Christmas Baking!

 I love, love, love Christmas Baking.

I went home two weeks ago for the weekend and spent two days baking with my grandmother, my mom, and one of my aunts.

Here's a couple of snapshots.

We wound up with I think at least 4 or 5 kinds plus home made chocolates that we do every year.

We tried to hit everyone's favourite cookies.  The next day we shipped out tins of cookies to people who wouldn't be home for Christmas and did a few for right away, and then put a few tins in the freezers to bring out over the holidays.

Yum!

This Christmas

This Christmas was hard.

It was the first without my dad.  It was also the first without my brother (he's moved to Winnipeg).  It was Jordan's first without his mom and his brother (they were on a trip together).

I tried to stay upbeat and positive, mostly I faked it until I could make it.  I think for the most part people believed that I was in good spirits, and that put me in a better mood then I would have been otherwise.

I had a lot of lists.. I always do, but this year it felt a bit more mechanical.  That helped get through I think...task lists...accomplishing things.

To distract myself, I made a lot of Christmas gifts this year.  We also spent a lot - but instead of telling you how much we spent (I don't 100% know just yet... haven't added up all the receipts), I would like to share with you some photo's of my creations...

Homemade Chocolates

Hand Painted Christmas Bear

Home Made Spice Blends

Stocking Stuffer for Jordan

Scarf for Jordan's Cousin

Scarf for my Mom

Scarf for My Cousin 

Christmas Budgeting

Can you believe that Christmas is right around the corner?  Don't believe me...check out the Christmas Countdown Clock....at the time that I'm writing this post...

wowza...only 62 days!!

Jordan and I are going for an even more frugal Christmas than we normally have - trying to focus on thoughtful versus expensive.  We make this plan every year - but it's so hard to stay true.  I just keep seeing things that I want to share with my loved ones.

We're going to try to stick to about $50 a person - so if we're getting a gift for a couple our budget would be max $100.  We have 16 groups of people - for a total of $1,150 - which is more than we have saved so we'll actually have to try to shave the budget in some places.

What do you all try to do?

Christmas Draws

I have a guest post over on Krystal's blog today, Give Me Back My Five Bucks, if you've come my way from there - welcome!  If you haven't seen my post there yet, I hope you check it out.


It is that time of year where quite a few of us will start thinking about Christmas (if we haven't already). With Jordan and I buying a house, and getting out of consumer debt for the second time - I'm more aware than normal about our upcoming Christmas budget.

We have already pared our list down from the usual 20 or so people to about a dozen and are trying to come up with creative, thoughtful gifts that are budget friendy.

There is one gift giving opportunity in my family that is really non negotiable as far as I am concerned and that is the gift draw that my cousins and I participate in every year. We all grew up very close and Christmas reinforces our relationships - when we can reflect and spend time together. There are ten of us and quite a few of us are in long term relationships and our partners have started going in on the draw as well - so Jordan and I now buy two cousin gifts each year.

Well, this year, instead osf purchasing gifts I through up an idea on Facebook and tagged all of my cousins in it - I asked if they might want to put a hand made only rule on our draw.

I was so so surprised, everybody is excited for it and said yes!

So out Christmas cousin budget just dropped from about $150 to very economical.

Now....does anyone have any homemade gift ideas?

Spending Update

I can't get into the nitty gritty details of Christmas spending, because far too many people that I bought for read (or have the potential to read) this blog.

But, I will share this:

We have made a few payments already including mom & dad paying me for the gifts I bought on their behalf's as well as just a regular payment.  Unfortunately this is just what's currently owing,  our total bill from November was due on December 26, 2010 and was for $5712.44 - as Macl1in hasn't reimbursed our $2,000 deposit for the Retire Your Ride Program, we weren't able to  make the deadline. We needed to make another $915 payment in order to avoid interest penalties.

What is really tragic is now we'll pay interest on all of our purchases until we have a zero balance at the time the company runs our bill :(

So, to compound all this - we still need to buy groceries and gas for the rest of January.

We have eliminated our house, wedding and allowances for January - and we will only have $310 from now until January 5th.  It's going to be tight.

Don'tcha just love Christmas?

Christmas Spending Update

So I had a great time with my family and got a tonne of Christmas shopping done.  I finished 17/22 people!  I'm pretty impressed with that - I have two cousins left to shop for from the cousins draw that we do (one is for Jordan) and then I've budgeted for a work gift for both me and Jordan - so that will be defined more as we get closer to December.  We have a couple of new friends that Jordan wanted to get a gift for, but I'm wary of starting a gift giving tradition with friends that are a year old - so we'll see where that goes.  Finally I have a good long time friend that we still have to come up with a gift idea for.

I had purchased a few gifts before the family weekend but so far, in total, we have spent $811.75 on Christmas gifts.  That works out to be about $48/person which is pretty good.  Last year people commented on my shopping posts with questions around why so many people?!  Well, we buy for both Jordan's parents and mine and both of our grandparents.  We also buy for our siblings and two family friends.  There are a couple of cousins we buy for and then a couple of work gifts - that winds up being 22 people not including each other.

