Friday kicked off the official Christmas shopping season…and the only place I went to was the grocery store!  While father-in-law was up here last week (week before?) he bought us a chest freezer as our Christmas present.  He made the comment I should want something more frivolous and less practical than a chest freezer, but got us one that was twice the size I had in mind!  So of course I felt free to stock up on any meat deals at the grocery store, of which there were MANY on the so-called Black Friday.  The only reason I even left the house on Friday at all was because we had forgotten to put dog food on the shopping list earlier that week.

As for gift-giving this year: Just because we are working so hard to reduce our debt doesn’t mean friends and family will be lacking.  I am making Christmas presents, and have two completely done - one for my mother-in-law and one for hubby’s grandmother.  Right now I am taking a break from working on my mom’s present.  I can’t say what I am making, since hubby told me his mother sometimes takes a look at this blog, but I will say it is something not too many people think of when they hear the phrase “homemade gifts.”  I am seriously debating whether or not to tell them I actually made them by hand ;)  With my family, they already know I make these things plus my mom and sister made specific requests when I announced it would be a handmade gift year.

In fact, I was able to stay out of my all-time favorite stores for buying my crafting supplies: Hobby Lobby and a little locally owned place that is dedicated to my hobby.  I’ve been known to “lose” up to $100 per store…but walk out with months of projects.  Instead, I went to a wholesale supplier online and only spent $56 for the supplies I needed to do up this year’s presents.

We did end up at Best Buy last night, since son wanted World of Warcraft (his father already said he would pay for the subscription if I bought the software) and I am just not quite talented enough to make that one by hand LOL  I have to confess I was eyeballing a little printer-scanner-copier to replace the three year old model that died this past year and is just taking up space on my desk.  We resisted the temptation to impulse it, but hubby and I discussed fitting it into next month’s budget since it is only $79 plus tax.

And that right there is one of the biggest changes in our behavior since we got onto the Dave Ramsey plan: we discussed it quickly in the store, determined that we didn’t have it in this month’s budget (since we now have a working budget!) and are making plans to put it into the December budget.  Last year it just would have ended up on a credit card.  This is measurable economic progress!