Hundred Dollar Holiday Update

A quick update of how our "Hundred Dollar Holiday" project is going:

Things look good so far. I think all the necessary shopping has been completed, and the grand total as of this afternoon was $103.43. This does *not* include food and food gifts, which are coming out of our grocery budget. I'm fairly impressed (and yes, excited!) that I was able to accomplish this feat.

As far as actual expenditures, this is how it all played out:

$ 8.00 on miscellaneous stocking stuffers at Dollarama
$13.53 mailing packages and Christmas cards
(I only mailed 4 cards - to England - everyone else is getting e-cards)
$10.55 for a book for my nine year old son
$ 4.77 for stocking stuffers at Shoppers Drug Mart (I used a $10 gift card here, otherwise the
total would have been $14.77)
$11.39 for a Simpsons puzzle for my 7 year old son
$30.19 for 2 fishing rods for the boys at Canadian Tire (my hubby used $20 of CT money as well)
$15.00 for a cheque for my teenaged nephew
$10.00 for our Christmas tree (actual cost $50, but we had a $40 gift certificate)

That makes a grand total of 103.43. In case you're thinking that looks like a pretty skimpy Christmas, there is a *lot* of other stuff that's either from yard sales (in new or nearly-new condition), food gifts, or other homemade gifts to round the above mentioned items out. There are also a lot of CDs I squirreled away from when I recently rejoined Columbia House and got 12 for 1 or something like that.

For our immediate family, it's going to look something like this:

Hubby-handknit hat (to match the scarf he got last year), Barenaked Ladies CD (he's a big fan), stocking which includes dark chocolate sticks, fancy shampoo, chapstick, bar soap and some other yet-to-be-determined "free"items

Noah (9 yo) - from Santa: stocking, peg puzzle (garage-saled) ,Frosty/Rudolph songs CD, Sudoku puzzle book; from us: Build Your Own Inuksuk book and fishing rod

Nathan (7 yo) from Santa: stocking, kids card game book (garage-saled), Simpsons jigsaw puzzle, Sudoku puzzle book; from us: Petsitters book (1st one in the series-garage-saled) and fishing rod

That's all I can think of right now, although I might have left something out. I will write more about some of the gift baskets I am putting together for family and friends in my next post.