When we shop together as a big group, we often pay for each other's purchases when we're trying to hide things from each other.  So, I currently owe my mom about $42 and my grandma owes me about $78 - so far.  There will be a few more purchases on either side, so I'll just keep track of this for a couple of weeks.

I also spent just under $400 on work clothes and undergarments for myself.  I have been saving up my allowance for a while and also had some birthday money set aside for this.  I found some fantastic deals and wound up with several great outfits!

ahhh... still on Vacation

I'm loving this whole vacation thing that goes along with having a 'big girl' job.  Love it!

I took off four days this week - so I left work at noon on Christmas eve, and don't go back to work until January 4th, 2010.  Pretty Sweet.  We're back in the city now as Jordan had to go back to work yesterday, so i'm just enjoying relaxing at home - having the place to myself.

Speaking of having the place to myself - it's about to end.  We wound up finding a new roommate at the ninth hour (those who follow me on twitter probably already knew that).  We are still trying to settle the damange deposit and final utilities with Jeff, who's being difficult, but hopefully that will be resolved in short order.  New roommmate B-rad, picked up a key yesterday and is planning on moving everything in today at about 2pm.

B-rad wrote us a cheque for his first months rent and half his damage deposit, and next month he'll write one for rent and the rest of his damange deposit.  A fair arrangement I think.

are you finished yet?

I'm starting to get this itch, it happens ever year. 

A week or so ago I posted my final Christmas Spending Tally, signifying that I was indeed finished spending this Christmas.  A couple of days ago, the last item that I ordered online finally came in the mail - another indicator that I was finished.

 I can feel it building inside me.

I want to do more, get more, spend more on the people on my list.  There are a few things in particular that I really want people to get for Christmas.  I've been reaching out to see if others are getting these items for them - but if they don't, I fear I will break out the proverbial cheque book - and just keep shopping.

I need to not.

Christmas Spending Final Tally

Our budget (me and Jordan) for this Christmas was $1,000 on gifts.  We had a total of 24 people (or groups of people in some cases) to buy for.  Whoa! On the surface, that seems like a lot of people.  Well, maybe it is - maybe it isn't.

This year, Jordan and I decided to do all gifts as joint presents from the both of us - so our list got bigger (because there was one, not two) - but the overall spending went wayyyy down.

Our list included:

• My Mom & Dad
• Jordan's Mom & Dad
• Our brothers
• Our brother's others
• Two very good friends of mine (and one of them has a daughter who's three)
• Our grandparents (my grandma/grandpa and Jordan's grandmother)
• My great aunt
• Two of my cousins (Jordan participated in the cousins draw this year - so he'll receive a gift from one of my cousins too)
• Two sets of Jordan's aunts/uncles
• Something for each of our co-workers
• We through in three birthday's into this budget (my brother, my grandpa, and one of Jordan's folks).

Phew!

We spent a grand total of $898.63 on Christmas gifts!  That's $101.37 under budget!! Well that sounds just too good to be true (...so it probably is). A couple of things that we didn't plan for - but will in coming years -include:

• Decorations
• Christmas incidentals
• GST

We spent an additional $337 on decorations and incidentals and $63.82 on GST.

So, in case you don't want to do the math.  Jordan and I have spent $1,340.17 on Christmas - or $670.08 each.  Considering that last year I spent just over $2,000 on Christmas BY MYSELF  - I would call this a success. 

Our Christmas incidentals (which i just called decorations in the spreadsheet) included: ribbon, gift wrap, treat tins, wreaths, the tree, ginger bread houses, tape, tree ordainments, cookie sheets, and a few bottles of cheer from the liquor store :)

I actually think this is a success (although I fear some reader's will think it's not).  Jordan and I have the money, and didn't go into debt for any of our spending this Christmas - and that's a thing worth celebrating.

I should also mention that the numbers above do not include any spending we did or will do on each other.  This wasn't part of our joint Christmas budget.  I won't get into details because Jordan reads this blog, but I will say that I didn't go into debt for Jordan's gifts either. That money was from my entertainment budget and Christmas fund.


- oh, and it feels sooooo good to be finished Christmas shopping already!

Christmas Cheer

Unfortunately I have nothing all too insightful to share with you this morning, so instead - I leave you with some Christmas Cheer:

Jordan and I got this decoration at the mall this weekend - it was a little pricey ($20) - but so worth it :D

How Much Does Your Christmas Tree Really Cost?

Real or fake - do you know how much your Christmas Tree really costs?

Growing up, my family always went out to my grandparents farm and cut down a tree for Christmas.  After I moved out and had my own place, I continued to have live trees each year - as I'm now a good three hours from the farm - I buy one.  This year, Jordan and I bought our tree from Super Store.  They had a save double the GST day last weekend - so it wound up being $38.  It's a beautiful tree (see left) !







My parents on the other hand, have moved to a fake tree - it's something my dad has always wanted because he didn't like the mess a tree makes.  I believe mom got it at Costco for $150-$200.

One argument is that mom & dad (and everyone else who gets a fake tree) will be able to use it year after year - that's true.  For a great many years they will be able to enjoy the same one whereas Jordan and I will have to purchase a new live tree each year.  After 4 or 5 years the fake tree would have 'paid for itself' so on the surface, it would appear that we should buy a fake tree.

