Organization and Simplicity For A Great Christmas

As I write this we are just a few days from December. Time to

Organize
Prioritize
Tell Your Children Lies (only about why you have all of those bags in your closet)

Here are a few fun things to do to enjoy this holiday month. The ideas are, of course, on the tightwad.

Get out your advent calendar, or make an advent calendar. If you are so inclined, get out your advent wreath and decorate with candles. Here are some instructions to make an Advent wreath.


Organize your shopping list. Time to write down what you have bought for everyone so far. I usually write a dollar amount next to my kid's gifts just to make sure I keep the amount I spend fairly the same. Hide this list where only you can find it.

Organize your commitment calendar. This is the time of the year when most parents schedule in at least one holiday performance of some type. Then, there are deadlines for gift giving like making sure you have teacher gifts, relative gifts, or friend gifts. If you are making gifts, schedule a workday to produce them. If you are shopping , schedule a shopping day-don't forget to write down the dates of craft bazaars you might want to visit to take care of this gift buying.

If you write Christmas cards get your list out and try to write 2 cards a day. Many people write ecards now that you can send for free at places like 123greetings.com.

Go to the library to check out some Christmas stories. If you have small children you may want to get enough books to read a story every night until Christmas Eve. If you don't have kids, find yourself a Christmas story to read. This time of year Christmas romances and mysteries hit the shelves in the stores so go find last year's book at the library.


Relax and watch a Christmas movie!


Plan a time to take your kids Christmas shopping. Teaching them how to give at Christmas and not just receive makes the holiday more fun for them and you. Give them a dollar amount and help them meet their budget. We have done a "matching funds" program to help them stretch their allowance money. This is a great time to beef up the chores to get some preholiday cleaning out of the way. Everybody benefits.

If you are missing someone this year, make a dish that they loved or cooked for you. I have for years tried to make my Grandmother's cinnamon rolls. I have to admit I still am not successful in making them just as she did, but it is fun to cherish her memory while I cook up another batch of hockey pucks. I think I would add to this list my dad's fudge, my uncle's divinity, my mother's potato soup, and my North Carolina Grandmother's biscuits. (Diets are for January)

As you are shopping, try to use cash or debit when you are in the stores. If you are online and about to checkout with that electronic basket, open a new page and google the store name and coupon code. You will very often find somebody somewhere has a code for you that take off the price or the shipping. It is worth the minute it takes to do it. Also don't be afraid to shop in drugstores. CVS and Walgreens both have products that will make you extra dollars at the checkout. You can use this store credit the next day or save it for the after Christmas sales.

Make a big pot of soup on tree/home decorating day. Let it simmer in the crockpot or on the stove while you work hard. At the end of the job your soup will be waiting so you can put your feet up, slurp and look at your beautiful house. (Don't forget a little Christmas music!)


Have a Merry and Blessed Christmas!
Tightwad Tess

Prepare Plan and Organize for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving seems to rush up on us right after Halloween and if you aren't planning to pick up the complete cooked dinner from your supermarket it is time to organize, plan and prepare for Thanksgiving. Here is a quick to do list to help out.

1. Start looking for recipes. On Tightwad Tess my webpage I have several Thanksgiving recipes in my November recipe section from baking the turkey to making delicious homemade cranberry sauce. (Although you probably did cut some beautiful shapes out of the canned variety.)

2. Start looking at your house and make a cleaning plan. If you are overwhelmed with housecleaning then it would be a good idea to break down what you need to do into little segments. Once you have a list then figure out how many days you have and assign a task or two a day. Try to hit the high traffic areas last. One of my favorite quotes, I think it is from Irma Bombeck, is trying to clean house with young children is like trying to shovel snow in the middle of a snow storm.

3. Start collecting coupons. This time of year many stores offer specials on the things you will want in your Thanksgiving feast. If you don't normally buy a Sunday paper this is a good time to get one the weeks before Thanksgiving. The coupon inserts are stuffed with great deals to save you money. You can click here for printable coupons online.


4. Figure out your guest list. Are you cooking for 5 or 25? If it is a large group, suggest your guest bring a dish. Start making phone calls and writing emails to invite your friends and family.

5. Plan for the kids. Here is a list of ideas to keep the kids busy on your busiest day of the year.

Finally-Don't forget to say thanks. We are so fortunate to get to share a meal with friends and family. Blessings abound.

