I have big plans for this Christmas season. We shall see how the turn out...I'll report back in January!
~ When writing the Christmas cards I want to take the time, aka start now, to write something meaningful to the recipient on the inside! I am also whittling down my Christmas card list. I've been keeping track for the last 3 years about who sends us cards and the list this year is considerably smaller :)
~ Start making Christmas cookies and freezing them to make the week before Christmas less stressful. I've made my inital list of what cookies and treats I'm going to include and if they can be frozen and for how long.
~ Spend what I say I am going to spend! We have set budgets not only for what to give to each other but other family members. Last year we went a little crazy and there is just no need too! We are also going on a nice trip for Spring Break (can you say Kauai!!!) so we we will be spending some money then too :)
~ Give back to those who are in need. During Thanksgiving our local Safeway had these bags by the checkout that were $10 and went to local shelters and families who were in need of food for Thanksgiving. I know 10 dollars isn't a major amount but it is my hope that that helped a family. I want to do something like that at the grocery store once during this season and then go to a store that is has a tree that has presents or ages of kids to buy for. Again, that doesn't cost me a lot and I can certainly afford that. This is kind of like a pay-it-forward type of thing :)
I have $5 per month automatically deducted from my account to go to the local food bank. It's not much, but the food bank can actually buy a lot more food with my $60 per year than I could if I spent the same amount at a regular store, because they can buy things at wholesale prices. And they can use it to buy perishable produce and meat.
ReplyDeleteWe also decided to do a secret santa gift exchange with all the siblings and their significant others on Joe's side, so that will cut down on the gift budget as well!