budgetsRsexy

This post is long overdue, but better late than never: BF week started on Monday morning when I placed an online Kohl’s order for 5 bath towels, 2 bras, a sheet set and some kitchen towels to bring the order to $102 and earned $30 in Kohl’s cash. On Friday morning I met my dad at Kohl’s at 6 am and we got him 2 flannel shirts for $4.40 each after sales and coupons. From there we went to At Home and picked up a set of the spiral trees that were on sale for $19.99. We popped into Ollie’s for the 2 boxes of the 80 count kcups for $15.99 for a charity I donate to. In the same plaza we hit Joanns for tee shirts that were on sale for my dad and PetSmart for their 50% off dog treats so my mom would have something to put under the tree for my dog on Christmas morning (I adore that she acts like he’s her grand baby). Then it was over to the mall for Marshall’s (dad picked up a frying pan set), JCPenney (dad picked up a comforter that he had ordered online earlier in the week) and then we met up with my mom and husband for our breakfast tradition at 10am. Saturday I went back out to Joanns for their Saturday only door buster of 60% off all sewing notions (and then went back to Ollies for 2 board games I saw but didn’t want my dad to know I purchased (they are gifts for next year). I also went to some small local businesses to pick up a few items for friends and to support the local community. Crowds were very minimal until around 9am on BF, I suspect a lot of people who were out on Thursday came back out then after a nap and getting their second wind. Overall I spent a lot less than in past years on BF and the holidays season in general. I didn’t even come close to meeting my goal to get all my shopping done on BF but there is always next year.

Thank you IllinoisMom for the gifts! Merry Christmas to you and yours[emoji319]

And in the blink of an eye Christmas is over. What a whirlwind of a holiday season it’s been this year. Nevertheless I look forward to doing it all over again next year, but first I’m going to take a few days off from thinking about presents, shopping, cooking or cleaning, I think I’ve earned it [emoji12] Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Thank you secret Santa for the gingerbread themed kitchen towel sets and decor! They are so cute I almost don’t want to use the towels and scrubber for fear they will get dirty [emoji3] The mug is already being put to use for a nice cup of tea as I wind down for the evening. I hope you have a very merry Christmas and that Santa has been very good to you too.

It’s 10pm and I’m exhausted. I have given up on wrapping the remaining items and am just stuffing it all in gift bags. I have 1 Christmas cracker to assemble and I’m going to have to get up early to do that, I don’t trust myself to use the Xacto knife/blade when I’m this tired. Good luck to anyone else out there cutting it close like me. Merry Christmas!

I finally got the tree decorated yesterday with the help of my husband and my mom. The tree is the only decoration I’m going to do and that’s enough for this year

I managed to get the house into great shape for the first round of hosting my family (for dinner today). My husband, mom and I got the tree decorated and we had a nice trip down memory lane while doing it. I still need to wrap presents for my husband and to assemble the final Christmas party cracker and then I should be in good shape. It’s not ideal to be so last minute but so long as all the essentials get done I’ll take it.

I’m super behind and there is no way I’m going to catch up at this point. I’m going to have to just be ok with cutting out all decorations except the tree (for me it’s not Christmas without the tree). The tree itself is up and my goal is to get at least one box of ornaments hung by tomorrow night. Hang in there, you are not alone. We can do this. Keep us posted on how things go.

Do you guys wrap stocking stuffers? Trying to make up my mind if I should wrap all, just some or none of the stocking stuffers for my husband. Opinions please!

5 minutes ago I announced to my husband that I was done with my Christmas shopping. Since then I have remembered 2 more presents I need to get [emoji849] Fortunately the last presents can be picked up at the grocery store while doing the weekly grocery run so he never needs to know that I was wrong [emoji12]

I got tired of having to play hop scotch around gifts in the quest bedroom so I assembled several gift bags last night to clear up floor space. My husband said he would wrap his gifts to my family Tuesday morning since he has the day off so that helps a lot. With my husband’s help that means I’m half way through wrapping. I only have my husband’s gifts left and I plan on doing those while he is at the gym Saturday morning.

