important because Amazon no longer offers partial refunds if the item drops in price after you purchase it.

5. I also belong to a discount health and wellness club that as a side benefit has a unique shopping portal. In addition to providing more than 500 toxin free products for my home and body at great prices, they’ve partnered with hundreds of stores like Old Navy, Target, Home Depot etc. When shopping through this portal I have access to extra coupon codes and discounts to use in the online shopping cart PLUS I get a cash back rebate in the mail, on every purchase! It’s only $19 a year for me to be a member, but right now they are offering a $1 special for the first year. I can’t give all the details in this post, but if you want to know more about it, you can request info here. (Your contact info goes straight to me and no one else will se it, so be sure your best email address is included.)

Merry Christmas

By Angela on December 22, 2015

I hope things are well with you. Take a deep breath with me and try not to feel stress. I’m need to be offline with my family until New Year. I might pop in and blog, but I need it to be ok not to.

Here’s a little peak at our fun this week.

Wide mouth mayo jars (borrowed from my mom since I don’t save stuff.) wrapped with twine and layered with Epsom snow, freezer burned cranberries and a tea light. I plan to reuse the salts for healing soaks later.

Progress in the shared boy room. Formerly black lamp spray painted green and made over night stand with new pulls, a new top and a new paint job.

Our presents are almost all wrapped. I have collected different papers after season clearance sales over the years and have several years worth. I’m a little bummed because there are so many cute wrapping ideas out there that don’t fit in with my stash. On the other hand this is easy and the kids get just as excited about our mismatched wrapping. So not Pinterest worthy but family and budget friendly and that’s better than ok.

Caleb, my oldest boy is ripping out the 45 year d carpeting while I’m safely tucked away in another part of the house. I have developed a severe allergy and this is part of making the house safe for me.

Acts of service like this really make me feel loved.

For more than 2 months my entire body has looked like this. It itches like poison ivy that won’t heal. I noticed on Sunday that there is a line around my face sides of neck and chest where the rash won’t cross that coincides with where I use my anti-aging products. So I tried a bit in an affected area. 2 days later it is clear. I’m hoping it’s not just a coincidence. Basically the doc thinks this is a dust mite allergy gone wrong from stress. Any worse and I’d need an epi pen. I’ve been on so many medications and the only thing that helped was prednisone–yuck. I’m exploring all the natural options and will report back if anything works.

My Five Favorite EASY Christmas Cookies

By Angela on December 14, 2015

Today Darren took Caleb and Grant to the farm to visit his parents and I stayed home to be available to the kids who go to school and to paint the shared boys room. I’ll be posting all about their room transformation in March. If you don’t want to wait that long to get updates, I’m posting about it in real time on instagram #sharedboysroom

But for now, I want to give you my favorite Christmas cookie recipes. The easy, last minute kind. I’m going to link up to the original sources, so you can open the same page I do when it’s time to cook :).

Christmas Crack

This is a more chewable version of a Heath bar. I can’t. stop. eating. this. So I only make it when I have somewhere to share it.

For a delicious twist, Diane made hers with pretzels!

2. Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Ritz

My family has been sharing this one Christmas Eve for as far back as I can remember. It’s easy to festive up with some Christmas candy sprinkles.

3. Melt in Your Mouth Eggnog Cookies

We’ve already made 3 batches of these. They aren’t as easy as dipping a ritz in chocolate, but there’s no dough chilling or rolling out involved. And the frosting just spreads on with a knife. Sooooo yummy.

4. Chocolate Dipped Pretzel Rods

Kids cannot mess this up. They might mess up your kitchen….but the pretzels will be delicious.

via The Baker Chic

5. Fattigmann Bakkles (Poor Man’s Cookie.)

My mother’s grandmother was from Norway. When she got really excited, she could only speak in Norwegian. Sometimes she would call my mother and speak hurredly in Norwegian and then hang up abruptly. Then she would call back and scream and hang up again. My mother knew that usually meant she had lost her purse….and then found it. She adored bananas and would stop at the store and buy a bunch as she walked home from her job cleaning houses. Sometimes she would mindlessly eat the entire bunch before getting home. She brought this recipe with her from Norway and we make it every Christmas to remember our heritage.

Sometimes I sub eggnog for the heavy cream in this recipe—delicious.

via Debesys

Choosing Joy

By Angela on November 30, 2015

I hope you had a happy Thanksgiving. Ours was lovely. I was determined not to be stressed, and it worked out except for about a half an hour on Thanksgiving morning. That’s the half hour, I feel compelled to tell you about.

