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Browsing posts in: Kids & Money

No Ideas for Christmas & Got an Interview

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I am wracking my brain on how to make Christmas special without presents. Don’t get me wrong, I know presents are not the reason for the season. But giving gifts is definitely one of my main ways of expressing love. I’ve been considering using one of those scrapbook sites and creating some sort of family/recipe book for each of the kids. The one my mom gave all us kids in our adulthood has been something I have used often. Anyone done this? Have recommendation for a site? I figure if I make all the books the same, then it will save me in time and cost.

Does anyone else have any ideas? I’m really struggling with this. I am focused on spending the money I do have on something meaningful or nothing at all.

But also stockings…I think that’s one of our favorite traditions. What can I put in stockings that is meaningful, cost effective, and fun?

I have come up with an agenda for the 36 hours that all the kids are here. And a menu for the 6ish days at least one or two kids are here. The kids are all excited some homecooked meals and have all put in requests for favorites they’ve been missing…from mac n cheese to Zuppa Toscana soup, roast to ham. It’s been so nice to hear their excitement when we talk and hear what they have missed about home. Fill’s this mama heart up!

Holiday Plan

We are going to do a full almost traditional holiday meal for Christmas Eve along with our traditional game night. Game night is everyone’s favorite. We play fun games, different ones every year, and the kids are welcome to invite friends. In the past, we’ve done a charcuterie board and snack foods. But since we haven’t been together is so long, I thought a real home cooked meal was the way to go. (And I don’t want to cook on my birthday 🙂 We will wrap up Christmas Eve with a birthday celebration for the four of us that are fall/winter babies.

holiday meal

This was the girls and my Thanksgiving meal. They picked their favorites, made the menu and then we divided and conquered the cooking. It was nice, but so quiet compared to past, large crowd holidays. (And that is grape juice in the wine glasses, we just like to be fancy with our dollar store wine glasses.)

Christmas Day will just be the family and a couple of their significant others. I do cook breakfast, but the rest of the day will be left overs and a couple of snack food type things that I will prepare in advance. Over the last couple of years, we’ve been doing Chinese, but leftovers and finger foods seems to be the right fit for our time together and our budget this year. I’ve already begun comparison shopping for my grocery items.

We will do presents on Christmas, and then we typically chill out in the afternoon with the kids catering to me for my birthday. This year will be different because we have to get History Buff to the airport to fly out that evening, a two hour drive. We’ve talked about going to a movie down toward Atlanta in the afternoon and then someone finishing the drive to take History Buff. It would allow us all to be together longer and prevent anyone from having to spend 4 hours driving to and from the airport. It’s still a plan in progress.

 

Part Time Job Interview

And the good news…I’ve got an interview next week. A local fast food restaurant, part time, and $13 per hour. I had to submit a video interview where I disclosed my other part time jobs and that my schedule was flexible. I’m hopeful.

December – The Month of Preparation

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This next month is going to fly by. I have enough work to pay January’s bills which gives me some breathing room to chase new ongoing work. Last December I was struggling on every level, every plan I had for 2023 had been quashed the by sudden end of my 5 year relationship and engagement, not to mention the ongoing job debacle. But it was really my personal life that threw 2023 for a loop. I did not start the new year in a good headspace at all.

And it has been a rough climb out of that all year. But I’m back.

My heart is mostly healed. I have reconnected some very special people from my high school years which has been very empowering. And I have grown accustomed to the new reality of being a mostly empty nester.

The world, this new year is all mine. So I will be using December to make plans and lists and setting goals for 2024.

Goals by Week

I have decided the best way to keep me on track is to make a list of weekly goals and post it here. This way, the BAD community can keep me accountable. I know you all will be excellent at that. Last week, I made a list of things I needed to or wanted to get done before Christmas.

Hope's handwritten list

Then I added all of them to my Task List that syncs with my calendar. I won’t bog down this post with everything, but the finance/work related tasks, here they are. (Let me know if I’ve missed anything.)

Week 1 – December 3

  1. Create a $2,500 budget
  2. List/re-list sellable items that might do better during this Christmas season (jewelry, old computer, etc.)
  3. Research selling digital products online, make a list of steps and related resources

Week 2 – December 10

  1. Create a master list from the business cards I have collected over the last couple of months
  2. Create one digital product using Canva based on research done in Week 1
  3. Do initial digital review of 6 from the list created in #1 this week and compose somewhat standardize communication to send them

Week 3 – December 17

  1. Set up digital product (Step #2 previous week) to sell – Stripe, Printify, Etsy, landing page, etc? (These are not affiliate links, just tools I am exploring.)
  2. Do initial digital review of 6 more from the list created in #1 previous week and compose somewhat standardize communication to send them

Note: Short week since the kids start arriving on December 21st so don’t want to over commit.

Week 4 – December 24

  1. Create marketing plan for my new digital product and schedule it to begin in the new year.
  2. Create second digital product? Maybe.
  3. Do initial digital review of 6 more from the list created in #1 during the second week and compose somewhat standardize communication to send them

Note: Another short week since the kids will be in town until December 27th so don’t want to over commit.

Week 5 – December 31

  1. Kick off marketing of my digital product #1.
  2. Kick off initial contacts to my list of small businesses I’ve been working on.

Ongoing Work

Throughout all of this, I will continue to apply for local work and apply to corporate jobs with the different revisions to my resume that I’ve been working on. These goals are outside of those ongoing tasks that I work on pretty much daily in one form or another.