leefamily23

Thank you for the ideas. I went yesterday and got him a McDonalds gift card (it's the only place in town). I also got some of the personal hygiene products.

Well Christmas was already going to be thin this year. A week ago today we officially took in my son's best friend as our formal foster child placement. It was very unexpected, pretty much I got an "emergency call" at 6pm, he was at our house by 8pm and we held in our hand our expedited, renewed (we were in the past but stopped 2 yrs ago) license within 4 days. That being said he's 17.5 yrs old. I also have my son who is going to be 18 in 5 weeks. I have a few things left to get my son, and I'm struggling w/ what to get "Johnny". He has more clothes and shoes than you can shake a stick at. I am on a strict budget and need to get the most bang for my buck. Any suggestions on small- medium filler idea's? I did get him 2 bigger ticket items already (and Ipod and new cell phone). I just need more ideas. He asked for socks, 2 movies, 1 PS3 game, and a MP3 player for his music. I got those covered but need a few more things to catch him up to where my son is.

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I have had this for my 17 yr old son for a year and my husband and I have had it since late summer. We love it, we get a better signal on it then we were w/ my Sprint contract phones. We also are paying approx $30 less a month for more for 3 phones then we were for just 2 phones via Sprint. The ONLY downside, if you do not opt for auto bill pay, your phone goes off at midnight the day the prepaid is up. Example, if your prepaid month is up on the 10th of the month, right at midnight on the 10th the phone is off. This has caused me to get up go to work and forget to pay for my phone and it's off. There is no leeway or grace period. You can pay early but it actually cuts days off your current month, it doesn't add it on to extend it. So if the phone was due the 10th and I pay on the 4th to make sure it's taken care of, my phone is only going until the 4th of next month. So, auto pay is really the way to go on this. I think it's a great value, w/ good service areas.

Our indoor decorations have stayed up as long as only January 10th-12th. That was long for us because they usually come down on the 1st, but we were running really short on time that year. As for outdoor decorations. The lawn stuff comes down in early January but the lights don't usually come down until we thaw out, so it could be as late as mid-April. We don't turn them on anymore after the first week of January though.

I started w/ Walgreen's Thanksgiving morning. I got 2 of the webkinz and the skullcandy ear buds. The "bads": TRU was only letting 50 people in at a time, but not waiting for 50 people to come out. So I'm not sure what their thought process on this was. We ended up outside for nearly 2.5 hours in the cold, windy, rain. It was brutal, and I'm not sure it was worth it. (My husband came out around 11pm and brought us dry clothes and shoes :)). This is also the second year we have not purchased anything from Walmart. This used to be our biggest and #1 stop on BF. However, ever since we got a 24 hour supercenter, the entire BF thing has been screwed up there. The "good": I never encountered anyone pushing or running into people with their carts. Our Target had local police officers keeping order to the lines in the store. This was huge because it took nearly 3-4 hours to get through checkout there in years past. This year we got what we wanted and were out within an hour. I also thought the 50% off storewide for Gap was the best sale on clothes we seen. My final thought, I really disliked having to start at 10pm the night before. I will not do this again. It was not as enjoyable store hopping while I was dead on my feet tired. I think this is going to become a trend, and I think this will be my last BF not shopping online.

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This is on my list too, and I'm thinking the refurb will be my way to go. We did that w/ the nano we bought my son first a few years ago and we bought a warranty, it did break with less than 10 days to the warranty and they replaced the entire unit w/o a problem. The $149 is the best deal.

It really depends on what the ads look like. Last year I had a nice amount available to me to spend, but spent just a little over $100 because the things I was looking for weren't on sale. I can see this year being the opposite because I am figuring I'll probably have about $300.00-$400.00 available to spend. We are also cutting back and keeping Christmas under a $1000.00 this year. That is good for us because we usually spend closer to $2500.00 a year.

This will be my 17th year. I started the same year my son was born and have gone every year since.

I, of course, will do my best to make the $25.00 go as far as possible. However, I don't know if I can make it stretch to the point of $150 in value (now that would be some serious deals), much less do it for 3 kids in very different age brackets. I don't need an explanation, she knows why things are not so great this year. Unfortunately my husband had a pulmonary embolism in July and has been unable to work since. The downside was he was not at his current job long enough to collect disability in our state. Therefore we are w/o his income and were told just today at his check up that it will most likely be a minimum of 6 more months, but plan on a year before they'll release him. The clot was massive and left a large infarct on his lung. So, Christmas gifts will be nice, but ultimately the fact that he is here is more than enough for me. On top of being down to 1 income I got hit on my check w/ an IRS tax levy on my wages. Unfortunately we owed the IRS a nice chunk of change and could not keep up on the monthly payment. They are now taking just about 1/2 my check. Savings is depleted at this point and I will not incur credit card debt to keep her happy. At the same time there is enough going on that I don't want to be stuck in the middle of an argument w/ her either. The ironic twist in all this is that the IRS tax levy will be complete with the payment from my last check before Christmas, it couldn't of been 1 or 2 sooner, ya know? Anyhow, thankfully at my work December is a 3 check month, and that is the only saving Christmas for my son I feel. I am not willing to take the $650 ish I figure I can take from that check and use $450 of it on just her kids. By the time I buy any other gifts I have to get I will have nothing left to buy for my son with. Her husband and her are doing really well and will be giving their kids a nice Christmas, so it is not like I am depriving them of their Christmas. I just hate situations like this. I know for a fact she is going to be upset. My son will be 18 in January and I know that she is going to feel like I am cheating her because this is the last year she'll buy for my son, and here I go changing the price range.

