Why You Need to Stockpile Presents for Your Kids for the Holidays — or Any Occasion!

Why You Need to Stockpile Presents for Your Kids for the Holidays — or Any Occasion!

We have totes for everything — storing holiday decorations, keeping the umpteen feral cats in our neighborhood warm during cold winter nights, planting small varieties of tomatoes, etc.

It’s not quite as bad as my mason jar habit, but it’s getting there…

Then, one summer, we found an extremely value-priced Imaginext playset at a garage sale, and my love of totes jumped to a whole new level.

We made the $2 plunge and bought the toy for our son, but as “luck” would have it, he was being extremely contrary that day, so a new toy wasn’t in the cards for him. While we pondered where we could store this fairly sizeable and yet 99%-cheaper-than-new playset, my thoughts strayed to a large, grey tote we had in our attic.

So, with the toy safely stashed in our 150-year-old attic, away from prying hands and nosey toddlers, we decided we’d simply give it to our son for his next birthday, which was in a few months. As per routine, we went out the next weekend to garage sales and found a really cool toy guitar for our daughter. Again, it was, I think, a dollar, but we don’t like the habit of giving our kids presents for no reason, so up to the attic it went.

Thus, through the magic of simulated time travel and a knack for spotting good deals on gently used toys, the Future Present Tote was born.

But What About Buying New Toys?

When I was a kid, I’d always get a combination of hand-me-down toys and new toys for holidays and birthdays. (I also got socks and stuff, but I try to block out the more sadistic traits of my family and focus on the good.)

Whether the present was a brand new doll or a tea set from Goodwill, I never knew the difference because it was always new to ME. I mean, it’s possible my toys were judging each other on being shiny and new, like some Mean Girls/Toy Story crossover, but who was I to get involved?

As a parent, though, I totally understand why my mother or grandparents might have opted to give me secondhand stuff — toys are expensive.

Not only is the cost an issue, but new toys are…well…sorta wasteful, don’t you think? When you buy a used toy or doll, you cut down on package waste, and you might save an item that was otherwise destined for the landfill. You put money directly into the hand of an actual person rather than a huge corporation. And, if after their presents are opened, your child decides within a few months they no longer like Power Rangers, you are out like $10 instead of $100+.

The New Adventures of Old Toys

If you have older children, I can see why you might hesitate to give them “used” toys, but you’d be surprised what you can find at garage sales and online resale sites that are actually in really great shape! For example, when I worked at PBS, I went on a huge Bob Ross kick and ended up buying a Bob Ross paint set.

Once I realized that maybe I wasn’t so great at painting happy trees, I decided to sell it — nearly new and at a third of the cost! Something like that would make for a great gift for older kids.

On the other end of things, if your children are young enough, you can also “retire” certain toys to the future presents box when they get new ones. This frees up space, reduces clutter, and allows you to keep them interested in a lesser amount of junk well-loved toys and stuffed animals. Then, after a while, you can reintroduce the old toy and watch them regard it with renewed interest.

Fantastic Deals and Where to Find Them

Where to stock up on future presents is probably the most fun part of the whole experience, aside from the money you’ll save. We love spending a Saturday morning perusing garage sales during the summer — it’s a great way to score deals while also enjoying sunshine and exercise as a family! Typically, we find some decent things in the fall, but those first spring garage sales are where it’s at.

People are very eager to clear their house out after winter, and especially since Christmas’ excesses and new toys are somewhat still lingering, you can get some really cool stuff dirt cheap.

Another opportunity is Facebook’s Marketplace feature. As your kids’ birthdays approach, run a few casual searches on their favorite things, and you’ll be surprised at what you can find. We picked up a Doc McStuffins playset for my daughter for $1 that would normally go for $30, were it brand new. It’s in pristine condition, not missing anything, and the family was happy to get rid of it as their children had grown out of it.

Granted, it’s a bit bigger than the tote, but the concept still holds true — she got it for Christmas and ADORES it.

Give Totes a Chance

This isn’t the first nor last time I’ll wax poetically about the usefulness of totes, so you might as well get on board. Pick up a tote and pick a hiding spot because this method of saving money is a keeper.

The only downside, of course, is that if you don’t hide it well, and I mean really well, it’s like a time capsule treasure chest for sneaky little hands. Aside from that, though, get yourself a future presents tote and start saving money for your future in the present.

More From Thrifty Guardian?

20 Parenting Mistakes That Could Scar Your Child for Life

The Easiest Ways to Start a Christmas Savings Account

The post Why You Need to Stockpile Presents for Your Kids for the Holidays — or Any Occasion! first appeared on Thrifty Guardian.

Featured Image Credit: Shutterstock / Yuganov Konstantin

35 Uses for White Vinegar

35 Uses for White Vinegar

When not turning into wine, vinegar is my second favorite use for grapes (and getting that nasty gunk off ’em!) Vinegar also makes for a fantastic part of a salad dressing and it’s a nice way to marinate some meat, but it’s a high-performer elsewhere in the house as well. That said, please note that my suggestions below are just that – suggestions. Don’t use vinegar on something without spot-testing first as I am in no way liable should you use vinegar in a way that causes unfortunate results.

