Monday, December 12, 2011

A spin off to the waste post....Holiday edition!

Goodness knows I have room for improvement in all areas of my life.  But when it come to wasting money at the holidays....ugh.  It always bites me.  None of it is intentional...it just sort of happens.  Here are a few things from this year, and years past:

1) Electricity.  We have lots of holiday lights (pics to come!).  And for some reason....no one remembers to unplug them but me!  The big tree....G-man will shut that off.  The rest?  They would burn 24/7 if my family had anything to do with it.

2)  Little trees.  This could be a whole post in itself.  But we bought walkway trees this year.  4 trees with lights...and they are connected by the strand of lights.  I wanted ones that weren't connected, but that was $$$ (they were solar powered!).  I looked around in the major big box stores...nothing.  Ended up buying 2 boxes on Ebay for $13 each, plus $9 for shipping (so $35).  The day after they arrived....I found them in a store I rarely go to.  For $10 a box.  No shipping.

PLUS...these trees only stake into the ground, and we needed 4 of them on the steps.  So G-man bought inexpensive clay pots to put them in.  He put dirt in the pots, and staked them that way.  WELL....the pots he bought are too small.  So they keep tipping over, and since they are connected....once one goes, it pulls the others over as well.  I spend at least a few minutes a day picking these things up, fixing it...having to wash up from all the dirt on my hands....

3)  Bows for the tree.  Good gracious.  I must have thought that there was going to be a Zombie Apocalypse and that bows were going to become the new currency.  I have enough bows to last until my grandchildren need bows.

4)  Filler ornaments.  I also thought that I needed more "filler" for the tree.  So I have at least 3 packages of plain ornaments from years past.  Maybe I will try and glitter them for next year!!!! OOOHHHH, a new project!!!!

5)  Finding a present cheaper somewhere else.  We have all had this happen...you buy something, and then you find it somewhere else cheaper.  Then the debate comes in...do I buy it again and return the first one?  Sometimes the amount of time it takes to return the gift negates the price savings.  We bought a game for $15.  Then found it for $10.  We ended up buying it again, and returning the first one....because we had to go back to that store anyway.  But waiting on line for 30 min to return something for a net of $5....not so sure.

6) Products to save you time.  This one ALMOST ended up in the trash, but we got it working, and all is good now.  We bought a timer for the outside lights.  It was $9.  It took some fiddling around with, but it is fine now.  However, while it wasn't working right....it was about to be pitched and take the loss of $9.  Same with the pop up tape dispenser...it doesn't work for me.  I just will stick with the regular ole roll of tape.

7)  Stuff you break.  I bought a pair of hurricane lamps...one broke before I even put it up.  It must have hit up against something.  $5 down the drain. I also broke the base on one of the artificial trees (I dropped it).  So now we have to buy a new base.  $8 apparently is the price of clumsiness.

8)  Stuff you were GOING to do.  I wanted to put wreaths up on the cabinet doors.  I bought the hooks for the cabinets, some new wreaths, and had some ribbon.  Went to do it, and the wreaths are too big, and haven't seen smaller ones in a price level I am willing to spend.  So all of that got thrown back in the tote and maybe I will try again next year.

As I stated earlier....I am using up the wrapping paper, bags, and ribbon I have this year, so I am not wasting money buying more.  I did buy tape and tissue paper...but I needed that, so it doesn't count.

So fess up....what have you wasted money on for the holidays?????

11 comments:

  1. 1) Food: shorter days seem to make me want to cook even less often, zo take away is the new word. Stops now, of course O:)

    2) Inexpensive clothing: I don't have a lot of things to wear for the winter, so I try to find as many bargains as possible, need to be careful not to go overboard.

    3) Electricity: two trees and a large hedge, trees are on if we are awake, lights in the hedge are shining bright at every moment. I do make up some of that by watching stuff on my laptop and not on my heavy desktop or plasma screen. Both way worse, I think.

    I always buy christmasstuff after christmas, so I don't really waste much on that. I bought a snow blanket this year, but it was approx. $1.50 and I didn't have one, so it was necessary.

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  2. I love walkway trees, I wish we would've bought some. I plan on buying some after Christmas when they are all on sale though.

    We don't waste a ton of money on holidays. The only thing I can think of is that we accidentally leave the tree's lights on all the time.

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  3. I bought a wallet for oldest daughter. They were all 30% off. But no I chose from a little tiny table in front of the sign (bait and switch) so I paid full price. I am taking it back, just did not have time when I realized what I had done, pus the clerk was snooty!

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  4. I have also bought too many wrapping supplies... Though if I had leftover funds, I'd go all out with after-Christmas Christmas stuff.

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  5. I've done pretty good this year... I did buy a few snowmen for my mantle that we didn't "need", but they fit well into my budget so I splurged! I love snowmen! :)

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  6. Food. We haven't eaten out like restaurants will soon fall out of fashion. All in the name of saving time. Ugh.

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  7. Correction... we HAVE eaten out like.....sigh.

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  8. I hate those pop up tape dispensers. I wanted those walk way trees to but couldnt find them anywhere in a price I was willing to spend(for the solar ones)

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  9. lets just say that I haven't had time to so anything - so I have wasted by probably overbuying... but will see today when I pull everything out during school....

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  10. Well it's been ok so far. I've kept the decor cost down i think. Maybe I'm just in denial.

    I always overspend on the gifts. And this year, I was doing great but because I'm done and so far from Christmas, I keep seeing great sales on stuff for my kids and boyfriend. And I'm giving in.

    Oh well. Tis the season and I'm done worrying myself sick over it all.

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  11. The damn timer!! My now ex bought one last year, and then got put on 12+ shifts at night and I had really bad morning sickness so it never got used. I am living with my parents and we are in a temp house until our move to IL in June so no outside lights this year.

    Oh the pop up tape is annoying, but I always hit up Target AFTER Christmas to get all of that. My mom likes it so not a complete waste.

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