After Christmas sales

I know many of you have just packed the Christmas stuff  away but it's time to start planning for Christmas 2010. Trust me, you'll thank me in about 330 days from now.

First think of what you overheard and saw this Christmas. Who got the start of a collection this year? Who got a perfect gift that you can add to next Christmas? Who really enjoyed the board game at the big family get together and would like to own it, too? It's time to make notes. No, you won't remember later, so write it down in your control journal if you're a Fly Lady fan. Were there gift ideas you had but didn't get to fulfill? You now have an entire year to finish that project or hunt down that hard to find gift.

Make a plan. You know there are certain people you'll buy for every single year. Start buying for them now. If you only bought one gift a month, think how far ahead you'll be by Thanksgiving. I keep a gift idea list on my computer and recently I've started keeping track of gifts on my amazon.com account. Keep it in a place the recipients won't find it but where you won't lose it!

Regarding all that Christmas stuff you buy each year, this is the time of year to get it! Cards, paper goods, wrapping supplies, lights, ornaments and so on are super cheap right now. Shane and I bought our ornaments for next year's ornament exchange along with several Christmas themed gifts tonight-at 75% off. Last year I bought icecicle lights for $1.50 a box after Christmas. Christmas trees are also a steal right now. One word of caution-learn what you really need. Don't buy things you don't need just because they are on sale! That defeats the purpose of saving money!

Put it away wisely. I have a drawer full of gifts that I buy all year long. When I buy Christmas decor, I put it with my Christmas supplies, not in some closet where I won't find it until the spring after I need it. I have started keeping a small Christmas box in our bedroom for those random Christmas items I missed when I put it all away, as well as anything else Christmas themed that might come in during the year. I keep our Santa hats in it since we often need them for pictures before the decorations come out (this probably doesn't apply to you unless you are on the pregnancy center board of directors like Shane, where they usually take their Christmas card picture in November, but maybe there's something you often need before the rest of the stuff comes out, like Advent candles...).

Christmas 2010 really will be here before we know it, so spend a little time now preparing for it and you will thank me in November-it's just around the corner!

How to Shop at Amazon.com

So, I wrapped up a big chunk of my Christmas shopping yesterday morning before school. I love shopping online, so I'll share tips here so you can dig it, too!

• Utilize Amazon's lists-for yourself, for wishlists, for Christmas ideas...since you can name them yourself and set them to private or public, they're ideal for any type of list you might need. I don't especially like the usability of them, but they server their purpose. (I don't like it that I made up a gift idea list for Christmas and had to go through 4 clicks to return back to the list after moving each item to my cart, but obviously, I got over it.)
• Throughout the year, add ideas to your lists. I always think I'll remember the latest DS game or DVD the girls ask for, but by the time Christmas rolls around, they're gone. With my Amazon list, I don't have to remember!
• When you have an idea of what you want, often Amazon will offer it or similar items from various vendors. If you use an outside vendor, shipping can really add up. I always search for items "fulfilled" by Amazon. 
• To qualify for super saver shipping (free shipping) save up your purchases until you have $25 or more. It doesn't make sense to budget $15 a month on a new book, only to spend $7 shipping & handling when you could have had two new books for $25. 
• You can buy used on Amazon, but these will be from outside vendors, so make sure your shipping costs don't eat up your sacrifice of buying used.
• On the other hand, don't be afraid of buying used from Amazon. I've ordered several things used and from outside vendors and never had a problem.
• Double and triple check the prices. Apparently Amazon doens't shell out much money for proofers. You can see identical items in different departments priced differently. I've also seen typos with items that should cost $29.99 listed as $929.99.
• Go over your final order carefully. Yesterday there was an error somewhere that charged me $4 in shipping when it was listed as free (from an outside vendor-the only reason I went with them was because I saw "free shipping"). I didn't want to fight a $4 error after I'd already hit "submit order" but I would have reconsidered that purchase had I been more careful during the confirmation stage.
• Read the comments previous purchasers leave. I think this is the most helpful thing about online shopping. In Wal-Mart you can touch it and feel it but can you know that most people who bought it before you returned it?

Regardless of how you obtain your treasures, enjoy the blessing of buying for others (or yourself!), especially during this season of giving!

Tips from a Working Kitchen

The kitchen in my house is not just for looks. Next to the kitchen table, where school work is done, there's no place where more work takes place than in my kitchen. Although I've followed a lot of these practices since I was a newlywed (thanks to my Type A personality) they are now my lifelines.

