The Good Stuff: great gifts on the cheap!

The holidays can be daunting when you have to find gifts that fit your budget when you’re low on cash and short on ideas. Growing up in a frugal family never meant we didn’t have fun at Christmas, though. My mom, the master seamstress, would use fabric scraps to fashion baby doll and Barbie clothes for my sister and I. She’d sew all year and at Christmas, our dolls would get new wardrobes and were the best dressed around! How I wish we’d saved some of those precious doll clothes that were so amazing, but back then it just seemed normal. Of course, this was long-before doll fashions were readily available. If you happen to be handy with a sewing machine, it’s a great, inexpensive way to make presents!

Homemade gifts are special because they are made with love and one-of-a-kind. Very few gifts still give you warm fuzzies years later as those someone crafted just for you! I think of all the hours my mom must have spent making those tiny, little doll clothes. Much time, re-doing, and fitting must have been required and all under covert operation as I don’t ever recall seeing her make them. These memories are truly The Good Stuff in life.

So, if you’re searching through couch cushions to find extra cash this year to get presents, don’t fret about it, just try one of the ideas in my Penny Pincher's Gift Guide, below. If you’re handy with sewing, knitting, scrapbooking, woodworking, or another artistic endeavor, use your talents to make something personal and one-of-a-kind special. But, KEEP IT SIMPLE so you can finish the project and don’t end up running to the mall when Christmas comes and your grandiose ideas fail to materialize.

Penny Pincher’s Gift Guide:

A Great Read
Give a copy of a favorite book you’ve read (a new release or a classic) as a gift with a hand-written note in the front explaining why you think that person will enjoy it with your Holiday wishes. It’s personal and inexpensive. If you need help locating a book, try: Amazon Books.

Magazine subscription
Everyone has a favorite pastime or hobby and giving a subscription to a publication that feeds their frenzy will be enjoyed throughout the year. You can purchase a newsstand copy of the latest issue to wrap with a hand-written holiday note to give it a personal touch. You can browse for ideas at Amazon’s magazine section by category: Amazon Magazines.

Personalized Calendar
This is a great one if you’re stumped for what to get parents and/or in-laws. Collect some cherished family photos (the larger the better, but don’t worry if they’re not perfect quality as that can be touched up or left as is for age-old charm), then and take them to a copy store like FedEx Kinko’s where they can make a personalized calendar using your photos. Then your parents/in-laws can enjoy the memories (again) all year!

Make a gift
Homemade gifts are great IF you have the time to make them, right? Well, here are a few frugal ideas you can make in a hurry:

Hot Chocolate Cones
To put a twist on this classic winter treat, create your own hot chocolate mixes to store in clear, plastic (frosting) piping bags - the disposable kind that come several to a package. When you’re done, the package ends up looking like an ice cream cone! Put several Hot Chocolate Cones together in basket, wrap with cellophane, and tie with a festive ribbon.

--Layer cocoa in first (store-bought envelopes are the fastest and easiest).

--Add marshmallows.

--Top with chocolate chips and/or crushed peppermint candies.

--Tie the top with a ribbon, and voilà!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix
Homemade cookies are the best, but who has the time to gather all the ingredients (including a trip to the store for stuff you don’t have on hand) and whip them together after a long, taxing day with the kids or at work? For the cookie-lovers on your list, make these simple mixes to store in a quart-sized Mason jar wrapped with a pretty bow and personalized holiday card.

--Layer 1 cup choclate chips on the bottom. Tap jar to level/settle the chips.

--In a bowl, combine 2 c. flour, 1/2 tsp. baking powder & 1/2 tsp. salt.
Layer the mixture on top of the chocolate.

--Add 3/4 c. chopped walnuts or pecans (skip this for the nut-less variety).

--Layer 3/4 cup of firmly packed brown sugar on top.

--Seal the jar and tie it with a ribbon and attach this simple recipe:

Preheat oven to 350°. Have ready two nonstick baking sheets. Using a mixer or wooden spoon, cream together 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) softened butter with the brown sugar in the jar. Add 2 eggs, mixing them in one at a time. Add 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract and blend. Add remaining ingredients from the jar and mix just until all the flour is absorbed. Use 2 tablespoons of dough for each cookie spacing an inch apart. Make until golden brown. Cool on wire racks. Makes 24 cookies.

Want More Homemade Gift Recipes?
Check out the Betty Crocker website for more ideas at: Betty Crocker Gift Giving.

The Thrill of the Hunt?

Black Friday (aka the Friday after Thanksgiving) is less than a week away. I myself stay as far away from the stores on this particular day as possible given my aversion to crowds and shopping in general. It’s not that I don’t like to buy things, rather the whole “retail environment” seems very unfriendly to me. The overcrowded shelves and isles barely big enough for a person to navigate (much less a person with a cart) are anything but inviting. Getting too close to most shelves sends scads of products tumbling to the floor with dozens more teetering on the edge just waiting to be hoisted into an awaiting shopping cart. Lately, I’ve wondered if stores position products too close to the shelf edge purposely to lure unsuspecting customers into knocking them onto the floor and being forced to examine the item(s) and perhaps take them home.

