Christmas Savings

I have had bits and pieces of this post floating around in my head all month, but just hadn't ever tried to flesh it out.  Since Christmas is almost here, I imagine that I should just get on with it. :)

So, Christmas is expensive.  Shocker I know. :)  These are just a few of the ways I have saved money this year.

The first way is to start early.  As in, a whole year early. :)  This is our 4th married Christmas and up until now I haven't ever had a tree skirt.  If I liked it, it was WAY too expensive and if I could afford it I thought it was ugly.  Last year after Christmas we went to Pottery Barn outlet and I found the perfect tree skirt for $25!  It was originally $100, which to me is crazy.  But to each his own I suppose.

While trying to take a picture of the tree skirt, someone wanted their picture taken. :)

We also got our Little People nativity last year after Christmas at Lifeway for half off

Stockings have been a problem for the last couple of years.  When Ellington was born I ordered her one from Pottery Barn Kids that I thought would match our stockings we already had.  When I got them out to hang them up....they didn't match.  AT ALL.  So, the last two years we have just hung Ellington's up.  I didn't know what to do because obviously we don't know how many children we will have and I wanted them all to match.  At Thanksgiving we were going to stop by Pottery Barn Outlet when we were in Memphis and I told Robert my dream would be to find matching stocking for cheap.  Really cheap.  Guess what??!! I got the two red ones below for like $7 each and I bought two extra for future children.  I would have bought more, but even $7 each adds up.  If we have more than two more children, which Lord willing we will, Robert and I will give up our stockings if Pottery Barn doesn't still have this line.  Anyway, all of this to say....it PAYS to wait.  Just jumping the gun on stuff will cost more money.  Yes, we did without a tree skirt and stockings for a few years, but we saved big time!

Christmas cards are another big expense which always kind of takes me by surprise.  I have no idea why I am always surprised by it.  This is another area that if you do it early or wait for sales, you can get a MUCH better deal.  I ordered mine from Shutterfly before Thanksgiving and was able to use a 40% off coupon AND a free shipping coupon.  My order total was almost $60 and I paid about $20-25ish.  Big savings.  

Another way I saved big this year was by using my Swagbucks.  I have blogged about Swagbucks before, but basically receive "bucks" for using their search engine which can be redeemed for things like gift cards.  I got Amazon gifts cards with mine and when I combined the sale prices I found on Amazon plus my Swagbucks I paid around $25 for about NINETY dollars worth of Christmas gifts.  I will put a Swagbucks link at the bottom of this post if you are interested in signing up!

I just thought I would share a few tips that have been helpful to us.  It's my desire that Christmas NOT be about the stuff and the money spent, but about the baby born to save the world.  And saving money helps me not be so worried about all of this "stuff".

For those of you who are wondering how the medicine taking is going....

She is loving the reward and she does it no problem every time. :)

And here's the link for Swagbucks....