Counting My Pennies » holiday

Christmas is coming

Megan — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 16:14:45 +0000

Welcome Consumerist readers. Not that I expect many of you to stay. Still, it’s always fun to be reading through my feeds, and find my site linked!

With the holidays fast approaching, I’ve been thinking about Christmas shopping. In my family, we always make wishlists so we know what to buy each other. Sure, there are always surprises (my sister is going to be amazed with what I bought her this year), but sometimes, you want to buy a gift for someone, but don’t know what to get. I would prefer to remove some of the surprise but know that what I bought was wanted and enjoyed. That’s more important to me than surprising someone.

Sometimes, this is hard though. Having just moved, my wishlist is mostly things like “a leaf blower” and “Home Depot gift cards so I can buy paint.” Not the most exciting thing. And I’m getting family reactions to that. “These aren’t fun gifts!” True, but they are things that will make me happy.

How do you feel about practical gifts? Do you prefer to give something that you know will be used again and again, or do you go for the one time “Wow” factor?

Black Friday

Megan — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 13:46:21 +0000

So, who’s reading this after a morning of shopping? Was it worth it?

I’m at work today, and on my way out of the building, I ran into a bunch of my neighbors, coming in after their morning shopping extravaganza. It was just before 7am, and they had been out since before midnight! They did have a lot of bags in their arms, and seemed tired, but happy.

I went Black Friday shopping once. A few years ago, I ate Thanksgiving dinner with a friend and her family. Part of their tradition was to go to the outlet malls at midnight, then to Target at 6am. Thankfully, it was just for the adventure of the shopping, not to fight their way to the super cheap tvs. It was an adventure for sure, but I don’t know that I’ll be doing that again. Problem number one was that we fell asleep after dinner, which meant getting back up for midnight shopping. Then we fell asleep again, and had to get up for 6am shopping. That was painful.

I will say though, there were some great deals to be had. I bought some clothes that I still wear, and some great dishes that are in constant use in my kitchen.

This year, my Black Friday shopping will all be online. Well, at lunch, I might hit up some of the stores near my office to see what’s left. While the super deals might not be available, there might be something that’s been on my list for a while available on sale.

Did you go Black Friday shopping? Did you camp out? Was it fun, or awful?

End of Vacation

Megan — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 10:00:07 +0000

Sorry for the lack of blog posts this past week. I hope everyone enjoyed the holiday, even if you don’t celebrate. Today, I’m heading home after a long trip to my hometown. It was a great trip, but I’m really glad to be heading back. I’m a little disappointed that I missed all the snow in DC, but at the same time, I was really lucky to have travel plans that didn’t get interrupted.

What did get interrupted were my plans to blog. My parents live in the middle of nowhere (it’s beautiful out there), but they have satellite internet that was on the fritz a bit. Yes, I could have blogged from my phone, but that seemed like a lot of work while I was on vacation.

My Christmas was wonderful. My gifts were all very well received, and I’m already starting to think about next Christmas. I have birthdays and Mother’s/Father’s day between now and then, but it never hurts to stock up on gifts. I gift-hunt year round, and it tends to pay off.

I can’t believe the year is already over. I still can’t figure out where the last quarter of the year went. It’s like it was August and now it’s December. I completely missed my blogiversary, but I’ll include some of those entries in my year-end recap (which at the rate I’m going, will happen sometime in March).

2010 is stacking up to be an interesting year. I’m hoping to finish the year with a new job and possibly a firm decision on housing. I’m seriously considering buying a place this year, so I’m going to start looking around to see what I can find. I’ll likely end up with a condo, given housing prices in DC, but that’s okay. It would be nice to not be paying so much rent every month. But who knows – it might not be for me. It’s a big decision, so I’m not taking it lightly. But either way, it should be interesting.

A much needed break

Megan — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:15:28 +0000

Today is my last day of work before I start my holiday vacation and I am incredibly excited to have some time off (would-be burglars take note – I have someone staying in my apartment with my cats and she knows kung fu). As much as I love vacations where I get to travel somewhere fun, I’m very excited about this vacation, where I get to go to my parents’ house and be lazy. Well, sort of lazy. There’s lots of visiting to be done, of course, and I will be helping with Christmas preparations, but it will be nice to have a trip free of responsibility for a while.

2009 became the year of the Staycation, and the more stressed I get at work, the more the idea of a Staycation appeals to me. Just a week to hang out at home, plow through my household project list, sleep in, watch movies, and just do whatever I want. Unfortunately, that’s not really an option. I don’t quite have enough annual leave stored up for that.

