shoppingonabudget

One of my favorite online retailers is Oriental Trading. My daughter (who is 4) and I do a lot of craft projects. They have lots of cheap supplies and neat craft kits, but that isn’t all. They also have a good selection of Christmas gifts.

Tomorrow, I am going to order Christmas ornaments. They come with a blank spot that you can personalize with a marker. These make great gift toppers. The kind I want to buy is only $14.99 per dozen.

So, if you want to buy Christmas décor, personalized Christmas ornaments, craft kits, toys, and more, I recommend checking out OrientalTrading.com. While there, be sure to visit their “Sale,” section, as it has many good deals.

And, until December 3, 2008, they have free shipping with no minimum purchase. You must use the code WC97541 at the checkout.

Just the other day, I received a SnapFish catalog in the mail. If you are unfamiliar with this website, it is essentially a photo sharing website, print store, and gift shop in one. You can store some of your photographs online, order prints and photo gifts. Over the years, I have made multiple purchases from SnapFish. I love their photo calendars and they make great gifts.

This year, I intend to purchase a travel mug with a picture of my mom and daughter, a photo mouse pad, holiday cards, and another calendar. So, the mailing I received in the mail came in handy, as it has some moneysaving discounts.

If you will be buying photo gifts from SnapFish this holiday season:

1 – Visit www.snapfish.com/holiday08

2 – Enter Winter08 at the checkout. This gets you 20% off everything in their catalog.

Speaking of the catalog, you can view it here. The moneysaving coupon code isn’t on the downloadable copy of their catalog, but the two are the same (I compared them). So, you should be able to use the above mentioned coupon code to save money on some of your photo gift purchases.

So, today I ventured out for Black Friday. It has kind of become a family tradition. In fact, that is pretty much the only reason why I go. My daughter, mom, grandma, and I all get together and do a little shopping. We wend the day with lunch.

We started out the day at 8:30. It wasn’t too early. That is why we start later, to avoid the crowds. We first visited Wal-Mart. That was a little bit crowded, but the line at the checkout only took 15 minutes to get through (which I didn’t think was bad at all).

Next, we ventured to Bed, Bath, and Beyond. They were kind of busy. They only had three registers, but I didn’t have to wait at all. Next, we stopped by the Dollar Tree. Since they don’t have any sales, as everything is already low priced, it wasn’t a problem there. The store wasn’t too crowded and I only had to wait in like 5 minutes.

Kohl’s, on the other hand, was a completely different story. I could tell right away from the parking lot that they were packed. They had some really good sales on toys, so I wanted to stop. I walk inside and the line wrapped almost halfway around the store! Every checkout was open. I asked a lady towards the front of the line how long she had been waiting and she said an hour! We had to leave. None of us could or wanted to wait that long in line.

I didn’t buy much because I am buying a lot of personalized gifts this year and I have to order them online. I did get a few Barbie items and Polly Pocket things for my daughter, but that was about it.

So, how was your Black Friday shopping experience and did you find any good deals?

I, like many other shoppers, ventured out today for Black Friday. Boy, that was a weird experience, which I will talk about later. Right now, I want to talk about helping those who are less fortunate.

My daughter started pre-k this year at our local elementary school. I am sure many schools have donation drives like this, but we are new to school so it is new to us. A letter was sent home asking parents to bring an item to the school to help fill up our local food bank. My daughter’s grade was assigned paper products. There is also a Christmas tree in the lobby with information on children who need gifts.

The tag I took from the Christmas tree stated the girl was 6 years old, needed a winter hat and gloves and that she liked Barbie. So, today I stopped at Wal-Mart and the Dollar Tree. I bought a ballerina Barbie for $5.47 (that was the regular price not a sale price) from Wal-Mart. From the Dollar Tree, I got a 2-pack of gloves, a winter hat, and two packages of toilet paper. This cost me $10 and some change.

I will admit that I rarely donate. I honestly don’t know why. But, I am going to start now. It was an unbelievable feeling buying these items. It was more than thinking “I did my good deed for today.” I guess it hard to describe.

Whether you are a parent or not, contact your local school district to see if they run similar donation drives. Even if you are on a budget (like I am too), you can still help those in need. What I like about donating these items through our school district is I know they stay in the community.

Personally, I am not one who likes to venture out to the stores on Thanksgiving. I prefer to spend time with family and then lounging around the house. However, if you would like to get an early start on the good deals, you may want to shop before or after your Thanksgiving celebration. So, where should you go?

