My Christmas Roaster
Hello all!
I’m back from Connecticut and getting into the flow of things slowly. I’m glad that I had (well, took) yesterday off from work because it was the only day that I felt like I was on vacation. Christmas was lovely and fun, as was B’s family home where I spent Boxing Day and the day after, but my office wasn’t even open on those days so it didn’t feel like I was missing work.
Anyway, I’m pretty pleased with my gifts, both given and received. I still need to add up the final cost for what I spent on gifts, gift boxes, and cookie ingredients and such, though. I got $70 in cash, a $100 check, and a $100 Visa gift card! Sweet! That pretty much covers what I spent altogether.
Everyone said that they loved my cookies (my cousin’s husband even wrote on my Facebook wall to tell me that they were “flippin’ awesome”) which relieved me. I know that a lot of people always have Christmas cookies / junk food around this time of year and probably don’t need more, but this was the best that I could do. I have approximately seven cookies left that I kept (they weren’t firm enough when I was packaging them and I didn’t have time to wait for them before leaving for Christmas Eve Mass) after eating several others. They’re addicting; it’s probably my secret ingredient: crack. Just kidding. Don’t do drugs, kids.
The gift that I got that was the most wtf? was a copper-bottom roaster from my parents. My mom has gotten on this kick (as of last Christmas) of getting me copper-bottomed cookware and other kitchen stuff in lieu of things that I’ll actually use. Okay, that’s mean and untrue. I do use the things that she’s given me and they’re very nice cookware. Here’s the thing: I don’t cook, or rather I rarely cook. I bake a fair amount (fourteen dozen cookies on Christmas Eve alone), but almost never cook; I could always use more baking utensils and cookie sheets and things…in fact, I had to buy new ones to bake all those darn cookies. She’s not giving me those, though! I realize that this is an attempt to give me the tools that I need to cook, but it’s still not going to happen. I didn’t even know what a roaster was; I had to ask and Mom replied, “It’s for when you roast a turkey or a ham or something.” I snarkily thought to myself, “Because I do THAT all the time.” I bet that I won’t use that thing this side of five years from now. Also, I can’t put copper-bottomed stuff in the dishwasher, so I don’t like using the stuff if I know that I’m going to have to handwash it later.
These are petty gripes after receiving such a lovely, expensive gift. I think that the real issue here is that I never had any say in any of it. I’m very content to use crappy cookware until I get married one day and register for my own stuff…actually, that’s what I’ve always planned. Now I don’t get to search out and register for all those things. So there it is: this is something I’ve always associated with being an adult and getting married, and everytime I get more “marriage” stuff before I’m even engaged, I feel like it’s her saying, “I better give this to you now because you’ll never get married and get your own.” Wow. I didn’t realize that until just now. That’s easy to psychoanalyze, isn’t it?
On the other hand, she got me a great knife set, too, and THAT I can actually use. The hand-me-down ones that I’ve had barely dent butter.
So despite my terrible ungratefulness for the roaster, I really appreciated everything else that I received. Most of all, I enjoyed all my time with my extended family and B’s family and that’s what’s most important.
My Thoughts on Gifts, Gift Cards, and Gift Receipts
Sorry for the lack of updates! Recently, I’ve been reading a lot of online stories and real books and just generally doing things that take me away from the blog. I’ve been mostly keeping up with the blogs in my blogroll even though I rarely comment on them, so I haven’t forgotten about you all.
On Saturday morning I went to a nearby Kohl’s to get some picture frames for some of the gifts that I’m giving. I should have known that I’d get into trouble. By trouble, I mean that I bought stuff for me, too. Along with the three 4″ x 6″ frames, I picked up a set of 10 frames of assorted sizes for $20. They all match AND they match the color of my living room / dining room furniture, so it’ll be perfect to put up and fill up some blank wall space. The other thing I picked up for myself is a set of two wall sconces for about $17.50. I want these to go on either side of my framed / matted movie poster of The Quiet Man (my favorite movie); I’ve wanted to get matching sconces like this pretty much since I moved in about fifteen months ago, but either never had the money or never found something that I liked enough. Finally I found these! Now, I probably shouldn’t have bought them since my family’s rule (and mine) has always been not to buy things for ourselves between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I broke the rule last year, too, because I desperately needed dress pants that fit me, but otherwise I’ve been good over the years. Honestly, though, I picked it up and refused to have the argument with myself. If I regret it, I can return it…and the set of frames.
