holiday shopping...how's it going?

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
holiday shopping...how's it going?
9
Wed, 11-16-2005 - 1:34pm

HI everyone! I was just wondering how everyone else was doing with their holiday shopping (christmas, hannukah, etc). I haven't really started yet but I have some ideas for those I need to buy for and am planning out how much I can afford. I'm a little frustrated because I definately want to pay with all cash this year, no credit cards, but I keep getting expensive gift ideas that make me say, well maybe just this one gift. NO! I can't give in. Right now I'm trying to decide whether i can afford to get my brother a 50 dollar sweatshirt with a sports team on it. It seems like a lot, but the only ppl I will be spending that much on are my bf and my brother. Even with my parents and step parents I will go cheap this year, and they understand and gave me cheap gift ideas. My brother though is 15 and the only idea he came up with is this sweatshirt that he wants badly. I am hoping to have an "extra" hundred dollars or so set aside between now and Christmas so that I can take my dbf clothes shopping. Usually we spend lots of money on each other (paid for with credit cards) and try to "out-do" each other on gifts. I have gotten some amazing gifts this way, including diamong necklace, bracelet, earrings, a tv set, a car cd player, leather jacket...etc...but this year we decided to not do that. Perhaps once we get in a better financial situation but this year we are working on paying down the debt from all those old christmas presents! DBF desperiately needs new clothes so we figured a nice shopping trip together would be good, and he can pick out clothes and I will get him as many as i can afford for christmas. We are going on Sunday for christmas shopping, not sure if he will clothes shop then or just to get some things for the family, my parents, his parents, his sister and neices, etc. It would be nice to get some out of the way! I never get to see him either so it will be nice to spend some time together and have dinner with him (which I already have budgeted so I can pay cash for a nice dinner at a restaurant for once! lol)

I mailed out payment to cover the last of a remaining medical bill (90 dollars) yesterday so that is a load off of my mind. I had to see another doctor on Monday of this week but my grandmother offered to pay for that visit because I kept putting it off due to not having money. So although I put it on my cc--102 dollars--there is a check for 102 dollars waiting for me at her house to pay it off. Let's hope that whatever tests they do and whatever medication the doctor decides I need doesn't cost all that much. (I'm waiting on test results before medicine will be prescribed). Agh! I also paid my semester tuition bill, thanks to a no interest loan from a great friend. At least it's paid and I can register for classes now, but I hate being in debt to my friend. It will be paid off ASAP because it is a load on my mind, much more so than my cc debt.

The snowstorm is slowing down to flurries now though as Christmas is approaching and expenses such as christmas presents, snow tires, a new winter coat, heating costs, etc are piling up now.

Good luck to everyone who is doing holiday shopping! Remember, no credit cards! Perhaps I will just bake some cookies for some friends--that would cut out a few purchases!

                          

             

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-05-2004
Wed, 11-16-2005 - 2:51pm

We just mailed our gifts out today! Whew! :-D I'm sure some people will shake their heads with disbelief when our gifts to them arrive before Thanksgiving, but I'm just glad to have that part of the holidays out of the way. It was a goal of mine to have my gifts done this week, so the past two days, I stayed up till 2am, cross-stitching my final gift, and I finished this morning early, after about four hours of sleep, so that I could box it up and wrap it and be competely finished. I still have to mail some gifts for Dh's family. They do a "pick a name out of the hat" thing after Thanksgiving each year, so I bought two gifts (one for Dh to give to his hat-pick person, and one for me to do the same) that would be appropriate for anyone in the family, so when we finally get the names of our recipients, I'll send those out. They're wrapped and packed with no where to go right now. LOL! :-D

I've decided against co-worker gifts because Dh's office is getting far too big, and I face the dilema of either not buying for everyone (and having someone's feelings get hurt) or buying something cheap and having his co-workers tease him. So no gifts this year for the co-workers, BUT...I will make a huge platter of Christmas cookies and have Dh bring those in for everyone to enjoy. I'll include some small bags so everyone can take some cookies home with them at the end of the day, so that'll be good enough. :-D

Christmas cards are my next task. Rather than buying the expensive photo packages this year, I took a picture of Ds in our backyard and printed pictures on my printer in Wallet size (so 9 pictures to s sheet of paper), and I'll tuck those into the Christmas cards.