Make your kitchen practical. Spices near your work station (you know, that piece of cabinet space where your mixing, spreading, and cutting takes place), big utensils near the stove, and like items grouped together.

Keep it clutter free. If you have to work half an hour to clear a spot just to make dinner, you're going to end up at McDonald's drive through-again. Even just keeping one area clutter free & wiped down will make you feel better.

Make a menu. Yes, it's a must to make menu plans for each week. Wandering aimlessly through the grocery store aisles wastes time, mental energy and money. You'll just end up back there tomorrow to pick up that one item you need to make dinner. Of course, you'll spend $20 when you only meant to pick up a can of cream style corn. I leave the kids with Daddy and Audrey, my list, my mp3 player and I go to the store. It's almost enjoyable!

Plan your eating around your week. I make out a menu that takes into account the week's activities. I plan my more exciting meals for Shane's days off. Wednesday nights just get a "back up meal" in case Awana & Life Group fall through (we all eat at our respective Wednesday night places). Easy meals are planned for days we'll be out of pocket all day.

Now, shop for your menu. The goal is to not go back to the store during the week. Shane almost always makes one little trip for me midweek, but my goal is to eliminate that. Organize your shopping list for your path around the store. It's frustrating to back track the aisles.

I'll admit that making a menu is my least favorite task of the week. I've found a few solutions to that. One is http://www.emealz.com/ which is a site that offers a weekly menu plan & shopping list for a minimal fee. I've also just made a list of my own dinner ideas, spending the afternoon flipping through cook books. My newest plan is to use http://www.allrecipes.com/ to build several weeks' worth of menus & shopping lists, leaving space in each week for our own family recipes.

Look for ways to grow in your kitchen. Maybe you've never done a menu plan, or cooking from scratch appeals to you. Why not try it? We've not had boxed cereal at all this month, which challenges me to cook a nice variety of healthy breakfasts. Using my new dutch oven and griddle are part of my growing right now as well. I'd like to learn to can someday.

Cookbooks are a lifesaver for me. I'll post soon about the treasures I've found. Until then, make your kitchen fun again! It feels so rewarding to put together a wholesome meal for our families. If you decide to stretch yourself a bit, leave a comment to tell us what you've done or feel free to leave other tips from your kitchen.

How we saved some dough this Christmas

Given that Shane was off work 3 weeks with Audrey's birth and the complications that followed (most of this was paid leave, but his security work is contract labor, so there is no sick/vacation time), we needed to tighten our thrift store belts this year. Here's how we did it:

I wasn't the hostess with the mostest at our two little Christmas parties we held in our home. I held back on making extra dishes and playing games that required prizes.

We were upfront about our need to trim the list down. We went straight up and straight down the family tree as far as gift giving was concerned. That means we skipped a lot of our siblings, cousins and aunts/uncles. In early December I talked to my brothers and we all agreed, with much relief, not to buy for each other. We only bought for a small handful of friends and except for a batch of Christmas cookies on Christmas Eve for the jailers, we skipped the coworker gifts for Shane.

We skipped a lot of treats for the house. We didn't buy new lights (although I did buy $5 worth of poinsettias that I promptly froze to death-they live on the North Pole in Frosty, why not in a Texas cold snap?). We kept our edible treats simple-hot chocolate, homemade sugar cookies, homemade cheese ball, and one try at a family recipe for date loaf.

We downsized our Christmas card list. Few locals got the 8 cent picture card. We did a letter here on the blog.

I bought ONE roll of gift wrap. I used it on all our gifts, which looked nice under the tree. Since I used most of it, I'll use a different roll next year (already bought on clearance). I think I like this better than keeping several rolls around for years (they never go away and I get so sick of the same smiling Santa with a soft drink).

As always, we kept our gifts simple and buy on sale as often as we can. I shop online anyway, but I think this saves money since I'm not using gas to drive out of town, not eating out, and not running into much else I just have to have.

I am starting this year (as I always plan to, but always fail to) to plan out gifts for next year. I bought a few things heavily discounted for gift giving during the year or Christmas. If I buy just one thing a month, I'll have accomplished much by next Christmas. (Just a note: I've realized that buying odds & ends without a person in mind as a recipient almost always backfires. For now on, if I can't know who I'll give it to, I'm not buying it, even if it's 75% off. Otherwise, it just sits in my gift drawer.)

I know we aren't the only ones feeling the crunch, so how did you keep those December costs down? If you didn't have this issue, let me just give you my address so you can mail me a benevolent check :)