Walgreens Christmas Deals

Almost every holiday season I end up buying many of my baking supplies at Walgreens on sale.  This week there are coupons in their weekly add for 5 lbs. of all purpose flour for $1.89, 4 lbs. of white sugar for $1.89 and spices for 79 cents.

I'll also be keeping an eye out for sales on other baking goods.  I often get vanilla, canned milk products  and baking powder there.

Walgreens also has some terrific sales on Christmas wrapping supplies and decorations.  I have found that their cosmetics section has some terrific stocking stuffers for less than $2.

I'll be stopping by my local Walgreens every week during the holidays with my coupons in hand.

God bless,
Pam

Random Thoughts For The Week Before Christmas

Yesterday I was out in the yard rewiring our intrepid and old light up reindeer.  He is well worth the relighting effort; well made out of steel and probably going to last another twenty years or so.  DH was threatening to throw him out if we didn't use him this year (he is heavy to drag out of the attic), which horrified DD and I, so he is now resplendent with twice as many lights as before.

Not Our Deer, But Just Like Him

Another of our outdoor lights went out last night, which is always difficult because who really wants to climb back up on that ladder to replace them?  But who wants to look at a big blank space in the Christmas lights?  The good thing is that this is an excellent time to buy Christmas lights.  They are well picked over, but most stores still have them on sale.

Speaking of sales or rather, the lack thereof, this is not the week to be buying Christmas items.  Stores have marked their prices back up because they know that people who wait until the last minute to shop are desperate.  Wrapping supplies, gifts and candy are at their highest price right now.

The week after Thanksgiving I bought Hallmark gift paper 3 rolls for 99 cents, 3 Scotch wrapping tapes for $1.99 and ribbons 2 bags for 99 cents.  Now they are 1 roll for $1.99, 3 tapes for $2.99 and 1 ribbon for 99 cents.  This is a good time to think about the fabric wrappings or have the kids decorate some craft paper to use for wrapping.

Pillow Pets were marked down to $12.99 two weeks ago, but have been repriced to $19.99 this week.  Men's cologne was $10 off last week, but this week is full price.  And I am not seeing the 99 cent stocking stuffers that were available a week ago.

On line stores just love last minute shoppers.  They get to hit you with hugely inflated shipping prices.  Considering that Priority Mail prices are fairly reasonable and the boxes are free from the Post Office, it is a slap in the face to pay over $15 dollars for "expedited" shipping.

Well, these are the random thought that have been running through my mind the last day or so.  I hope you are hunkering down, baking (with supplies you bought 3 weeks ago) and not doing any last minute shopping.

God bless,
Pam

Frugal Christmas Trees At Lowes

We had decided that this year we would be unable to mail order our Christmas tree from a northern tree farm.  The costs for both the tree and the shipping would have been $85-90, which is way out of our budget, but we still wanted to have a live tree.

Our idea was to go to a local church that sells trees every year as a fundraiser.  They order one load of trees each year and when they are sold, they close down the lot.  I drive by their lot on the way to DD's school.  On Monday I was surprised to see that they had completely sold out of trees on the first weekend of December.  Oops.

My next idea was to go to Lowe's hardware to see what they had.  They receive new shipments of trees on a regular basis, so I reasoned that the trees would be fresh.  They had two types of fir trees, Douglas and Fraser, from 4' to 7' tall.  We chose a 6' tree, which was fresh, with moist, flexible needles and branches.  We thought that the cost would be similar to the tree lots; probably around $35-40.

Surprise!  Our bill was $21.28!

Now I was going to show you a picture of the tree, but I can't find my camera.  DH and DD are spending the weekend at Disney, so I think they may have packed it.  I also had photos for a Christmas craft, so that post will need to wait until next week.  I will photograph our tree after it is decorated and share it with you.

God bless,
Pam