I’d have to go back to my last posts to be sure, but I think that I’m around $125 for presents so far. I still need to pick up a couple small things for my parents and B, and I need to get containers for the cookies that I’m baking for people. Oh, and some bottles of wine. And the thing for RC. I won’t see them until after New Years’, though, so I can wait on that. Hmm. Definitely not done shopping.
I got a $50 Macy’s gift card from one of my bosses, so I’m going to try to use that for my mom’s gift when I go shopping tonight. I know that some people really try to use gift cards to buy things for themselves and I do, sometimes. Mostly I tend to see gift cards as money that I can spend at that store whenever I happen to go there–if it’s for me, great, but if it’s for someone else, even better. Part of my purchase at Kohl’s this weekend was spent with store credit that I had from a gift return from last Christmas. My mom picked out the ugliest pajamas that I knew I’d never wear. Ew.
Speaking of receiving gifts that one will never use, my grandmother is terrible about letting us return stuff. Last Christmas she ALSO gave me pajamas that I knew I’d never wear. Not only were they ugly, but they were WAY too big for me. I think she thinks I weigh 100 lbs. more than I do. I told her nicely that they didn’t fit because I wear a size small…and in this brand even an extra-small. She told me that they were supposed to be big (as to be more comfortable??). I didn’t mention that I can’t sleep in things that are too large for me because they get too twisted up (shoot, I can’t even sleep if I roll my back onto my own blankets—the princess and the pea has nothing on me). Anyway, instead of just telling me where she got them so that I could return them (I’d have been happy with store credit, even), she asked me to give them to her and she’d return them. Well, then I felt awful, putting her to extra trouble, but I was hoping that they wouldn’t have anything in my size to exchange them for. And I was halfway right. I eventually got the pajamas in a size small, but they were still too big. And I still didn’t like them. You know what, though? Still have them. I wore the pajama pants exactly one time and it was because all my other pants were dirty. One time my grandmother gave my mom two left-footed slippers; when Mom told her that they didn’t fit, my grandmother said snippily that they HAD to fit because Mom and my aunt wore the same size and my aunt’s fit. My mom gave up trying to get them changed and my dad later joked that my aunt probably got two right-footed slippers, but didn’t want to complain.
This is why I always include a gift receipt whenever I purchase clothing for people or almost anything else when I buy in a store. If someone doesn’t like what I get them, I don’t really want to know about it, but I want them to get something they’d like better.
Alright, internet pals. I probably won’t be updating until I get back from Connecticut next week (traveling up there on Boxing Day to see B’s family). If you get bored, you can click over to one of the Personal Finance blogs on my blogroll, or the non-PF blogs below that, including my Redskin Letters blog. Yes, I have a second blog; it is fairly comical, so please do not take anything in it seriously. Also, I’m rude to all commenters (comically?), so if you comment, don’t be surprised if I’m bitchy. It’s all for fun. But please don’t mention THIS blog if you do comment there. My real life pals don’t know about this one.
Anyway, please have a very merry Christmas (or Hanukah) and I’ll be back soon!!!!
My Christmas Savings!
I found a shirt for B as a Christmas gift. It has his favorite football team on it, but it’s also a speedwick shirt that’s supposed to be great for running. Now that he’s running 10+ miles a day and wanting to enter marathons, he’ll be able to use it a lot. Once I went through ebates and found a coupon code for free shipping, the cost was just under $25. I haven’t decided what else I’m getting him yet…perhaps something else football related, like a team blanket since he never has enough covers on his bed. His birthday is in January, so I might wait on that for then.