Sometimes, I forget that a vacation doesn’t need to cost a lot of money. For this trip, I bought my plane tickets and will probably try to pay for dinner if we eat out. And it will be an enjoyable trip. I think in 2010, I’m going to try to take a long weekend to myself, where I just use the days off to relax and do things that I want to do. Even if I spent the whole time on household projects, getting those off my task list and off my mind will reduce my stress level and that’s exactly what a vacation should do.

What are your plans for the holidays? Are you already mentally planning vacations for next year?

Holidays in the Office

Megan — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 14:10:38 +0000

So if you haven’t noticed, it’s the holiday season. I know, it’s kind of a surprise. But it’s actually here. If you ask the advertisers, it’s been here since about August, but that’s a different story for a different day.

As it’s the holiday season, you may have noticed some holiday events going on in your office. In a way, I’m lucky. I’m a federal employee, so while we do have a small holiday party, we have some pretty strict rules on gift giving and how much we can give. There’s a financial limit on gifts (I think it’s under $10, but I could be wrong). Of course, there are exceptions, such as if a baby shower is being thrown and that sort of thing. But I’m not expected to give gifts or pitch in for gifts for coworkers or supervisors, and I have to say, I really like that.

I was chatting with a friend yesterday who was venting about the fact that a coworker came around with a collection envelope, politely insisting that she give $25 for a gift for her supervisor. In addition, she was asked to contribute money to a party and to gifts for the administrative staff. While she didn’t mind contributing to the party and truly believed that the administrative staff deserved every gift they received and then some, she was a little miffed at having to contribute so much for a gift for her supervisor, someone she doesn’t even particularly like. Of course, she had the option to not contribute, but then her name wouldn’t go on the card, and the last thing my friend wanted was for her supervisor to know she hadn’t bothered to contribute to a gift for her.

It was definitely an uncomfortable situation for her. In the end, she did contribute, but she wasn’t happy about it. She much would have preferred putting in $25 for a donation to a local charity in her boss’s name. I believe they ended up getting the supervisor some sort of framed decoration for her office.

I’m not a fan of the forced gifting either. Gifts should be given because you want to give, not because you feel like you have to give. Has anyone else gotten trapped in a forced gifting situation?

Money Awkwardness

Megan — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:00:20 +0000

My uncle, a musician, wants to buy me a guitar for Christmas. I’m really excited about this – I really really would love to have a guitar. And when he asked me what I liked, I gave him some general ideas, but stressed that while I wanted something that would sound good, I’m a relative beginner so I wanted something inexpensive, something I could upgrade in a few years if I wanted to.

He wanted me to go to a local guitar place and check out a few different shapes and styles to see what I liked the best. And suddenly, the gift became awkward.

When I gave him generics, I knew that I was still talking a pricey gift, but I could ignore the cost. Plus I figure he has all sorts of connections and could find something much cheaper than I could. But then I had to go to the store and see the price and then make a decision, knowing that he wants to get me something I want, but I needed to keep it in a reasonable price range.

I found one that seemed reasonable, but getting him the information just felt painfully awkward. “Hi, buy me this.” Even though that’s what he wanted me to do. Money and family is just awkward.

Sucked in by Christmas

Megan — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 10:00:58 +0000

I don’t think it’s a secret that I love Christmas. I think it’s in my genes. A few years ago, my brother commented that during the holidays, my parents’ house looks like Christmas threw up on it. My mom makes the house look like something out of a magazine. I believe she had nine trees last year. Nine. Trees. Now admittedly, half of those trees are small. One is a tiny table-top tree placed in the laundry room as a joke (all of the other rooms have trees, after all). But it’s not just trees. There are ribbons and greens strewn throughout the house, a Christmas village (for the cats to sleep in), stockings for every family member, including the pets, candles, lights, etc. I love it. Possibly because I don’t live there anymore, so I don’t have to help with the setup or cleanup.

I’m already itching to get my Christmas decorations out. I will have them done by the end of the month, as I am hosting book club the first Thursday of December, and I want everyone to see my decorations. I might start them as early as next weekend.

One thing I love to do at Christmas is go to the mall and see all the decorations. Of course, along with going to the mall to see decorations, there is always shopping. And everyone has such great Christmas items! I love the scents that accompany Christmas, which means that I have to be careful to not buy too many candles or room sprays or shower gels. I don’t need more decorations, so I have to avoid those as well.

