That Darn Cat

I’ve been concentrating a lot of effort this holiday season to reduce my burn rate on gift giving by making gifts, shopping sample sales, and lowering expectations overall.  With the economy looming over me hard, and no guarantee of a job after January, I should have just wiped purchases off the agenda for this month, but alas, I couldn’t help myself.  So much of my family is engulfed in real poverty, I couldn’t show up empty handed this year.

I created my annual family photo book on Snapfish this year, as their base product came in at the lowest price point, $19.99.   I also got a free book coupon code off of Oprah.com this year.   I’m a shameless coupon shopper now.  Ecometro guide had a 20% off coupon at Whole Foods which I used to by SIGG Water Bottles for the clan of economically starved young men in my family.   Water is universal.

My daughter has a birthday right before Christmas, so this year I reduced costs by getting her one birthday gift, one Christmas gift, and one gift from Santa.  So what will Santa bring?  A Princess Big-Wheel from Target (on sale last week for $25)!    I’m gonna ride that sucker all over my sister’s house Christmas morning.  I bought stocking stuffers for her from Michael’s and Target from their $1 bins.   No candy this year, though my relatives will take care of that.  Her frequent trips to the principal’s office for hyperactivity is all the incentive I need to cross sugar off the list.

Berkeley local sample sales supplied a nice variety of beautiful and shockingly cheap scarves and bamboo bowls for the women in my family.   I had originally intended to make jewelry for all the women folk in my life this year, but I started to burn out on that.  A time analysis quickly revealed that a $5 sample sale scarf was more cost effective than a piece of jewelry that took me 5 hours to make.  My good intentions were all there, but when I found out that I might loose my job, I lost a lot of the creative steam.  Particularly since my “free-time” is spent working on my design portfolio or pro bono web work.

Christmas cards will consist of my daughter’s school photo taped to a card.  The poses are so cheesy and adorable, I can’t help but spread the love.  The paper cards I bought from Paper Source didn’t really save me a lot of money, but it will encourage me to make good use of the stack of photos I already bought from the school.

Other holiday budget cuts include exclusively grocery and wine shopping at Trader Joes.  Once I gave up the Whole Foods habit I was shocked to learn that I was saving 40% by shopping at TJ’s.  My girlfriend and Rookie Mom blogger Heather even managed to lure me over for a Trader Joe’s dinner at her house that consisted of Salak Paneer Lasagna, a recipe from her Cooking with Trader Joes cookbook.  It was pretty tasty, even though the kids flat out rejected it.  Wine purchases have been isolated to red table wines for under $9.   My favorite wines this year from Trader Joes are Dynamic Red Table Wine $9 and the California Party Franc Merlot $6.  Check out Jason’s Wine Blog for the full 411 on wine deals at Trader Joe’s.

My manic creative self couldn’t resist spreading more holiday cheer, so I’m also compiling a holiday music CD for my family.  Details in an upcoming post.