So aside from sites like ebates and mrrebates, here is another site that you might want to check out to get the best prices. I typed in the information for the shirt that I was getting B and was surprised to find that tons of other people had been searching for it, too, so it must be a fairly well-used site. BeatMyPrice.com seems pretty good; you enter in the product, the website where you’ve found the best price so far, and then the price itself. It’ll take you to a page which lists all the other prices people have seen it for and where. Some even have links to coupon codes (which is where I found the free shipping on an order of $19.99+ from ESPNshop). If you’re shopping for something rather expensive, it’d probably be a great place to look when you think you’ve found the best deal you can.
So far I’ve spent right around $99 on Christmas gifts and probably saved over $40 with coupon codes, ebates.com, and BeatMyPrice.com…and that’s not counting what I’ve saved from just buying things on sale. Yay!
My Christmas Spending
I’m back, pals! Back from nowhere, really, but I’m ready to start posting again. I don’t know why I felt like I needed the break, but I’m ready for things to get back to normal. I’m also (for now) ditching my weekly to-do lists. I wasn’t getting anything done anyway.
So Christmas is coming! I’m in the holiday spirit and my biggest problem (if you can call it that) is that B won’t let me listen to Christmas music around him. I understand–this is the first year since my senior year of high school that I got into the Christmas spirit more than two days before Christmas. I’ve been listening to 97.1 for the 24/7 Christmas music and loving it!
So I’ve done something silly…or rather I haven’t done something. I never made a Christmas budget. And I’m not going to, either. I was getting so stressed out trying to budget that I just gave up (that sounds healthy, right?). January is a three-paycheck month for me, so I’ll let that soak up some of the overflow…if there is overflow. Because even without a budget, I’ve been getting great deals on things.
My younger brother’s gift is taken care of (or will be when I receive things in the mail). I got him three c.d.’s that he wanted. I have to say that the Amazon wishlist thing is quite helpful. One c.d. is an old one that I was able to order for about $4 off of an Amazon seller. The other two are new, but were $10.99 and $9.99 respectively and I got free shipping. So his gift was right at $25.
My cousin has two sons, 2 and 4 months old. I’m just going to give them two coloring books and some markers. Obviously the baby can’t play with those, but my cousin won’t care. Approximate cost for this is $13.
My dad told me that he wanted some dry sacks (or wet sacks?), these bags that keep everything in them completely dry if a person tosses the bag into a river while fishing. I’ve used them before when tubing on a river, to hold keys, wallets, clothes, etc. I just tie it to a rope and let it float on the water. Anyway, my dad gets this Sportsman’s Guide catalogue thing and told me that it was a 3-pack for about $17. When I went to the website, it was $15-something. I found a $5 off coupon code, so my final price (with tax and shipping) was $15.46, I believe. I’m going to find him something else to go along with this; maybe a shirt from Kohl’s where I still have about $20 on a gift card.
I picked out two books for my mom and used ebates to get a good price. I’m getting 8% cash back by going through Borders.com and I got 30% off one item. The two books were originally $13.95, so I didn’t have the $25 to qualify for the free shipping until I added the two coloring books that I got for my cousin’s sons. My final price was $33.20, without the 8% cashback. With it, it’ll be something like $30.54. I think that I’ll get my mom gloves and a scarf to finish up her gift.
So I’ve spent just under $75 so far. I’m planning on baking cookies or making candy for gifts for other people mostly. Other gifts that I need to buy:
For B: I have a few ideas…I want to keep this under $50
For RC: A couple years ago R and I went halfsies on a boxed set of Friends with the intention to buy a new boxed set someday. At the time, we paid around $172. I’ve seen it online for as little as $80. I’m thinking that if I buy it, their gift really only costs $40…and less if you count C’s birthday in a couple weeks and R’s birthday that I never really finished getting a gift for a few months ago.
For B’s parents: wine and a framed picture of B and I.
For my grandparents: framed picture of B and I, and some cookies.
For my cousin and her husband: wine and cookies. I’d like to make some cookies that her older son can eat because he has tons of food allergies.