I already mentioned Friday that my dad was released from the hospital on Tuesday, then was right back in on Wednesday for more tests checking for complications. My mom still planned on hosting Thanksgiving for 20 at her house. It was easier to do that for my dad than to try to move him or make him spend the holiday alone. I went over that night to help Mom carry the tables and set a few things up. Nothing major. Then I convinced her to let me bake the rolls and sweet potatoes to lessen her stress a little. She still had the turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, salad, and pies to do. That was still too much.

I determined to get over there by 10am to help and had a perfect checklist in my mind. Get up; make the bed all cute with my new allergy free bedding; turn on the parade; bake the sweet potatoes and then head over. But no one in my house was cooperating. Darren wouldn’t get out of the bed so I could make it. The kids complained about having to watch the parade (and I couldn’t’ see it from the kitchen), and when I looked at the sweet potato recipe, it was going to take an hour longer to prepare than I was counting on. There was no way I could get to my mom at 10 and I didn’t like leaving her alone with all the prep work.

I could feel things start to boil inside. “Fine, you make the bed!” I yelled at my husband. Muttering under my breath why he couldn’t grow up and help out a little. He is a smart man, and he got up and made the bed. It looked absolutely nothing like I had planned it to look. I boiled up a little more.

He tried to tell me things would be fine. “So we get there at 11. What’s the big deal?” he wanted to know. The big deal is my dad is sick, my mom is stressed, and the SOURCE of the irritation doesn’t get to say it’s not a big deal.

I stomped and huffed around the kitchen a bit and when he got too close I glared at him, “I’m angry at you because you made the bed and it looks STUPID.” And then the humor of the whole thing kind of hit me.

Who cares if the bed looks stupid? My dad is alive. My husband is alive. My kids are healthy. We have a big family to gather with. Get a grip, Woman! I calmed down and apologized to my family and we had a really nice day.

I wish I could get a better handle on my emotions when things start to spiral out of control. It triggers when I have a goal and I think others are purposefully blocking my goal. Usually it’s because I didn’t communicate it clearly or early enough. The reason really doesn’t matter. What matters is that I understand that the only thing I can control is ME. So, I choose JOY. I want to influence others with my love and happiness instead of trying to control them with my anger.

So Friday, when it came time to decorate the Christmas tree, I thought ahead of time about the things that matter to me (hang the balls towards the inside of the tree) and I communicated it clearly. I decided on the things that didn’t matter and let the kids have free reign with them (put the silver and gold on this tree, but put it anywhere you want.) I limited what mattered to me to just one or two things. The kids aren’t used to a pleasant Christmas decorating mama and they asked me a lot of questions about what goes where and what to do with this or that. They were surprised with how much freedom I gave them and we all had a really pleasant day.

Any time I had a strange feeling of “don’t put that there” well up in me, I swallowed it and reminded myself that I could change anything I wanted another day. What I got in exchange was beauty. Our decorations this year are so very human. The kids will never be this age again and I loved watching them put things in places and step back to judge their work. It won’t end up in a designer magazine, but it’s a special collage of their current ages and thought processes represented in design.

Am I the only Mom out there that gets a little freaked out on special days? If you haven’t seen it already, this video could have been taken at our house.

“If you haven’t made your bed already, throw it away. It’s too late.”

The Ultimate Stocking Stuffer List

By Angela on November 24, 2015

This is the best stocking stuffer list ever because all your ideas are going to be on it. I’ve started with what I can think of, then I’ll come back and add your ideas up here after you put them in the comments. You can’t leave the page without adding an idea, got it?

This year we are only giving one gift to each of our kids. The kids drew names among each other, so they will each have 2 gifts to open. Then there’s the stockings. I wrapped up smaller gifts for the stockings and spent a little more on some items–up to $15. The idea is that these are things my kids actually need and will use, and won’t be clutter. The more expensive things are items they’ve been asking for and waiting to get for awhile, but things that weren’t so important that they had to have them right away. Things like a wallet or a watch or gloves with texting fingers. I’d rather do fewer gifts that were useful, than fill our house with bargain clutter. Either way I spend about the same.

I’ve linked to some items for your convenience, but they aren’t affiliate links. My state is on the list of states that Amazon won’t work with.

