I know that I should stop being so impressed with myself for making sort of bare bones not-dumb financial decisions. But! Last weekend! After Coop's Milwaukee dive meet, we went out for lunch ($75) and got home late and caught up on chores and messed around with the microwave and went microwave shopping, and I dropped my phone off at Apple and grabbed an evening purse and looked for sparkly bobby pins. And suddenly it was past dinner time, and we were due for a grocery delivery the following day, so pickings were slim. Old us would have spent another $100 on takeout. New adult-y us? Inventoried the cabinets and fridge and freezer and made chicken nuggets and quesadillas for the kids, along with apple slices and carrot sticks and made ourselves nachos and salads and quesadillas to eat after kiddie bedtime.
Kopps! THE BEST!
I also got a super mega deal on my holiday cards, and they are sitting in a box, ready to go out when it is not too early to send holiday cards. (If we are not card friends, let's be, please!!! Email me sarah jedd at g mail).
In a move that will save zero dollars but has already saved me a ton of stress, I delegated buying our matching holiday jammies entirely to Ben. He mentioned that he liked a display of them at Von Maur over the weekend, and I thought I would never buy them there-- to expensive. And I thought of all the years I spent hours trying to find all of our sizes at Gap or Old Navy when they are practically giving jammies away after Thanksgiving, and then I thought EFF IT. Let Ben find the jammies and pay whatever the heck he wants for them. PROBLEM SOLVED.
But real talk-- I have bought NOT ONE SINGLE GIFT **yikes face**. Expect my money complaints to be holiday related going forward. SO FESTIVE.
Oooh I just ordered my holiday cards! They have yet to arrive but still, exciting!
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping to see a photo of these pajamas! And I'm going to email you so we can be card friends : )
ReplyDeleteOh, man. I have put off buying an advent calendar and now all the good ones are sold out. And now I have to worry that I am missing the good price on holiday cards because I haven't even started on that! Egads!
ReplyDeleteLast night I spent like 2 hours coming up with ideas and ordering gifts. I'm not done, but I'm a lot closer to done and I am so relieved. I love Christmas, but it's stressful trying to come up with things for the people in my life. Also, expensive - even though I don't actually gift THAT many things and even buy some things second-hand. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteI ordered my holiday cards last week and I can't wait to get them so I can prep them to send out. I kinda lazed out this year - we did not get a family picture which is fine. Meh. I'd rather get it done than try to get it perfect. That said, I know I will be in LOVE with whatever family shot you got because your family is the royal family of Christmas card pictures. You're on my mailing list already...and I think I'm on yours? :)
If it were up to T, we would eat out or get takeout every night. But thanks to my stingy butt, we don't and I always remind him of that. We do what you guys did- scavenge and make do. We would order takeout maybe once every two weeks, or on Fridays if I'm feeling extra generous lol Keep those financial posts coming!
ReplyDeletePhil bought the first holiday gift, believe it or not! I started a shared list of gift ideas for the boys and he bought something off Paul's list when he was ordering some coffee for me off amazon. I'm struggling to come up with gift ideas for Taco. I wish his bday was not so close to Christmas! Gah. (it's 12/3)
ReplyDeleteWe do not do family jammies. Phil would not participate! He's not a pajama guy. I have tried to get matching jammies for the boys and me but have struggled to find things that fit us all! So I've thrown in the towel on that endeavor.
Well done on the cards all ready to go and the delegating of the pj's to Ben. I'm trying to imagine what my kids would do if I suggested we wear matching jammies. There would be anarchy. I am debating using a photo that I already have or waiting to take another one on Thanksgiving. There are just pics that I've taken with an autotimer. They're fine. We are not order out people, never have been. I remember when I was expecting Curly, we found a house we wanted. My dad told me to crunch the numbers. I was shocked that we'd spent so much taking the little guys out to eat like once every few weeks or maybe once a month. It added up. Um, yeah. We did NOT get that house and we buckled down (to where I thought we were initially) and didn't eat out much. But yesterday, Coach was teaching and I was exhausted after the tailgate, so I took the 4 youngest kids who were home out to breakfast. We saw my parents at mass and invited them too, and it was lovely. An unexpected treat.
ReplyDeleteArghhh my plan is to order my cards with a Black Friday deal but I really need to start creating them otherwise it will not happen.
ReplyDeleteI'm so impressed that you have your cards done! I just started thinking about ordering them today. I'll be lucky to get them out before Christmas.
ReplyDeleteLol. Card friends. I love that term-- so perfect.
So smart on the pjs. There is something so sexy about a man both doing emotional labour and spending money lol.
ReplyDeleteI have bought a veritable tower of funny t-shirts from Redbubble for the four cousins, my sister and BIL and Matt and my mom and dad. This will be instead of matching pjs, but also will be half the gift for my niece and nephew. And I bought my niece a book in the summer. Other than that I got nothing. Oh! I'm getting my husband a butter tart subscription and I am very excited.
Our Christmas Cards are OLD SCHOOL, meaning I buy a box of cards at the store and send them out. No pictures. I used to send pictures when my daughter was a kid, but now there's no way to get a card that all of us would like, so it's just not happening. I would love to get a card from YOU however, and will email you promptly.
ReplyDeleteI'm getting better about leftover night, or as Ted calls it, 'Eat the Fridge', and it makes me so happy. Save some money, rescue the food!
eat the fridge is a great label and YAY to card friends :)
DeleteCONGRATS on eating the fridge! That's always a hard pattern to break - getting takeout on a busy day like this. Proud of you!
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