Yes, I’m already thinking about Christmas.  Actually, most of you probably are too I’m guessing.  If you are like me, you feel like the Fall season flies by.  School starts, then you have birthday parties and football games.  Then, before you know it it’s Halloween, with Thanksgiving right on it’s tail, and then there is it.  Christmas.  It’s here before you have time to get all your shopping done early, like you say you are going to do every year.

Oh wait, is that just me?  Well, anyway.  I HAVE to get my shopping done early this year.  We are traveling to Australia for Christmas and I have to PACK all of the gifts.  And still have room to bring them back, plus others.  It’s going to be interesting.

So, first of all…saving MONEY. My family and my husband’s family all decided a few years ago to draw names for the adults.  With my family, for example, it’s me, my husband, my sister and her husband, one of my Aunts, one of my cousins, and my parents.  These are the people I would usually buy for before we did the name drawing, with the exception of my cousin, but she wanted to participate in the draw names, so she’s in!

We all agreed on a dollar amount.  We chose $50.  This way everyone can get one good gift, opposed to a bunch of little things worth ten bucks that you don’t really want anyway.

We use Elfster.  You enter all who are participating and you can also exclude certain people, like husband’s/wives from getting each other, which is cool.  Then, it randomly generates your pick and emails it to you, secretly.  We always keep it a secret who we have.  Though, I always know who my hubby has since I do all the shopping.   It’s also got a place where you can put your wish list for your Santa to see what you want.

We only do Elfster for the adults since everyone wants to buy for all the kids.  So, we save money with our niece and nephews in Australia by buying things here and taking (or mailing) it to Australia.  Good stuff is way cheap here in comparison.  I’m talking WAY less.  Plus, I can get summer stuff on sale, since they are going into summer in a few months.

For our boys, I just keep reminding myself that it’s not HOW MUCH we spend.  Our youngest, doesn’t even know about Christmas, for starters.  And our oldest is happy with even a few things.  If it’s something he can pretend play with, he will be busy for hours.  Honestly, he would probably just be happy with candy, since he rarely gets any.  I just have to remember this and not get caught up in the Christmas buying frenzy.  Luckily, my husband’s family is further along the less is more end of the spectrum than my family.  I’m really looking forward to that this year, actually.

Now, for saving SPACE! Since we have to pack all (or at least most) of our gifts for the kids this year, we have to think SMALL.

So, I’ve been trolling Amazon looking for ideas for small, packable gifts that will still make an impact and be fun for our older son, who is four.  Our youngest (currently 13 months) won’t really care since he still won’t really know what’s going on and will really only want what his brother has anyway.  That’s how he rolls.

Here are some of what I’ve come up with so far:

• LED head lamp – like for camping.  He would LOVE this.
• Wikki stix – are these fun?
• stomp rocket
• Wishing Chair Again by Enid Blyton – I’ve been looking forever for the over sized version of this and finally got one off ebay for a steal!  So siked.  He asks me all the time if I’ve found it yet.  He loves the first one, Adventures of the Wishing Chair.
• Brain Quest -  these are great for planes too
• My Very Own Name book – we already got him this too as he wanted one after seeing the one we got our youngest for his birthday
• Gift voucher for something like a jumping castle place (you know those places that have about 10 jumpy houses).  We have one near our house and he’s always asking to go after going to a birthday party there.
• I want to crochet both my boys stockings before we go, but I am unsure if I can manage it.  I don’t know how to crochet, but my Mom is going to try to teach me this week.

Hmmm, I actually thought I had more ideas than this.  And frankly, I have no clue about what to get our youngest, who will be 15 months by then.

Any ideas ??

You can find more tips of all sorts at Works for Me Wednesday.

I am doing neither of these things, unfortunately.

With both of my son’s birthdays, my nephews birthday, Father’s Day (in Australia) and eight baby gifts to buy, I am definitely not spending less these days.

We have also been rehabbing our mudroom from a utility room to more of a proper mud room/entry area, since this is how we usually enter our house.   Not sure why we never thought of it before.  Will post photos when we are done.