Preparing for a Tightwad Halloween

So Halloween is right around the corner and if you have made a visit to a "Halloween Store" the thought of dropping $40-$100 on a costume can really scare you to death. My daughter and I just visited one such store because she wanted to dress as a character from Batman. They didn't have the costume she wanted and a Batgirl costume was $60. No way. As we were leaving the store we saw this really cool machine blowing out white bubbles that when you touched them they turned to smoke. I saw someone pick up the bubble blowing machine and a bottle of bubbles and found out the machine itself was...$70. $70--talk about frightening. Retailers are trying to make Halloween a holiday that is Christmas in October for them. Think about all the things we buy, make and decorate today and what was done 30 to 40 years ago. It is not even close. I can remember having a lot of "put together" costumes. The gypsy, the pirate, the kitty cat, the clown, the hobo, the little old lady (ala Tweety Bird): all of these costumes my mom put together for us out of the combined closets of our home.
Try putting together items for these costume ideas:
Teletubbie-colored sweats with a square sewed on the shirt
Pirate-Too short pants, a white shirt, a bandana and a clip on earring
Snowman-White sweats, Hat, scarf, pinned on felt circles for buttons
Ninja-Black sweats, black ski mask, sash
Princess-an old adult dress with a belt in the middle, a paper cone hat with material flowing out of it.
Prince-a construction paper crown, black pants, boots, a white dress shirt, a sash placed across the front (think diplomat sash-purple is nice)
Woody from Toy Story-Brown shirt, vest, jeans, boots, cowboy hat
Box Costume-Paint a box to look like a tv, salt and pepper, a die, a cereal box, an x-box or anything else you can think that is square
A Ghost-cut holes in an old sheet
A Vampire-black sweats and a black jacket with a collar. Turn the collar up and put on white makeup and add vampire teeth.
Rich lady-old coat with fur on it, lots of jewelry, big clip on earrings, an old hat

Most of all have fun with it. This is a great time to share being creative with your kids.

Free Halloween Matching Game
Free Halloween Bookmarks

Frugal Christmas: Gift Bows For Free

Make gift bows from magazines? Sounds crazy, but follow this simple tutorial and you will find yourself making some pretty cool looking bows for nothing. Making these bows is easy with only a few simple steps involving cutting your magazine pages into strips and then folding them into a bow. This would also be especially helpful when it is snowing out and you don't feel like running to the store for yet another bag of bows. It's frugal and it's free. (and a little bit green, ho, ho, ho). Click here to see this great tutorial over at Craftser.org

More Uses for Tin Foil

If you just hate to throw away that hunk of tin foil here are some ways to keep on using it.
Take your used tin foil and wash any food residue off of it. You can now reuse it in the kitchen to wrap a piece of cheese, cover a dinner plate, bake a casserole, etc. If you have a great abundance of tin foil here are some other ideas.
1. Make a picture frame for a child's craft. You can then glue some glitter around it to make it sparkle.
2. Use it as gift wrap
3. In some areas you can recycle tin foil with aluminum cans.
4. Make a solar powered stove out of an umbrella and tin foil. Click here for instructions at Planet Green.
5. Cut out old egg cartons and cover them with foil to make "silver bells" for the Christmas tree.
6. Double wrap meat for the freezer.
7. Use it to wrap up sandwiches when you run out of sandwich bags.
8. Line your burners (make sure there is NO grease on the used tin foil)
9. Put it on an old cereal box to a reflecting panel for photographing items.
10. Make a pointy hat to keep out aliens.

Free Scrapbook Pages

I have slowly been moving items from my other site Printable Family to Tightwad Tess. Finally, I have started moving my printable scrapbook pages. After shopping for scrapbook stationery at my local hobby store, I decided I could make them on my computer and only pay for the printing. Some of my graphics are more in the spirit of cartooning but they worked for me. I eventually got into digital scrapping and making scrapbook albums using Windows Movie Maker. Using this program I can make a scrapbook and then make copies for my family. You can also combine home movies and music with this program so I love it. But...here is a beginning to the printable scrapbook pages I created. So here is my first-- check out my starfish stationery. It is a part of a summer set I created and is housed at Printable Family as well as Tightwad Tess.


For a printable version of this go to this link.

Old Time Radio

The Inner Sanctum, Who's on First? Fibber McGee and Molly, Academy Award Theater, Dragnet--you might or might not know these names but if you don't they are titles of old radio shows ranging from the 30's all the way up to the early 70's. With the advent of the internet these shows have found a rebirth with new audiences who now listen to them on their ipods. It is amazing to me, after so many decades, that these programs are so entertaining. I am a big fan of the mystery and horror shows like The Inner Sanctum (think Twilight Zone--as a matter a fact some of the stories seem awfully similar) but you can pretty well pick your genre and find some sort of shows listed. Westerns,detective stories, comedies, radio versions of old films, big band music and here is the best part--it's FREE. Also the stars you will hear are amazing. This last week I listened to fantastic acting by Bette Davis, Henry Fonda, Dick Powell, it goes on and on. I hate housework, but with my ipod in it goes a lot faster.
So here's how you can find these shows. Go to itunes and put in the search box "Old Time Radio". It should come up with a list of different series. I listen to "Horror" and "Suspense" and "Boxcars711". Most of them update as often as you update your ipod. You can also subscribe to Boxcars 711 through their site.
If you don't have an ipod you can go to this site, one of many I'm sure, and listen to the shows on your computer. These shows are fun to listen to and your kids can hear them too. Some of the the horror shows get a little scary. I had to turn one off about a dentist office the other day. Eeeeek.