A lot of the items are generic. I didn’t want to put the same item on each list, so I stuck it on just one of them. I’m sure girls would like Silly Putty too and I’d be as thrilled with a protein bar as Darren would.

Food Items

Breakfast items–doughnuts, muffins, fruit, cinnamon roll, or single serving fun cereal (so the kids can eat without waking mom and dad)

Pomegranate

Oranges

Favorite Candy

Beef Jerky

Nuts

Gum

Fun food they don’t normally get to have, like Spaghetti-o’s

Restaurant Gift Cards

Dark Chocolate

Dad

Watch

Hand warmers

Wallet

Texting Gloves

Lip Balm

Pocket Knife/multi tool

Unbreakable Combs–big pack that would be good to split with friends

Protein Bars

Cough Drops

Boy

Toy Handcuffs

Nerf Bullets–big pack to share with friends 🙂

Mini Nerf Gun

Matchbox Car

Silly Putty

Mini Lego Set (or a special piece from the lego store)

Art Supplies

Playdough

DVDs (check dollar tree for these too, or even garage sales)

Glow sticks

Sidewalk Chalk

Bubbles (if it’s cold enough they will freeze in the air)

Printed Duct Tape

Ear Buds

Toothbrush

Flashlight

Bandaids

Tape

Batteries

Girl

Magic Baby Bottles

Hair Ties

Lip Gloss

Fingernail Polish

Coin Purse

Mini Wet Brush — wet brushes are our favorite

Craft supplies

Fuzzy socks or Gloves (Dollar Tree)

Cute socks–for mis-matching

Travel size items for sleepovers

Cosmetic bags for organizing

Cute School Supplies

Sunglasses (snow glares)

Stickers

Journal

Stationary

Mom

Water Bottle Carrier–this is my friend’s company and it is really good quality. I love mine!

Texting Gloves

Purse size tissues

Kitchen Gadgets

Slippers

Gift Card for a pedicure

Washi Tape

Fashion Scarf

Earrings

Necklace

Bracelets

Wax melts

Essential Oils

AntiBac gel from bath & body works

Fingernail clippers/Tweezers

Essential oil diffusing locket

Shaker Bottle for protein shakes

Yoga Mat Spray

Pretty Tea Towels

Hand Soap in her favorite scent

It’s a Good Time to Wrap Up…

By Angela on December 16, 2014

…all the presents you’ve collected so far. I tend to get overhwelmed with the growing pile. We limited it to 2 gifts for each of our kids. But a lot of kids x 2 = a lot of gifts. Plus I shopped for 8 of my 14 nieces and nephews (I love the rest too, but we draw names to reduce the burden), 3 white elephant exchanges, great-grandma’s, teacher gifts…

Awkward Wrapping Selfie–

That floor to ceiling curtain behind me is made of $5 sheets thumbtacked to the ceiling, to hide studs, pipes and insulation while we save up for phase 2 of our master bedroom remodel.

Sometimes I forget what I bought, even though I write it down. And I get this feeling that I didn’t buy enough and am tempted to over buy. So as I wrap, I change the color of the gift in my Christmas Plan. Blue is purchased and wrapped; Green is here but not wrapped yet; Red is ordered but hasn’t arrived yet; Orange is still needing to be stitched up; yellow is going in the stocking; black is still just an idea that I probably won’t act on–but might get to put in the stocking.

Christmas planning sheet

This is about the time I start to feel totally inadequate. Here are the things I tell myself:

1. Kids do not compare prices on gifts to see who you spent more on, but they do notice if one brother opens 3 gifts, and they opened 2. So group things together if needed to make the number of packages the same.

2. Christmas isn’t about gifts. It’s about Jesus. We can’t buy the perfect gift–that was Jesus.

3. Focus the celebration on time together as a family.

4. Nothing has to be perfect. What makes the day “perfect” for the kids won’t be the same thing that makes it perfect for me. Freaking out about the things that are ONLY important to me (like a clean house, and way too many DIY projects….) will only make this time of year less perfect for them.

5. It’s ok not to have a 12 day of Christmas list, an advent calendar, an elf on a shelf, or chocolate fondu. The best gift we can give our families is a happy Mama who is PRESENT with them. (cough, cough….electronic free..except maybe for a picture or two..or a Hallmark channel movie…maybe.)