Well, that's not going to happen.

One, I'm a traditionalist to some extent and going out and getting a tree (even from a store), sawing of the base, setting it up, the smell, the mess is part of Christmas for me - I love it all!!

Two, I would argue that it actually costs more to have a fake tree.

According to an article written on about.com (and something my aunt told me this past weekend) fake trees are made with polyvinyl chloride (or PVC, otherwise known as vinyl), one of the most environmentally offensive forms of non-renewable, petroleum-derived plastic.


The article continues by detailing the perils of PVC....


...several known carcinogens, including dioxin, ethylene dichloride and vinyl chloride, are generated during the production of PVC, polluting neighborhoods located near factory sites. Most of those factory sites are actually in China, where 85 percent of the fake trees sold in North America originate. Labor standards there don’t adequately protect workers from the dangerous chemicals they are handling.


Now - there is a downside to purchasing a Christmas tree like Jordan and I did.  Often, these trees have been treated with repeated applications of pesticides over their typical eight-year lifecycles. Therefore, while they are growing--and then again once they are discarded--they may contribute to pollution of local watersheds. The plus of going out and cutting down a tree yourself, like we did when we were little, is that they won't have been treated by pesticides (at least if your getting your tree of my grandparent's farm).

Beyond the run-off issue, the sheer numbers of trees that get discarded after every holiday can be a big waste issue for municipalities that aren't prepared to mulch them for compost.  However; if a city/town is able - these trees can be composted/recycled - which fake trees cannot (at least that I am aware of).

There is a fourth option that I have never tried - I'm curious if any of you have.  You can purchase a live tree, that still has it's roots.  It can then be planted back outside after Christmas.  I've learned that since trees are dormant in the winter, live trees should spend no more than a week indoors as  they may“wake up” and begin to grow again in the warmth of your home. If this happens there is a good chance the tree will not survive once it is returned to the cold winter outdoors and replanted (about.com)


So...Do you know how much your Christmas tree costs?

Christmas Spending Update

When I first made a budget for Christmas, I just sort of guessed that $500 would work - well, it turns out that, that, is not a very realistic number.  I have a great many people in my life!  Not only that, so does Jordan. 

Jordan had a great idea of giving gifts as a couple rather then gifts from each of us.  This will allow us to do one great gift intstead of two smaller ones - so, the budget and the spending will nearly double!  Which is fine, because two of us will be paying for everything.

I won't post all the details b/c some of the people we'll be buying for read this blog from time to time - I will say that we are buying for 22 people (not including each other and we also have two birthday gifts in here)!!  What fun! 

Our total realistic budget is about $1,100, though I'd like to  keep it at, or under, $1,000.  We'll be spending anywhere from $15 (secret santa at work) to $150 (close family) a person.   This past weekend we spent just under $400 on Christmas presents allready and crossed 9 people off the list.

Has anyone else started Christmas shopping?

Weekend Update

I had an amazing weekend!

I was actually pretty sick for most of it with an awful cold, but my mom, two aunts, and grandmother were in town for our annual Christmas Shopping Trip, and how could I complain about a cold in such great company.  I'm pretty sure I stayed on budget - but i'll check my receipts and do up a post on that later on.

Not only did I accomplish a lot of Christmas shopping, I also bought two new bras that I'm very excited about!! and my amazing mom bought me a third that I wanted!!  Any bigger chested women who read my blog will understand what a great bra feels like and how exciting it is to get one (or three!).  I'll write more about this in a seperate post.

That's it for today - I've got receipts to go through and presents to hide!

Christmas - It's seriously in 126 days

Yes, I'm thinking about the holidays already....

In particular, when doing up my revised budget yesterday, something occurred to me. I've arbitrarily decided I would like to save up $500 for Christmas spending, but realistically I will spend WAYYYY more. Last year, I spent over $1,200 on gifts and over $600 on decorations. YIKES!

This year I won't spend neeearly as much on decorations, but it's likely I would probably spend $50-$100 on a few things (ie. a tree, among others)

How will I spend less on Christmas gifts!? There are so many people that I exchange with....Last year, I really really tried (two really's, that means it's true) to be thoughtful and considerate with my gift giving - not just super spendy. I think I achieved that, but I was ALSO super spendy. This year I want to try to be thoughtful without breaking the bank.

This year I'm looking at a minumum of 14 people, and that doesn't include any potential work-related gift exchanges or others that may come up. That list includes:

1. My mom
2. My dad
3. My brother
4. Lindsay, my brother's girlfriend and my roommate
5. Jordan
6. Lisa - a very good friend of mine from childhood
7. Amy - a very good Friend of mine from recent years
8. My grandma
9. My grandpa
10. My Nanny (my dad's mom)
11. One of my cousins (I have a pile of 'em and we draw names every year)
12. Cheryl & Rob - Jordan's parents
13. Jordan's grandmother
14. Jordan's brother

phew!

I clearly will need to put some extra $$ towards Christmas.

How many people are you shopping for this year? What's your budget?

14 days until I am credit card debt free