I haven’t been to the mall in months. I’m pretty impressed by this. It’s definitely helped keep my spending in control, and I’m thinking about not going until my annual birthday shopping trip (when I use birthday gift money to replenish my work wardrobe). But the idea of missing out on the holiday decorations makes me a little sad.

And that’s exactly what the retailers want. They do everything they can to get the customer into the store because they know that once the customer is there, they will end up spending money. So I will just enjoy the free holiday decorations elsewhere and avoid the temptation to spend. At least until January. When all bets are off.

Catalog Madness

Megan — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:00:30 +0000

Yesterday, my mailbox was full to the point of exploding. Thankfully, it wasn’t bills. Some charity donation requests, but what was filling the mailbox were all the catalogs. Some of them were catalogs I expected – those from stores that I have ordered from in the past. Some were just completely random though. I can’t imagine what I did to get myself on a catalog for fantasy lawn ornaments, for example. I don’t even have a lawn!

I do like catalogs though. Sometimes it’s nice to page through a catalog to see what a store has to offer. Much easier than browsing a website, where maybe you will only search for items you think you might want. In a catalog, you might see the perfect pair of pants in a category you would have never searched in. Of course, I never order from the catalog and either go to the website or the store. But I know a lot of people do still order from catalogs.

I miss the days when we would get the giant Sears Wishbook would show up and my siblings and I would fight to see who would get to look at it first. The toys in there were so amazing. There was always some sort of giant tent or playhouse, something so big that we had no chance of ever finding it under our tree, but it was fun to dream. I love looking at old Wishbooks and seeing what was hot that year. Catalogs just aren’t the same anymore.

Planning your Holiday Spending

Megan — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 10:00:11 +0000

It feels so weird to be listening to Christmas music and seeing holiday decorations everywhere, but I guess it is November already, so it’s just about that time. I was amazed to see candy canes in the store this weekend. The other decorations have been out for months, but when the candy canes show up, you know the holidays are on their way.

I’ve talked a bit about holiday spending and ways to keep your budget down (handmade gifts! gift certificates for services like babysitting or cooking a homemade dinner!) but I recently got an e-mail from Andre at Offers.com who pointed me to some great features that Offers.com has put together to help you with your holiday spending.

The first feature is a great little Holiday Budget Calculator. I really love this calculator, because it includes everything. Not just gifts, but cards and wrapping, decorations, and travel. While I really should do this, I never include my holiday travel in my holiday budget. Possibly because for the past two years, I’ve bought tickets around six months before Christmas. So that money is long gone by the time November rolls around.

The other thing that I really like is the Math Cheat Sheet. This is the sort of thing that I want to print out and put in my purse. It takes the price of an item and shows you the price if the item is on sale for 15% off, 20% off, and so on, all the way up to 75% off. Now yes, you can always do this sort of math in your head or on your cellphone calculator, but this is a great way to get a quick estimate of the sale price of an item. It’s also a good way to determine whether checking out a sale is worth it or not. 20% off sounds like a good sale, but depending on how much you’re planning to spend, you might not really be saving much at all.

They’ve got a whole holiday shopping section, so check it out. You can even check out the upcoming Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals! Tragically (well, not so tragically), I will be working on Black Friday, so no sales for me. Considering how much I hate crowded stores, that’s not too much of a sacrifice!

Two months out and I’m almost done with Christmas shopping!

Megan — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:00:54 +0000

My mother has trained me well. Christmas is more than two months away and I have just about finished my Christmas shopping. I do still need to buy something for my brother, but he’s easy – I ask him what he wants, he links me to his Amazon Wishlist, and we’re set. He’s hard to buy for, and I’d rather buy him something he wants. But for everyone else, throughout the year, as I was out and about, I kept my eyes peeled for things that would make good gifts.

I have a note clipped into my planner that has a running list of Christmas ideas for my family. This is the first year I’ve done something along those lines and I’m so glad I did. One thing I wanted for my dad won’t be available by Christmas, but this way I’ve already got an idea for his birthday. I’ve also got my mom covered through her birthday and possibly through Mother’s Day. These aren’t purchase that have been made, of course, merely ideas, but that’s the hardest part of the battle.

On one hand, I mock all the holiday decorations that are out in the stores, and I think it’s amusing that my choir started rehearsing for our Christmas concert last night, and yet here I sit, ready for the holidays.

Of course, I will still leave all the wrapping to the very last minute. That’s just how I roll.