1997. Hubby and I were young & broke. We were in our first home (yay!), but without much extra cash. It was early September, (I was thinking ahead) and I decided that the best thing for us to do was...layaway. Do stores even do this anymore?
Anyway, hubby and I went to a local department store and picked her out, a baby doll, a little-tykes, pink doll high-chair (I can still remember it! She played with it for years) and a few more things we thought she'd enjoy. We put it all in layaway.
Every week, I'd take some of our extra money, (it wasn't much I can tell you because we didn't have much, I'm thinking maybe $20 or so) and I'd go pay on the Christmas presents. The second week of October, we paid it off and brought it home to hide until Christmas.
I can't tell you how excited we were! We were able to give our little girl a Christmas.
I learned a valuable lesson from those hard times. If I thought ahead and planned early enough, we could always give our kids a Christmas.
Fast forward 11 years later.
I still start Christmas shopping in September. But, long gone are the days that I was all done by the second week of October. {{grin}}
Happy Monday!
-Jen
It's going to take a lot of planning/budgeting for Christmas this year. I've started a list but haven't bought a thing. You're smart for starting early. I'm such a procrastinator.
ReplyDeleteYour daughter is gorgeous. She looks just like you. Beautiful family (am referring to the pics in the sidebar).
ReplyDeleteGood for you for starting early. I started looking, and planning early, but wish they had layaway too.
Saw this really cool idea once, though. Talked about buying gift cards or putting money on a gift card to save for Xmas, with layaways a thing of the past now. Too bad I forgot about it until now lol
Hi Jen! I wish I were futher along with my shopping, but I'm pretty close to having my 2 year old done- yay!
ReplyDeleteHi Lisa- thank you for the sweet comment & for stopping by! :)
Amen! I've gotten two presents so far. I would have more but the family is procrastinating on giving me their wish lists!
ReplyDeleteI haven't even started! But at least I have thought about it (as in today's post!). I can't get over that it's the 2nd week of Oct.--probably b/c it's like 80 degrees out!! Where's my fall weather???
ReplyDeleteYes, it's amazing how times like that give such perspective.
ReplyDelete