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How I Threw a Downtown Wedding For Less Than $4,000

How I Threw a Downtown Wedding For Less Than $4,000

You may have noticed lately that ThriftyGuardian has had a LOT of guest posts and I promise it’s not because I’m getting lazy 😉

Rather (if you haven’t yet heard….)

WE GOT MARRIED! 😀

So needless to say, I had to bring a few friends to help keep ThriftyGuardian running while I juggled wedding planning + #thetoddlers + running my own business…easy peasey, right?

Well I’m happy to say that I’m back at it and I’m eager to share with you how I put together a frugal wedding that didn’t look frugal!

My Frugal Wedding Planning

When we finally picked a date, my first thought was of course about the budget (heh I can’t help it! Frugality is life!)

I knew I wanted to throw a wedding downtown, it was important to me that no one feel tempted to drive, regardless of how much they were or weren’t drinking. I also wanted to be able to continue the party at my all-time favorite bar (Floyd’s, for those of you who are local!)

When I brought up my plans to my maid-of-honor, she scoffed. “There’s no way you can throw a wedding in Springfield for less than $5k,” she told me. And after I spoke to a few other friends, I began to fear she was right.

The Right Place, The Right Time

As luck would have it, my MoH and I happened to head out for a girl’s night to a new(ish) place in town – Arlington’s Restaurant. As we walked in, I was immediately in awe — this place was GORGEOUS! And the food….oooh my goodness. I was in love.

And guess what?

Our waitress just happened to mention that the upstairs area was available for rent!!

Now not only were we lucky in that this beautiful space was available (I’ve recently heard they’ll well booked through January 2018!) but it fit well within our budget.

I was sold.

You’ve got the wedding venue – now what?

Once the wedding venue was booked, the hard part began. There were so many decisions to be made! Time frame, food, drinks, hotel block, colors, decorations…so much to do and I’d given myself only six months to do it!

Given that my entire business runs around my ability to be efficient, I knew the first thing to do was to develop that budget. Having a number in mind is great, but was it possible? Only one way to find out…

(Please note this article contains affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission should you click through. This in no way impacts my recommendation of any products/services.)

Developing Your Wedding Budget

To begin, set a budget that gives you a tiny bit of buffer, but not so much that you’ll be tempted to spend when you don’t have to. Again, my budget was $5,000 (with us ideally staying under $4,000!) If you’re getting ready to plan your own wedding, please take my advice when I say – do NOT Google average prices of various wedding components! For example, wedding flowers cost an average of $2,000 (!!) Ooph. No.

Figure out what you feel is fair/reasonable and go from there, adjusting as necessary but recognizing that adding to one area will pull from another.

Our original Wedding Budget was as follows:

Groom’s Clothing/Accessories 120
Bride’s Clothing/Accessories 150
Kid’s Clothing 150
Venue 2,000
Cake 300
Bridal Party Gifts 200
Photos 1000
“Honeymoon” 500
Misc 500
TOTAL $4,920

Now, I already know what you’re thinking – $150 for the bride?! $500 for a photographer?! Where’s the DJ??!

Well stick with me, we’ll get there…

Wedding Budget – The Clothing

I’ve never been a “big wedding, expensive white dress” kind of gal, so that alone really helped us in saving money while still giving us an end result we loved. I had two desires when it came to the wedding clothing –

1. I wanted to wear a petticoat. I love petticoats.

2. Henry (our 3 yr old) needed suspenders. He looks flippin’ ADORABLE in suspenders.

So my starting place involved petticoats and suspenders…how could I NOT do a Rockabilly/50s theme??

Answer: I couldn’t. Rockabilly it was!

I clicked on over to Amazon and sure enough, found the perfect wedding dress for only $30!!

And because I’m a kind, wonderful bride (though maybe too kind…more on that later…) I had my bridesmaids buy the same dresses, but in a different color. Having spent nearly $200 on my own bridesmaid dress a few years ago, there was no way I’d inflict the same financial pain on someone else.

Then for my accessories, I went with a bird cage veilwhite Mary Jane(esque) shoes, and some costume pearls. All-in-all, my total wardrobe cost: $80 (original budget: $150)

We lucked out with our daughter’s clothing, in that we happened to visit my mom when her local JcPenney was closing! My daughter’s dress cost us $7 and even with her shoes and the same set of pearls I bought myself, her overall outfit cost us $32 (original budget: $75)

For the men, we decided to keep things simple. They wore white shirts, black pants, and black/white Chucks. My husband’s and son’s clothing cost a total of $200 (original budget: $195) – a bit over budget, until we factored in Rakuten!

Total spent on clothing for the family: $312 (original budget: $420)

 

Saving Money on the Wedding Venue

Thus far we were well on track to staying under budget, but food and drinks can add up FAST. Do you do an open bar or cash bar? Sit down dinner or a cocktail hour? Decisions, decisions…

Personally, I’m a beer drinker so if we were going to have ANY free drinks, it was going to be beer. With the guidance of our amazing venue owner, we went with keg beer and a soda bar, everything else being cash bar. And that would be my biggest tip here – TRUST YOUR VENUE OWNER! If you can’t trust the owner, you may need to reconsider where you’re doing business. Ideally your venue owner will be upfront and honest in what works and what doesn’t for your specific budget.