Another cousin: bottle of wine or cookies. He and I always exchange one bottle so I might keep this up.
Otherwise, that should be it for me. I’m estimating my costs to be around $175 for the things that I haven’t bought yet, not including the cookie ingredients and all the wrapping and things. Estimating that that will be an additional $75 (I hope that that’s a steep estimate) and adding that to the $75 that I’ve already spent, I’m hoping that I don’t go over $325. Man. That’s even lower than I expected. I’d even be okay with $400.
So, budget or no, I’m still doing pretty well. As long as my friends and family love baked goods (which reminds me that I might have to buy a couple extra cookie sheets or this will take forever).
My Less-Than-Rewarding E-Rewards Experience
Okay, so I’m somewhat bent out of shape about E-Rewards. Last week I mentioned that I wanted to switch it to link to my Upromise account, but first I’d get the $15 credits to my Borders rewards account. I started to do this today when I found out that I can only redeem that particular award once a year. Super.
I redeemed it once, then decided to just find anything else so I could close my account. I wound up with six free movie rentals from Blockbuster, that can only be used once a month for the next six months. This is fine and I bet that B and I will use them. I still had $10.50 in e-rewards currency available, so I cashed that out for $10 off at ProFlowers.com. This offer expires 31 July, but that’s the same day as my grandmother’s birthday, so I’ll go with it. The cheapest arrangements I saw were $29.99, so I’ll wind up paying $20+tax and shipping. That’s not awful and I won’t have to put any more thought into the gift, so I’m okay with it.
Now I’ve cancelled and reopened linked to Upromise and I’ve discovered what I have to earn to get the rewards. For $25 e-rewards currency, I get $5 to Upromise; $50 is $20; and $100 is $50. So it’s only worth it if I cash out after $100 each time. I knew that I wasn’t going to get the full amount, of course, but I’d hoped that it would be a little better than this.
Still, though, I won’t have to try to search through all the different rewards that mostly suck. This way the money will actually go to something I need—paying off my student loans.
My Gift-Giving
When shopping for gifts, I go overboard. I always start out with a budget in mind, like, say, $25.00. Then I’ll find something for less than that and I’m thrilled…yet, I continue looking for add-ons to the gift since I don’t want to appear cheap or like I don’t value the person who will receive it.
My father’s birthday was at the end of February; I went to Target and browsed through the available CDs, finding a perfect one for (guessing here) maybe $12 or $13. Then I looked through the DVDs and found an old western that I knew he’d also like. I could have stopped right there; I mean, $22, $23 was right within my budget. I saw another DVD, though, and thought that my gift NOW seemed complete. A CD and a couple DVDs? Nothing to complain about there.
Then I went to the card section and picked one out and then to the gift wrap section. Since B and I were together and driving straight to my parents’ house, I bought a bag and tissue paper to wrap everything up quickly in the car. The final price was probably around $40 instead of $25. B paid for half so the gift was from us both, but it was unnecessary to spend so much!
So I was happy this time around, for Father’s Day. I called Dad and asked if there was anything he wanted in particular. He wanted time to think and said he’d call back in a couple days. Instead I received a call a few hours later; he knew just the thing. He grills a LOT during the summer (and spring and fall…heck, he’s been known to fire up the grill with snow on the ground all around him) and a year and a half ago he broke the dual thermometer (measures meat temp and heat temp) that came with the gas grill, so he wanted a new one. While we spoke, I went to weber.com, got information I needed from him and proceeded to order a new thermometer. My final cost for it, the tax, and the shipping, was $19.99. Sweet.
If I decide to give dad a card, I have tons of little blank ones that I can use, and I have a crate full of wrapping paper, tissue paper, bags, boxes, and bows that I save throughout the year, from Christmas and my birthday, so I don’t have to spend more on those extras. By planning ahead, I would rarely have to buy those things. For Dad’s birthday, I already had a bag and tissue paper, but I didn’t know what I was getting him and didn’t want to lug my gift wrap crate, so I bought new stuff. Ridiculous.