My sister, on the other hand, loves the adventure of shopping on Black Friday. An otherwise demure and lovely person, she transforms into a tiger relishing the thrill of the hunt for the best and most-sought-after items. Like the other hungry hunters, she dresses light and maps out her route using the newspaper ads to devise her shopping strategy. Admittedly, I have not seen her in action, but listening to her describe the adrenaline rush was eerily familiar. These tiger-like shoppers are precisely the reason I cannot venture past my own backyard even for a gallon of milk or loaf of bread on Black Friday.

I suspect the waning economy will have a pacifying affect on shoppers this year with fewer people rushing to buy, buy, buy. Perhaps more of them, like me, will shop online or play the “waiting game” to see just how low stores are willing to price things to make end-of-year sales. Hopefully, this year stores will re-evaluate their environment to make the atmosphere more appealing to buyers. Can we bring back the soothing music, store demonstrations, and retrain some of those stock people to run a cash register for goodness sake!

If you happen to be working in the retail trenches on Black Friday, I will keep you in my prayers and hope you take plenty of aspirin with you.

Being Thankful

Giving thanks is customary this time of year with Americans devoting an entire holiday to the concept of thankfulness. Traditionally, the idea stems from being grateful for an ample harvest to survive the coming winter, but nowadays the message has much to do with family and appreciating life’s many other gifts. This year being separated from my husband has me contemplating the basic blessings of freedom and choice. We often go days, weeks, and years without giving a second’s thought to what these freedoms really cost, but this year I plan to do better.

To that end, I have decided to list the things I am thankful for this year. Some are profound and others are frivolous, but isn’t that what makes life unique and interesting? I hope you will write down your own list of things for which you are grateful this year and keep it visible (like on the fridge) to remind you of what truly matters in your life. Below is my own list to give you ideas on how to get started:

This year, I am thankful for:

• My beloved husband who makes my heart race when I see him and hurt when we’re apart.
  
• Funny, intelligent, loving boys to make life rich and full of energy.
  
• A warm, comfortable home to escape the stresses of the outside world.
  
• The unconditional love of a dog to comfort me when I’m alone or can’t sleep at night.
  
• Crossword puzzles to keep my mind occupied in waiting rooms and during endless meetings.
  
• Cell phones to keep connected to family and friends anywhere, anytime.
  
• The invigorating power of coffee to jolt me to life in the mornings (how else would I ever get to work on time).
  
• Flannel sheets to warm my body (especially my feet) on cold winter nights.
  
• Big screen televisions that make watching Sunday afternoon football even more exciting.
  
• The amazing power of the Internet that allows me to “talk” to my husband in Iraq every day. How wonderful, indeed!

Walking the Dog

Walking around the farm in fall with our dog, Lucky, is such a divine experience taking in the crisp air hearing my feet crunch on blankets of leaves. The grove of trees at the end of our lane has a clearing in the center with several large boulders placed there, no doubt, by a previous farmer who hauled them from a field. Over time I have cleared the dead trees and foliage so it serves as a kind of shrine to nature. I like to sit perched on a big boulder surrounded by the sounds of birds and various creatures scurrying amongst the leaves and downed branches.

Of course this time of year, there is also the sound of grain dryers from neighboring farms prepping their crops for storage or sale. Our dog and cats become feisty as the temperatures drop always wanting to run here and there jumping and leaping like crazy. It must be the way they get their blood pumping to keep themselves warm, I suppose, but the scene is somewhat cartoonish. In the mornings before work as I walk the sidewalk from the house to the barn, the dog leaps at me with his front paws poised like a boxer sparring in a ring. This particular tendency may be Lucky’s way of showing that he misses Daddy, too, as my husband would always play-fight with him on his way to the car before work. I haven’t found a way to tell Lucky that Daddy’s in Iraq and can’t play with him until summer when he gets home.

With so much to do around the farm, I haven’t kept my bird feeders full of seed as I typically do and I find myself missing their jovial presence in the front yard. Now that fall is here and we have the end-of-season chores finished, perhaps I should get more of my feathered friends’ favorite seeds and fill up their bird bath. The weather here as has been unseasonably warm for this time of year and I hadn’t noticed until recently that the migration patterns haven’t quite kicked into full gear yet. I have spied a few flocks heading southward, but the geese haven’t arrived in our fields yet as they traditionally do by now. You can’t see the geese, but you can hear them especially when Lucky gets a wild hair and takes off in their direction and they take off en-masse. That’s just Lucky protecting his turf and I’m glad he’s here to keep watch and sound the alarm when anything moves.