Also have my sister-in-law and her friend coming this weekend from Australia, so have been buying extra food and beer.

So, also not much time to post the items I have to sell on Craiglist either.  Will do all of this in a couple of weeks after the birthday parties are done and the guests have left.

However, I’m having a great time reading about all of you who did a fabulous job during Musing of a Midlife Mom’s Spend Less Month and are doing great during High Class, Low Income’s No Spend Month, and earning more during Money Funk’s September’s Earn More Challenge.

Both the posts and comments from the participants have all sorts of great ideas.  All of which I will have to re-read in a couple of weeks in order to starting making up for lost time…er, money, over the past couple of months!

Kid consignment sales are a big way that we save money.

There is one sale that is put on twice a year where I live that I usually always go to.  In fact, I normally consign at least the minimum so I can get into the consignor pre-sale, which is the night before the public sale.  The public sale is far too nuts for me to bother with and since there are 5 pre-sale times beforehand, all of the best stuff for the best prices is long gone.

This year, when I was dropping off the items I am consigning, I saw a sign stating they were desperate for worker volunteers and that in return for one shift, I could shop a day earlier, at the worker pre-sale.

So, both my friend and I signed up.  So, Thursday night we shopped at the worker pre-sale and last night we worked the pre-sale for consignors.  The public sale starts today, Lord help them.

It was exhausting.  We shopped from 7pm to 11pm on Thursday night (and worked 5-11pm on Friday night).  There is an enormous amount of things to go through at this sale!  I didn’t even look at everything.  Not even hardly!  I skipped over all the TONS of baby things, ride on toys, dvds and didn’t look at the adult clothes either.

For Big D I bought ($60),

• 4 sets of pajamas (3 of which look brand new, Gap and Carters)
• 6 pants (3 are Gymboree)
• 5 shirts (4 are OshKosh)
• rain boots
• running shoes
• and an REI fleece pullover

For Little C, I bought ($14),

• 2 sets of pajamas
• 6 pants

Little C didn’t really need anything.  But, I looked a bit and kept finding things, so I just stopped myself!

I also bought a puzzle game, two bike helmets and a telescope for the boy’s swingset fort, which was on Big D’s birthday wish list, all for $17.

So, I got everything for $97, which I thought that was pretty good.

I was disappointed in the books and games this time though.  They normally have a much better selection.   My friend and I were talking about this and we are wondering if the February sale is simply better for that sort of thing since it’s right after Christmas and people are getting rid of more stuff to make way for the new stuff they got over Christmas.

I also noticed that some of the clothes prices seemed to be higher than they have been in years passed.  Some items I passed over because I knew I could get it on sale, new, for a similar (or better!) price.

It definitely pays to know your prices when you go to consignment sales.  I have decided that I am going to make a chart of what I paid this time at the consignment sale and what I can get on sale at the stores I normally buy from (Target, Children’s Place, Gymboree Outlet).

I will probably try to work the sale again in February to compare, but this time I want to work when the consignors drop off their items so I can get a better look of what is coming in.  I saw a lot of items last night when I was checking people out that I would have loved, for great bargains.

Volunteering to work is definitely time consuming, so I will give it one more chance to see if I think it’s worth it.  As my boys get older there seems to be less and less to look for, toy wise (since we seem to have everything already!) and if I can get clothes on sale for similar prices and we now have a great used book store nearby….well, it’s a lot of work to shop that sale.

I did check out one family of people (2 sisters and their mother) whose total came up to $604!  Good grief.  They had 96 items of clothing, toys, movies, shoes, etc.  Crazy.  It all would have cost much more full price, but you have to ask yourself at these sales…do I really need or want all this stuff cluttering up my house?  Have my kids asked for this?  Do I really need 10 movies simply because they are only $1 each?  My answer would be “no”, which is why I only bought one game.

What about you?  Do you go to consignment sales for your kids?  Have you ever consigned or worked a sale to shop early?  Do you find better deals compared to on sale items at stores?