Dollar General opens at 7 am on Thursday. They are also giving away a free reusable shopping bag to the first 50 customers at each location. Dollar General is already known for their low prices, but they are having a few special sales. These include skate shoes for $10 and a 1GB Emerson MP3 Player for $12.

Kmart is also open on Thanksgiving. They have way too many good deals to list. What you will find though is Buy One, Get One Free Hasbro games, SmartParts 5.6” Digital Picture Frame for $39.99 and much more.

If it weren’t for being the holiday shopping season, I wouldn’t even look at store ads. I rarely buy anything new unless it is a special occasion. I am going to do a little bit of shopping on Black Friday, but not too much. Since I already made up my mind that I wanted to go to Wal-Mart and Wal-Mart alone, I automatically tossed all other store ads in the recycling bin.

I ended up pulling them out tonight to browse. I was curious and bored. The Bed Bath and Beyond advertisement has a save $5 on a $15 order and BonTon had a coupon that was $10 off an item over $10. These are a really good discounts. So, I have now added these stores to my Black Friday shopping.

So, the moral of the story is to be careful what you throw away, especially around the holidays. You may find more than good sales, but moneysaving coupons too.

If you are looking to save money at the grocery store, you should use food coupons. Although it is easy to find these coupons on online coupon websites or in weekend newspaper inserts, they aren’t your only options. You can also visit the online websites of your favorite food manufacturers. You can find these websites with a standard internet search. While there are no guarantees, you may find printable or mailable food coupons available.

To get you started, I have a few links to printable food coupons below.

These coupons were available online as of November 24, 4008. Their availability and value is subject to change.

Join the Margherita Coupon Club for Varying Coupons (Deli and Prepackaged Products)

$3 in Coupons for Progresso Soup

Save $1 on Wanchai Ferry Dinner Kit

Save $1 on Butterball Deep Fried Lunchmeat

DVD movies make great Christmas gifts. If you are looking for good deals, you can find them on Black Friday. But, if you want to avoid the long longs and overall chaos, I recommend checking out BestBuy.com.

Best Buy has a number of great sales on DVDs. They have number of DVDs for $3.99, more for $4.99 and up. This is a sale on these movies. I am not sure how long the sale lasts, so you may want to buy up these DVDs now.

As of November 24, 2008, these were some of the DVDs you would buy on sale:

$3.99 DVDS

First Sunday
Miami Vice
Reign Over Me
Breach
Memoirs of a Geisha
Children of Men
Because I Said So
Stranger than Fiction
The Da Vinci Code
A Beautiful Mind
Inside Man
X-Men The Last Stand
Robots
Kicking and Screaming
Dr. Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat

I found another neat online coupon website. It is Home Solutions News. You can click on the link to get to the website. You will need to register for a free account. These coupons are printable and there are many categories to choose from. They include food, home care, surface care, fabric care, and personal care.

The coupons you find may vary, but as of November 23, 3008, these were some of the coupons available:

Save .50 Cents on Franks RedHot Sauce
Save .50 Cents of French’s Mustard

Save $1 on Glass Plus Cleaner
Save .50 on Lysol Disinfectant Spray To Go

Save $1 on 50 oz Woolite
Save .75 on Spray and Wash

Save $2 on Veet Hair Remover
Save $1 on Lysol Healthy Touch Sanitizer Foam

I love giving calendars as Christmas gifts. Personally, I am content with buying a calendar from the dollar store. For my own personal use, I don’t need to have anything special. On the other hand, I like to purchase nice themed calendars for family members.

This year I was looking for a motorcycle themed calendar for my mom’s husband. I tried looking locally and checked a number of websites online. I really didn’t find what I was looking for or I found too high prices. So, I headed over to Overstock.com. I use Overstock.com to purchase books and movies for my daughter, but decided to checkout their calendars and I was glad I did.

I found the Harley Davidson calendar I was looking for. It was $10.09 and actually an extended calendar (just a little bit larger in size). I intend to make a few more calendar purchases from Overstock.com, but you may want to check them out too.

On average, most traditional wall calendars are between $5 and $15 (which I believe to be pretty good prices). There are also many themes available for sale, including pets, family, transportation, scenery, cartoon characters, sports teams, and more.

So, if you are looking for a cheap Christmas gift and one that your recipient will actually use, consider a 2009 wall calendar.