My goal is to have everything squared away and finished so that when December 1st rolls around, I can just kick back and enjoy the holiday music on the radio (which I usually play all the time when I'm home) and our inside decorations (tree, etc), and just having fun enjoying my family. No hustle and bustle this year. Just lots of togetherness. :-D Hopefully this will make the holidays more relaxed. :-D

Pat :-D

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-05-2004
Wed, 11-16-2005 - 2:59pm

Does your brother like a team that's local to your area?? The reason I'm asking is that our Walmart has sports-logo items in the men's department for very low prices. We live in Georgia, so we've got the Atlanta Braves, Atlanta Falcons, and college teams like the Georgia Bulldogs. They have hats and T-shirts and all sorts of items. That might be a way to keep costs down.

You mentioned you might need a winter coat this year? Have you looked at consignment and thrift stores for that? Sometimes you can find a real deal on a great looking coat. This year, I decided that it wasn't in the budget for me to buy a nice heavy winter coat. And to be honest, I feel uncomfortable in any kind of jacket that is too thick or heavy. So I went to Target and bought myself a zip-up hooded fleece jacket and I'm just going to wear warm clothes under that. It's what I did last year also, and it worked out pretty well. Of course, we don't get the cold winters that people up North get, but we do get some temps in the 20's from time to time. :-D

Pat :-D

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-10-2005
Thu, 11-17-2005 - 11:45am

I am offically 1/2 done with my Christmas shopping at this point way under budget. Yeah! I'm going to try and go out at lunch today and run by a jewelry store and pick my Mother up the gold bracelet she wants for Christmas. (Almost every store in town has jewerly 1/2 off this week because Christmas sales are starting early.) My Dad and I are going to split the cost of the gift so that will be pretty nice and I will be done with Mom. Now the trick is finding something for Dad that won't cost an arm and a leg. I've already picked him up some jeans and t-shirts which is all he ever asks for. I'll probably get him some candy and maybe a book to round out the gifts. Then I have my cats (they are like my children), and my cousin and her boyfriend whom are my best friends to buy for and I will be done. I can't wait to be done. I'm hoping to by done by the end of this month so I can just kick back and enjoy the season next month.

Of course I haven't started wrapping anything yet. And I'm still debating about whether or not to put up the tree this year. I'll pry break down after Thanksgiving though, it just doesn't seem like Christmas without the tree.

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-05-2004
Thu, 11-17-2005 - 12:48pm


Speaking of putting trees up, has anyone seen the new trend this year? Upside down trees! LOL! I've heard that some merchandisers cannot keep these things in stock. They advertise it as a great way to fit more gifts under your tree (and money to your credit card balances ;-D).

Here's a link to one of them at the Target.com site. I couldn't believe this when I saw it. $399.99 for an upside down tree? LOL! If the link doesn't work, you can just go to Target.com and search for "upside down tree". It'll bring it right up.

http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/sr=2-1/qid=1132249545/ref=sr_2_1/602-6703875-5892660?%5Fencoding=UTF8&asin=B000BI7X2E

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Thu, 11-17-2005 - 12:54pm

Sort of done...sort of!

I started picking up things on clearance at stores and putting it aside. I got some candles that were marked down to .99 at Old Navy (they were for summer, but who cares?! They were .99!!) and bought all that they had. I got my SIL a heavy mirrored compact at an upscale dept store for $12, and it normally goes for $30. My parents flat-out told us they want a four-slice toaster, and my dad went so far as to tell us where we could get it! TG for that! I love it when people are direct that way!

I also got DD 15 a thing for her iPod that you can dock the iPod in, it has speakers and works as an alarm clock. It normally goes for $100 at Bed Bath & Beyond, but they sent out a 20% off coupon, so I got it for $80 instead. Probably will get her a few other things as well. My toddlers get a new Fisher Price house or farm or something like that (the ones with the Little People), so that's a "two-fer" gift that they can share, and then a few gifts each, but my brother and sister shower them, so they still get tons of stuff. We decided for DH's grandkids just to do $5 gift cards for McDonalds--sounds cheap, but there are six of them, and one with a 12/27 b-day! Can't really do much more than that! Still have to get gifts for my brother and his two boys (one of which also has a Dec b-day), my sister, BIL and their three boys, but on our way (those need to be mailed out). DH and I have an anniversary on 1/8, so we don't really get Christmas gifts, but score on the after-holiday sales!!