And as I mentioned earlier, our venue has absolutely PHENOMENAL food (heh and clearly I LOVE food!) so figuring out the best plan of action was a bit tough. We ended up going with a later wedding – a start time of 6:30pm – and doing a variety of appetizers (or “drunk people food” as I liked to call ’em). We did decide to provide dinner for the bridal party beforehand so they could eat in between pictures and the wedding, but even with that expense, our total venue cost ended up being right on the nose at about $2,000. So far, so good!

Do You Really Need a Fancy Wedding Cake?

I’ll be honest here – we could have saved a lot more on our wedding cakes than we did but uh…TOTALLY worth it.

 

Obviously the bigger/taller your cake, the more expensive it’ll be. We ordered “sheet cakes” (the prettiest darn sheet cakes I’ve ever seen!!) and got enough to feed 100 people. Total cost: $280

As with everything in wedding planning, you really have to decide what’s most important to you. Would you rather have a huge wedding cake that costs you $6/serving or something that actually lasts beyond the night – like photos or favors?

DIY Wedding Decor

I’m HUGE into DIY and crafting, so that went a long way in helping us save money in our “Misc./Decor” budget. Not to mention we chose a venue that was already gorgeous, so what decor we did need was minimal.

Rather than rent linens from the venue ($15/piece), I kept an eagle eye on our local Facebook resale groups. We were able to pick up all the linens and table runners we needed for only $8/piece and then resold them for $10! Not bad, eh?

We also found a ton of mason jars at a garage sale and I already had other necessities – ribbon, glue, and hot glue guns galore!

I did buy some submersible tea lights to glue to the top of the mason jars and then all I did to create the centerpieces was spray glitter inside the jars, glue flowers to the tops, and wrap some ribbon/pearls around ’em. I added a few butterflies in honor of my grandma who passed in 2001 – she LOVED butterflies.

glittery mason jar with a sunflower top wrapped in orange and teal ribbon

I then used the extra pearl strands and ribbon we had to do some decor for the chair backs:

 

Can You Do Your Own Wedding Photos?

Our biggest budget-saver was when we decided to do our own wedding photos and I am SO glad we did. Now I’m definitely not discounting the benefits of hiring a professional photographer, but I love having saved so much money while also having full access to each and every photo taken that day. While there are a lot of reasons to hire a professional wedding photographer, I feel there were a lot of photos taken that would have otherwise been missed had we hired someone not familiar with our friends/family. So rather than spending $500+ on a photographer, we spent about $100 on a “thank you” gift for a friend who gave us over 500 BEAUTIFUL shots of our entire day.

We also decided to have a photo booth at our wedding and asked that everyone leave us a copy. We built a collapsible display board with chicken wire and everyone loved it. So not only did we have photos of our friends/family being fun and goofy, but everyone got as many favors as they wanted to remember this beautiful day. We even bought little butterfly clothespins from Amazon for only $10 – totally worth it!

Total cost for photographer/photo booth: $360 (original budget: $1,000)

Saving Money on Music & Wedding Flowers

When I first Googled “wedding flowers” and saw the average cost was usually $2,000, my heart dropped; that’s nearly half my budget!! Luckily I love gardening, so set aside some space in our backyard and went about our usual frugal gardening adventures. Unfortunately that didn’t turn out quite as it was supposed to (and legally I’m not allowed to say what happened…) but should you go the route of growing your own wedding flowers, take my word for it when I say you need to make sure no one will “accidentally” spray weed killer near your yard (*grumble grumble*)

Even if you don’t grow your own flowers, though, there are a number of ways you can still save money! We ended up using a lot of fake flowers and I simply cut and pieced them together to make our decorations and bouquets:

Then we stopped by our local farmer’s market on the day of and picked up a few bunches of live sunflowers – which we later had fun handing out downtown after the wedding to confused-but-happy bar friends.

In terms of music, we really had fun with that! Rather than spending $300-$500 on a DJ, I decided to do it myself…with a little help from our friend T-Rox:

TRox DJ toy

Instead of a traditional “dollar dance”, we decided to encourage people to donate to our amazing DJ so he could fly first class back to the Prehistoric period (yes. seriously.)

All I did to DJ my own wedding was make separate playlists for each part of the wedding: music pre-ceremony, music during mingling after the ceremony, then dance music. Since I already own a microphone for my business, it was easy to record and plug in a few key pieces to keep the flow going as I wished. I used Raise to buy a discounted ITunes gift card (and Rakuten saved me even more from there!) and even after I gave TRox his cut, we managed to only have to spend $70 on the music and I was able to guarantee the songs I wanted were played when I wanted them. This was probably my favorite part of the whole wedding shebang.

The Final Total

All-in-all our wedding total came in just under $4,000 (and that includes the honeymoon!) Obviously we could have cut corners even further, but I’m quite pleased with how it all came together and that we avoided hurting ourselves financially for one single event, even one as big as a wedding.