by Hope
The twins’ birthday just passed. This next week will be the first Thanksgiving that I haven’t had all my kids with me. (There were a couple of years when one was away, but never like this.) And I couldn’t, COULD NOT do nothing.
But I also knew that I couldn’t do much. I let the twins know that we could do a birthday celebration for all of us fall babies when we are together at Christmas. It broke this mama’s heart to not be able to do anything at all other than send them a text message.
But with the tides turning, I had to do something for the three boys on their first Thanksgiving away from home. So we…
Baked
Princess graciously made a day trip home this past weekend. She and I spent Sunday baking goodies new and old and packaging them up to be shipped out to Virginia, Texas, and Las Vegas this week. We froze things and used $0.50 containers from Dollar General.
We made banana bread with chocolate chips and nuts, corn flake wreaths (pictured), chocolate chip cookies, almond pralines, and a lemon pound cake. My house smelled so good. We played Christmas music, cleaned as we went, and had a wonderful time.
Frugal Shopping
I have to be honest, I have never, ever fretted over grocery costs so much in my life. I made a grocery list from the recipes I wanted to make. Then added them all to my Walmart grocery app (I typically do pick up.) Then I went to the cheapest grocery store in town, Quality Foods. I compared prices between the two for every single item. As I added something to my Quality Foods shopping cart, I would remove it from my Walmart app.
I googled substitutions for things I knew I wouldn’t use again. I bought off, off brand items that I wouldn’t consider if I wasn’t using them for baking. After I finished my in person shopping trip, I placed the online order for pick up of the remaining items.
And in the end, I spent over an hour and a half in the grocery store, stressing over every single penny I spent. And I will be honest, I am not sure the amount of money I saved justified the additional time and stress of it. I don’t think it added up to more than $10 of savings.
But it was an experience. And it set us up for a fantastic baking experience.
Boxes went in the mail a few days ago. None of them knows they are coming. I hope they will bring joy to their faces and yumminess to their tummy’s.
As an aside, postage is absolutely crazy. It cost me $56 to ship the 3 boxes to the boys. Granted I did choice priority since it was baked goods, but man, that was expensive.
Do you bake and gift homemade goods for the holidays? Do you enjoy receiving those types of gifts?
Hope is a creative, solutions-focused business manager helping clients grow their business and work more efficiently by leveraging expertise in project management, digital marketing, & tech solutions. She’s recently become an empty nester as her 5 foster/adoptive kids have spread their wings. She lives with her 5 dogs in a small town in NE Georgia and prefers the mountains to the beaches any day. She struggles with the travel bug and is doing her best to help each of her kids as their finish schooling and become independent (but it’s hard!) She has run her own consulting company for almost twenty years! Hope began sharing her journey with the BAD community in the Spring of 2015 and feels like she has finally in a place to really focus on making wise financial decisions.
