gifts – Frugal Things Every Day

I grocery shopped again today and made a stop at Dollar Tree. I won’t spend again until next week.

First, I will tell you about my Dollar Tree haul which is pictured above. I needed a birthday card but I saw these Valentine Mailboxes for my grandchildren. Aren’t they adorable? I just loved them especially since they will get shipped to them. They had these that were bigger and some that were smaller. I will fill them with candy and other small things and then put them in a box and ship them. When I saw them all I could think of was the movie, You’ve Got Mail.

I also picked up three containers that I could use in my organizing. When I spot them I grab them. We have a very small Dollar Tree here so things don’t last long. The Dollar Tree haul comes out of my Other Budget.

I shopped at Top’s and Aldi for a few things we needed. Top’s total was $ 16.09 and the Aldi total was $ 6.83. So I end this week with $ 14.40 left in my grocery budget which will be rolled into next week. When I shopped the other day for the noodles, they were out of the Pennsylvania Dutch ones. They were $1.59 but I had a Tops Click to Card $ 1.00 Q so they cost $.59. So these will be added to my stockpile for the next time I need to make a family dish. Chips and crackers were requested by Hubby.

My grandson’s birthday is today. He is 8. We won’t see him because his other grandparents are visiting with him. But if he and his Dad get to come out on Sunday for breakfast, I want to make a brownie cake and have ice cream after as a belated birthday party. The brownie mix and frosting I already had in my stockpile.

We were out of peanut butter so I picked up a Jif at Top’s and an Aldi’s brand too. The Aldi’s brand was 45% less than the Jif. So we will try it to see if we like it. If so, no more Jif. I picked up another Dannon Light and Fit Zero for smoothies. Also we were totally out of tomato sauce. Since it costs $.29 a can at Aldi’s, it was a no brainer to buy 4 there.

Is there anything worse than snow almost every day or freezing cold and bundling up when you go out? Yes, when the snowplow takes your mailbox out. That happened to us yesterday just before the mailman came. UGH! Hubby and I almost froze outside trying to rig the broken mailbox to the broken post. We managed to salvage part of the box and bungie cord it to the broken post. It is a little lower than normal but I stopped at the P.O. this morning and talked to my mailman who gave me yesterday’s mail. He said it will be fine temporarily until we can put a new one in. He knows we would have to wait for our son to be able to help us. However, when I asked my son, he told me to call the town offices and they will come out and replace it with a cheap mailbox and post that will get us through to spring when it will be easier to dig and replace it. So I did call the town and they are coming out this afternoon to put the new one in for us.

I have been unpacking and doing laundry and catching up errands and doing what needs to be cleaned around here. I have also been doing some organizing.

Tonight, we feel like having a comfort meal. So I am going to roast a 7 lb. chicken and we will have it with a salad and some broccoli.

I hope you all have a great weekend. It is supposed to warm up to normal temps here which is very welcome.

Dollar Tree Gifts, etc.

For those of you looking for stocking stuffers or a small gift for a neighbor or friend, I found these Bolero soaps at Dollar tree yesterday. They are natural and the scents are wonderful. I picked up the Vanilla Cream and the Apple and Cinnamon. But they did have others.

If you are lucky enough to find the lotion that matches, you could make a small gift basket for someone. Mine did not have them.

I have read that some offices are stuffing stockings for co-workers rather than buy an expensive individual gift for each one. Stockings are put up for each worker and then you put an inexpensive gift in each one. This soap would work, a lottery scratch off, a pen or pencils. You can buy the little Kleenex travel packs at 3 for $1.00 at my Dollar Tree. Target has nice Christmas socks for $ .97 each. You really don’t have to spend a lot of money to do this.

You could even make something for the stockings like a homemade bookmark. There are some ideas at
Tip Junkie . You could bake a couple of cookies for each one.

I have lots of neighbors who are teachers and I asked each of them what is their favorite Christmas gift that their students give them. Hands down it was a few Christmas cookies or baked breads in a pretty bag, tin,or box. They told me they love getting those because they either don’t bake or can’t find the time to bake.

Fortunately I don’t have stockings or co-worker gifts to do anymore. The co-worker gifts were the bane of my existence when I worked. We had a woman in the office who baked cookies, fudge, breads, etc. for over 35 workers every year. It made people feel inferior if they didn’t give everyone a gift at Christmas. So many of them spent money that they really couldn’t afford to give gifts. We did not make a lot of money at this particular job.

I was in our accumulation phase of money at both my early married jobs and while the boys were in private school and college. Money to pay for these things and to save for our retirement. I really did not want to spend a lot of money buying Christmas gifts for everyone. So I would bake also. I could put a few decorated cookies in a nice small Christmas goodie bag for every person and let that suffice. That didn’t hurt my budget and got the job done.

I wish I had had the guts back then to do what another co-worker did when presented with a situation such as this. He took the Christmas party day off from work every year. He told me that most of the people were not his friends, just co-workers, and he did not feel like he should give them a gift.

We always had some kind of gift giving situation in our office. Baby showers, bridal showers, every holiday imaginable party, etc. It was ridiculous! But my friend(co-worker) was never to be found at any of them. He never participated. He had the right idea. He invested his money in the stock market every week and today he is retired and traveling the world. I am happy for him that he is still able to do it.

So what do you do for gifts at work? I am very curious.