My package arrived from my secret Santa! I’m going to hold off on opening it for now, even though I know I won’t be able to hold out until Christmas I want to spread out the excitement and mystery as long as I can [emoji1]

I’ve been doing a lot of orders for in store pick up or free ship to store so that has helped with packaging excess. Generally most items delivered this way are in clear plastic bags that I can put in the bag recycling bins at my grocery store. The downside of store pick/ship to store is you use more gas to drive places so I’m not sure if it’s really all that better for the environment. For shipments, I like that Kohl’s uses recyclable plastic shipping pouches for any soft items (like bedding, bath towels and clothes) so I would put them on the nice list. I agree with you that Amazon is super wasteful and more time consuming to recycle properly, they are definitely on the naughty list.

Christmas is less than 2 weeks away and I’m so unprepared. I’m not done shopping and I haven’t even started wrapping, decorating, cleaning or baking. If I can finish shopping, get the tree decorated and have the house picked up this weekend I’d feel a lot better about things. Good luck everyone, it’s going to be a mad dash to the finish line.

This the first pet I’ve ever lost so its hit especially hard. Zeus was a Borneo leaf turtle, who was actually a girl but no one knew that when I got him so I had been calling Zeus a “he” for roughly 10 years before I could figure out that I was wrong (it is very hard to determine the gender of many species of turtles by sight) and I never could switch back to she. My mom is allergic to fur and dander so we couldn’t have most pets growing up, though my sister had fish occasionally. In 4th grade I fell in love with turtles and I received Zeus as a surprise present for my 10th birthday. I had the joy of his company for just shy of 29 years. He was a very picky eater but he would do just about anything for a nice ripe strawberry. Many people (not my family, husband or good friends though) seem to find it odd that I’m so broken up over a turtle, I guess they don’t think it’s an easy animal to bond with, maybe since you can’t cuddle them, but he had such a personality and he definitely knew me from every one else. He would come out of his shell to listen to me talk and he would even eat out of my hand. In nice weather I would take him out and let him wander the back yard and get some fresh air and sunlight while I read a book on a blanket. The only things that have been a part of my life longer than Zeus are my parents and sister, that’s literally it. This week I’ve been extra thankful that my relationship with my husband brought his handsome dog Oreo into my life as he has been a source of comfort since losing Zeus. Thank you so much Reinholt1 for asking about Zeus, talking about him just now actually helped just a little. Thanks everyone also for letting me hijack this thread temporarily too. I just love how wonderful and caring all the people are on this forum. Im reminded regularly how glad I am to have found this GD family. I promise to let the thread get back to its regularly scheduled programming of happy thoughts and fun surprises though. Blessings to you all.

Wittenlover- you look absolutely fabulous! LOVE the dress [emoji106]

The only presents I’ve gotten around to wrapping were the ones for the secret Santa exchange on this forum. It’s going to be a late nights on Christmas Eve if I keep this up much longer.

Package shipped and tracking number sent. I didn’t think I’d make the deadline as my turtle passed away last night and I’ve been a mess, but wrapping and packaging gave me a much needed distraction. Thanks for running this Bopeep and thank you to all the lovely people who participate. You all make people’s holidays brighter when some need it most.

My pet turtle that I’ve had for 28 years is pretty sick and refusing food. Attempts at force feeding him (I try for about 3 hours or so) have pretty much consumed my entire week. My week nights look like they are going to be consumed by trying to get his health back so Christmas is going on the back burner except on the weekends. I’m going to have to be super efficient to get everything done for Christmas.

I didn’t spend a dime with Amazon on cyber Monday and overall my Christmas shopping with them has been super minimal this year. No doubt my husband will make up for my lack of spending with them as he hates brick and mortar shopping especially at this time of year.

Just waiting for my last item to arrive on Thursday so I can pack everything up. Should have it in the mail by Saturday to meet the deadline [emoji106]

Does anyone know if the 30% off apparel has any exclusions? I know my sister needs some maternity clothes but I don’t want to tell her about the sale and get her hopes up if it’s not on everything. Thanks in advance for your input!

I’d like to get the tree out and fluffed this weekend at the very least. My goal is to have all the decorating done by the end of next weekend at the latest but we’ll see how that goes.

Bought a game from Target last night to use as a gift for Christmas. . . next year! It was an amazing deal but I already have another perfect gift for that recipient so the game will be for 2020 [emoji15] I like to shop for gifts all year long but this breaks a record for being ridiculously early for me.

Noooo! That’s so sad [emoji20]