Which is one reason I love the Nester’s post here. Although, seriously, her no effort style would take a lot of effort for me to pull off….I love it. I’m wondering how I can copy the look of her messy kitchen sink. I keep thinking if I look at it long enough I will absorb the mindset and be able to throw stuff on the wall and make it look good too. There’s some kind of force behind it. She’s a Jedi I’m sure.

Psst… If you were slightly interested in the natural household and personal products I talked about here, you should put in a request for more information. I’ll call you and we can chat about it. The one time membership fee is only $1 through December 22nd. It’s the perfect time to give it a try.

Cyber Monday

By Angela on December 1, 2014

There are two things I want to tell you about before I get busy on my entry floor (resealing the grout….)

1. There are now gift meal plan subscriptions available at Grocery Shrink Plus. The gift subscriptions do not renew, so you choose exactly the length of time you want and pay only once. Plans start at $5 and will work into all budgets. These would make great teacher gifts, white elephant, secret santa etc. If you are familiar with the meal plans go here to access the gift page directly.

2. Shoot Fly Shoot is having 50% off all their classes today. If you want to use your DSLR camera or photoshop better, these are the classes for you. I personally purchased the classes and watched them and can vouch for how great they are. (And yes, I paid full price :(.) My link.

A little Christmas sewing

By Angela on November 24, 2014

Here’s what I’ve discovered about handmade Christmas. It’s not stressful if the projects are small enough, fast enough, and easy enough (and the supplies are easy and cheap to get-stash is all the beter.) It is not my season in life to draft my own patterns or make up a new way. All of these were made from scraps in my dwindling stash from free patterns. No new money spent.

In progress: A pretend campfire from this book (I borrowed from the library.)

Finished: A tiger/fox/racoon–whatever. Super soft from minkey, felt and knit terry with polar fleece scarf.) From this free pattern. I changed the eye placement but otherwise kept it the same.

A hard to photograph infinity scarf. Would you believe it’s adorable? One seam, boom. I used this fabric, because I had a scrap left that begged to be a scarf. I didn’t hem any edges, just stitched it into a loop with a French seam. Nice and light and drapey. Someone’s going to be very happy.

Yes, my bedroom walls are mustard yellow. I’m pretending I love it temporarily.

Now off to finish a Christmas movie while I stitch.

How to Get Christmas Cash…Fast

By Angela on November 6, 2014

There’s only a few areas of my life that I have together…and none of them come to mind right now. So if you don’t have any money saved up for Christmas yet, don’t worry. It’s going to be ok.

You have most of November and December to save as much from your normal income as possible. When you make up your budget for these months, funnel as much cash to Christmas as you can.

If you’re like us….that won’t be enough. How much cash do you need? If you missed my post yesterday, there was a video to help you figure out how much cash you actually need. Do that first and you’ll have a concrete goal.

Let’s pretend you need $600, and subtract the amount of money you can save from November and December’s income. Just for an example, it’s $200. That leaves us with $400 left to get.

Ideas to generate cash:

1. Donate Plasma: Most clinics pay $20 for the first visit and $40 for the second in the same week, for a monthly income of $240. Do that two months and you’d have $80 extra :). (Health restrictions apply.) And a bonus….it saves lives.

2. Emergency clean houses: Going rate $1o-15 an hour. Work 26-40 hours doing this over the next 2 months and voila.

3. Cook two meals when you are cooking for your family and offer a delivery service for working Moms. Going rate: $20-30 for the meal (of course this all depends on the number of servings and the cost of ingredients.) Net profit about $15. 26 meals over 2 months and you’re done 🙂

4. Sell some stuff on Craigslist, Fabric destashers, or consignment stores.

5. Combine ideas. You don’t have to work 40 hours cleaning, what if you only worked 10, sold some stuff, and donated a little plasma? Figure out what works into your schedule.

When offering services on Facebook, be specific about what you are offering and what your terms are: “I’m cleaning houses to help busy families get ready for their holiday gatherings. I charge $10 an hour and can clean an average house in 4 hours. Send me a message and we’ll schedule it.” That makes others feel more comfortable to hire you than if you say, “I’m willing to work and need cash if anyone has anything that needs done.”

When you need cash fast, how do you earn it? I’m always looking for new ideas 🙂

How I Make My Christmas Budget

By Angela on November 5, 2014

Christmas Budget That Works

The number one cause of Christmas Spending Disasters is a failure to plan. If you haven’t already made a plan it’s not too late. Tomorrow, we’ll talk about what you can do right now if you don’t have any Christmas cash yet. But today, watch the video to see how to get it on paper.