I used to start my Christmas shopping after Halloween and be done by Thanksgiving because I hate the crowds, but with three kids, it just doesn't happen anymore that way!!

AND WE ARE NOW CASH ONLY!!

Kathy

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iVillage Member
Registered: 09-20-2004
Thu, 11-17-2005 - 3:16pm
I have not started my Christmas shopping yet. My list of people to buy for has been pared down over the past few years, though. Last year, December was a break even month...our cc debt did not increase nor decrease, but that means we definitely overspent. i don't remember what I bought for my daughters last year, but this year will be much simpler. I plan to do a bit of day after thanksgiving shopping, though, and I already have some ideas there. We drew names on my husbands mother's side. So two gifts there. We also buy for our niece and nephew. His parents and aunt, my dad and brother, each other. And our daughter's therapists and teachers too, only because they go above and beyond, but that should not be too much. A long list, still, but defintely more manageable than before. (We each have three siblings) UGH< I guess it will still be overwhelming. Well, we will definitely discuss our plan before we head off to the store, anyhow. This is never a great time of year for us, but hopefully, since December is an extra paycheck month for me, we will be all right. Heather
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2005
Fri, 11-18-2005 - 5:19am

Could you check e-bay for a similar sweatshirt. Lots of times, clothes are sold for about 10-20% of the suggested price.

Good luck!

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Registered: 11-21-2003
Fri, 11-18-2005 - 6:32am

Hi there,

I have not even started to think about christmas yet. It is a kind of dark looming thing in front of us - not only because of the money issues, but because of having too much family who want to see us. Yes, I know, it probably sounds rather strange to most of you, but since most of family lives in the same city as dh and I we meet them often enough all year round. They days between Christmas and New Year are about the only days when I know I can take a few days off from work and not be punished by everything piling up while I am away. So I always look forward to those days - and end up figuring out how to organize a schedule which will enable us to see three families of parents (on set of parents split and remarried), a grandmother for whom I have a certain dislike, our combined eight siblings, three of them with their own kids already. And there is our best friends (a couple, too), which are about the only ones I *really* want to see and have a good festive holiday with, eat and enjoy time and exchange gifts etc. On the other hand, my dh feels one has to see the relatives on christmas, so backing out of it all is no option :-(

Small wonder I tend to delay shopping for christmas for as long as possible...

Holiday season officially starts the fourth sunday before Christmas - our Thanksgiving over here is in October :-)

I know it willbe a hectic last week, and I have no idea what to give everyone, but will try to spend no more than the 200$ I have set aside during the year for. Well, let's hope it works...

Greetings, Jordis

ivy_jordis

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-31-2003
Fri, 11-18-2005 - 3:15pm

I'm doing great so far! I always try to finish shopping for my family (mom, dad, two brothers ) bf thxgiving, because I see them then and won't have to mail the gifts later.

My mom's gift was a little pricy this year ($220), but she mentioned this summer it was something she wanted (and had denied herself bc of the price). I asked one of my brothers if he would split the cost w/ me and he agreed. Our other brother is still in college so we will put all 3 of our names on the gift. The brother who is splitting the cost of that gift w/ me just got married in Sept...I splurged on some locally made pewter candlesticks as a wedding gift for them then, which happen to take special sized tapers. So as a couple, they will be getting a dozen pairs of ivory tapers, plus a pair of red and a pair of green (total = $20), as well as a matching pewter snuffer ($20) for xmas. The college age brother is getting a $20 DVD game. Plus a funny pint glass ($8) and probably also a case of microbrew from my area ($10). I still have to think of something for my dad...

DH is usually easy to buy for. I also usually buy for his family, but will leave that to him financially this year (with a few suggestions from me, of course, LOL)

I am feeling particularly festive this year...maybe because I am employed???
BK