Thank you for all the responses. Unfortunately I will be sticking to my $25 per child limit. That is all I can afford this year. This is probably the tightest year we've had in a long, long time. I am going to tell her though, even if she gets mad because I feel that is the fair thing to do. I don't want her to go out and spend the full amount on my son and then only show up w/ one gift each for her kids. I am thinking of bringing it up Thanksgiving since that will probably be the next time I see her. She can't get mad then right??

8 years ago when my sister only had 1 child and I only had 1 (I still only have 1), we would do spend about $150 for the kids each. We could afford it and the families were small. Through the years we've kept it up, even though some years it's been really tight. Now she's had a 3rd child this year and it's really going to be even harder. She and her husband are doing really well financially right now and her kids honestly don't need anything. However, she is not going to take it well that I want to drastically reduce how much we spend per child. I am not trying to say well, even is even. We do okay but in reality Christmas is always a little tight for us, though we make it work and don't charge anything. The thing is I will be looking at $450 for her kids and she'd be looking at $150 for mine. I just cannot do the $450 for her family just her kids this year. I really want to drop it down closer to $30 per kid. I just am not sure how well that is going to go over. When her SIL got divorced a few years ago and dropped the price on the gifts she gave down drastically, my sister was pretty petty about it. Then a few years ago when I stopped going over the top w/ the amount for birthday gifts for my sister and her husband she was angry about it. Therefore, what sucessful tactics has anyone else used to broach this subject and not create a rift?

Mine was a stocking filled w/ just small gifts from my husband. Growing up we never had stockings. When my son was born I always did one for him and then 1 for my husband. Then about 5 years ago all the gifts were put out before we went to bed including the ones between my husband and I. When I woke up in the morning and came downstairs there was this huge Christmas teddy bear holding a stocking filled to the brim and I burst into tears. My husband must of snuck downstairs sometime in the middle of the night to put it there and I had no clue. I am not 100% sure why it was so special to me, it was just the fact that he went out and did that w/o my asking. It has been put out and filled every year since then. Even the last few years when he and I didn't exchange gifts due to money being tighter we still filled our stockings. The best I gave to my husband was the Richard Petty Driving Exp for an upcoming Disney trip. He had no clue what-so-ever. We have given my son more than a few suprises through the years that he was not expecting. I know the 1 year he wanted a PS2 so badly (right around the time they came out). We told him that Santa probably wouldn't have many and maybe he'd be able to get it the following year. We also told him there was no way my husband and I could afford it, and he'd just have to wait. Christmas morning the PS2 was wrapped and at the very bottom of his pile. He was so incredibly excited. We also got him really good last year. He wanted this particular BMX bike that was several hundred dollars. So we gave him that along w/ some clothing and a few other things. He kind of knew he was getting the bike, but still acted suprised and was very gracious on Christmas morning. When all the gifts were open, there was a little stack hidden way in the back behind the tree. He had not noticed it and thought opening gifts was done, he went to work on putting together his bike. My husband asked him why he didn't open these other few and that he had slid to the front. Things had worked out budget wise at the last minute that I was able to get him and IPOD touch w/ accessories too and he had no clue. He was very suprised and happy. At 16 he kind of knew that by asking for and getting the bike that it was going to fullfill the amount I'd be spending on him. It was great to be able to give him that suprise.

We do not exchange at my office either. My boss gets all the employees of the organization a $10 gift card to someplace. Then for my direct employee's I have almost 20 of them, and honestly I am not rolling in cash and cannot afford to buy for all of them (my husband has medical issues that have kept him out of work w/ no pay). I wish I could buy for all of them, but it's just not in the cards. Anyhow, as an individual department myself and my employees have gone ahead and planned a 'potluck" type of snack food day right before the holidays to celebrate w/ one another. This has worked out nicely and fits well into everyone's budget. It makes for a nice day at work as everyone socializes a little more.

We usually put our tree and all indoor decorations up the weekend before or after Thanksgiving. Depends on how late Thanksgiving falls in the month. I am thinking this year it will be the weekend after. We usually do the outside lights anytime after 11/1 when there is one of those nice warm fall days. Though this year we moved and are in a townhouse and cannot put up outside lights due to the HOA, my husband is not sad one bit. I kind of am. Our tree and decorations usually come down the weekend after New Years. Though w/ it being on the weekend this year, it will probably stay up until around the 8th.

We always do the tree as a family either the weekend before or right after Thanksgiving. Just last year my husband and I spent a whole weekend baking cookies together and plan to continue that tradition this year. Pretty much any evening we run an errand during the season we usually plan extra time to look pick a neighborhood and look at the lights there. Most of our traditions though revolve around our family gatherings. We have a small immediate family get together the weekend before Christmas before everything starts to get hectic.

I still need to buy for dh. I SHOULD be done w/ ds. However even today I "HAD" to stop at the mall and couldn't pass up the additional 50% rack at Pac Sun. Though I did get 5 more items for $46.xx. Then the other day I wanted to order 1 more item off amazon and ordered 5. I found myself looking again online today. Crazy thing is we do my families gift exchange this weekend so no time left to ship.

I went way overboard. I already had ds's large gift bought and then went and bought him an Ipod touch.

Thanks got for Christmas gifts too! :)

As of today I'm at about $900. I am figuring I'll spend around another $800-1000. I buy for my only child, and only about 6 other people.

I got the jungle one price matched at Best Buy this afternoon.

I took the ad to Walmart, they didn't have any of them in stock. I didn't think to try BB, maybe I'll try that one tomorrow.