I have been thinking about gift ideas a lot lately as both of our boy’s birthdays are coming up.  Our house is overrun with toys.  And frankly, toys that don’t always get played with very much.  Not all the toys are ignored, but there are some definite favorites and others that I rarely, if ever, see.

But, what do you get a one-year old for his first birthday when you already have a TON of toys (which he doesn’t even really play with yet) and clothes waiting for him?

My Mom thinks my youngest needs his ‘own’ toys.  Huh?  Whatever.  I am trying to gently recommend alternatives to toys for gifts.

I know people just want to get something special for a 1st birthday, but it seems extra hard when we already have so much from our first child.  I am a big fan of getting things used and not getting something cutesy, just for the sake of getting something new.  I like a modern, uncluttered space, which of course is hard with kids.

So far I have come up with:

• books – though we have  a TON of these as well, but I am a book whore, so bring ‘em on.
• wooden teether – my ton still mouths everything and loves wooden things.
• pjs – always needs these
• plates/bowls for eating – something cute and special for his 1st birthday
• a special book with his name in the story
• a new ride on toy – I love these wheely bugs
• shirts with Australian animals on them are always a hit
• personalized items – he has a Scottish name that is impossible to find in the U.S., but it’s more common in Australia so our family can often find things with his name on them

Would LOVE to hear what works for you for first birthday gifts!

Well, the title says it all.  It’s one minute to 10pm on Sunday night and I’m typing this post.  I’m tired and need to go to bed to face another week.

And here is the part where I give you my excuse.  Frankly (and sorry if this is too much information), I was having boob issues.  Mastitis to be exact.  And, if you are a breastfeeding mother and have never had this, trust me, you don’t want to…ever.  I started to get on Friday for the second time this month as I’m trying to wean my almost 11 month old who has insisted on only eating off one side for months.  He was starting to wean himself, which is how I got it the first time, but then on Thursday I must have skipped one too many feedings because on Friday I felt like total shit.  Like I had the flu.  Friday night was even worse.  I finally fell asleep after lying there for HOURS in misery, only to wake up drenched in sweat at about 4am to Little C’s cries.  Lovely.

But, then Saturday morning I felt pretty good.  My body does really well (knock on wood) to fight off illness.  Took it easy though just the same.  I think I’ve got him down to two feedings now, in the morning and before bed.  All of the other times he had started to bite me, so those were taken away.  Sorry baby…no biting allowed!

Hence my not posting since Thursday, or whenever it was.

But, I have a couple of articles that I think are pretty cool that I wanted to share.

Veggie Terrain has a great post all about smoothies.  My son loves it when I make smoothies and I always have to share mine with him.  So, I’m always looking for new ways to make them super healthy to get some extra vitamins and nutrients into his picky little stomach.  She has a lot of other great veggie recipes too, so have a look around her blog.

Yesterday my hubby and I were talking about how well we do minimizing our garbage, but we’ve got nothing on this couple at Rubbish Free Year, who limit theirs to only one very small rubbish bag per year!  Granted, we are convinced they can do it because they don’t have kids, but it’s still amazing and we could all learn a thing or two for sure!

On another note, we took our oldest son to see Up this weekend.  It’s a lovely movie with some very valuable life lessons.  I just loved it.  After all of my travels and my desire to see so much more of the world, it’s a good reminder for me that I don’t need to leave my city or even my backyard to make wonderful memories for my children.  Some of my most wonderful memories are, just like Russell said in the movie, the “boring” ones.  So sweet.

It was a sad week too, with the passing of Michael Jackson and don’t let’s forget Farrah Fawcett.  I feel she sort of got lost in the shuffle and shadow of Michael Jackson even though so many had been following her illness and documentary.  I had a Farrah Fawcett glamor head as a girl that I put makeup on and did her hair.  Hilarious.  She was as much of an icon to me as MJ was, for sure.  Although I have been singing, Wanna Be Startin’ Something all weekend.

Did you read anything great over the last week or weekend?  If so, tell me about it.  Or maybe you have tips on weaning…hey, I’ll take it all.