Real World Finance$

Yep, we were one of the crazy few up and about bright and early this past Friday.  After getting to be a little after midnight we were up again at about 3:30 in the morning.  We got dressed again and headed to the car and got to our neighborhood JC Penny just after they opened at 4:00.

We spent 30-45 minutes there.  We took advantage of the sales to stock up on our winter wardrobes (good timing since there was snow on the ground this morning).  We dropped a couple hundred dollars, and we hadn’t really purchased much in the way of clothes the last 2-3 months, so it was within our budget.  We have a vacation planned the first week of February, so we aren’t doing much in the way of Christmas this year.

The store was busy, but wasn’t really crowded.  The store near our home doesn’t have a lot of other shopping nearby, so the real die hards were elsewhere.  We got checked out, headed out to the car and then back home to bed by 5:00.  A little silly maybe, but that was the extent of our Black Friday shopping.  One stop to buy only clothes that we really needed anyway.  No impulse shopping, no fancy electronics, not junk that’s going to collect dust in someone else’s home.

Besides, we are working on doing a homemade Christmas this year and using our talents to make gifts for each other.  My wife has been having fun with her knitting machine and learning how to felt knitted items, so those will be some great hand made gift items that cost a fraction of what they would cost in a store, and they will be worth so much more because she made them.   Hope your Friday was as financially easy as ours!

We got the final word late last week.  After my wife called to find out, her Ex says he won’t be able to find affordable plan tickets for the step-son to go down to visit him this Christmas.  So, he won’t be down there until after New Year (a full year from the last time he visited).

If you had read my previous post about Christmas Being Over, you know because he was going to be gone we had bought a Wii as a family gift and were going to be content with that.  Now, we know he will still get plenty of toys and other junk sent to him to open Christmas morning, but it doesn’t feel right to not give him something from us.  The problem is finding something in our budget (which is essentially $0 at this point).

So, we did some brainstorming and decided that what this only child really wants is someone to do something with him.  Not having siblings built in to play with means it often fall to us and we are not always up to it like he wants.  With that said, we’ve decided to put together a group of “Gift Certificates” for him to use throughout the year to do special things with us.  We will still have to plan many of these things as they aren’t really spur of the moment types, but it’s our promise to him that we will do these things this year.  Here are some of the things on the list:

• Golfing with Dad
• Ice Skating
• Family Game Night
• Family Movie Night
• Trip to our local City Museum (this is a very cool multi-story, science center and playground type of place… or so I’ve been told).
• Some sort of building project with Dad
• Dave & Busters
• Sledding on the locally famous Art Hill

I think the wife has a few others on the list that I can’t recall at the moment.  We were wanting to try and get 12 so he could use like 1 a month next year to really make it last.

While some of these do have expense associated with them, many are free or extremely cheap.  We know though that he will have a blast doing these and knowing he will definitely get to do them and have some say when they happen.

So, go cheap this Christmas and spend time with your kids.  They’ll love you for it long after the toys are broken.

I ran across an interesting site today called Free Rice. It’s a pretty unique site that gives you a vocabulary quiz. It rates you from 1-50 on your knowledge and gives you appropriate questions in response.

During this process, there are a series of ads on the bottom of the screen. Based on expected ad revenue, they predict that each correct answer to their system will generate enough revenue for them to purchase 10 grains of rice (which they will distribute through the UN).

I thought this is a really unique way to sharpen up your word skills this holiday season and help those who are less fortunate at the same time. Swing by there and give it a try. It’s not as easy as it sounds!

No, don’t be alarmed, you didn’t really miss it. It’s just over at my house, so to speak.

Since this is supposed to be my wife’s ex’s year to have the kid at Christmas, we decided we weren’t going to get a bunch of presents. After all, he’s 8 and has 2 dads, 6 Grandma’s and 3 Grandpa’s. He’ll get plenty of spoils without us.

What we did decide were 2 things. A present for me (weight bench) and a present for my wife and son ( a Wii).

I mentioned this to a co-worker a couple weeks ago who instantly told me he had a weight bench in his garage he wanted to get rid of for $20, with the weights. This bench still had the plastic strapping on it and was in the original box. He had bought it from a bulletin board ad here at work a couple years ago. The box had the original Target receipt taped to it. Date… 2002! So, bargain #1 taken care of for me.

The Wii was a whole different story. Since I didn’t win the one over at Get Rich Slowly a few weeks back, we had to start looking. These things are not easy to find. We have seen them at stores before, but never when we had the money to pay for one. We had decided we would buy the next one we found and just have an early Christmas. The kid and I got up Sunday morning and drove out to Toys R Us. We arrived 30 minutes before the store opened, and about 15 minutes after they handed out the last of 36 tickets they had to buy a Wii. Off to another local Toys R US. We got there just 5 minutes before opening as they were about to hand out their tickets. They only had 12… and we were 15th in line! Had we gone there first, we likely would have had one then.

So, the search continued. There is also a Game Stop just a few blocks away from our house. We know they get sporadic deliveries during the week via UPS. They had told us to just call in the afternoons to see if they have any. The wife asked me about 3 yesterday if she should call with it being a holiday. I told her I was sure UPS was still delivering. She called and sure enough, they had one left. She made a bee-line for the door and picked it up 5 minutes later.

We aren’t completely done with Christmas though. We will still spend a little money on our parents as well, but we don’t typically go overboard with them.

So… how’s your Christmas list doing?