The MomSpeak

With the economy tanking like it is, it’s no wonder that shoppers everywhere are tightening their purse strings and slashing their holiday budgets. But that doesn’t mean you can’t spread some Christmas cheer all around.  Here are some ways you can stretch your budget and still give unique, thoughtful presents to the people you care about most:

1) Know before you go.  Start your gift-giving season my making a list and checking it twice.  If you know exactly who you’re getting presents for and how much you want to spend, you’re less likely to succumb to panic buys or impulse buys. 

2) To clamp down on overspending, consider getting together with family members and setting some limits on the kinds of gifts you buy for each other:

* Set a dollar limit — $10, $20 
* Set a category limit — For example, declare 2008 to be the Year of the Book or the Great Cookie Exchange.
* Set an age limit — Give presents only to family members under 18.  
* Set a person limit — Take a cue from your office Secret Santa; each family member draws just 1 gift recipient from out of a hat.

Who knows, you could start a new family gift-giving tradition that saves you (and your entire family) some money every year.

So I was watching some home improvement show the other day — or maybe it was more of an informercial, or perhaps I dreamed the entire thing up — that had a little segment about these fancy baby-safe electrical outlets. Not the little plastic outlet covers we all know and use and despise and regularly snap our thumbnails off with, though. No, those are for parents who clearly DO NOT LOVE THEIR CHILDREN VERY MUCH, because now you can get your house wired with actual baby-safe outlets that somehow sense when fork prongs or knife blades are being stuck into them and slide shut, saving your curious child from electrocution. So hooray! You are now free to leave sharp metal objects lying around the house with confidence!

(This same show also had a bit about a table saw that can sense when your finger gets too close to the blade and shut itself off. The inventor was there demonstrating the mechanism by sticking a hotdog against the blade, and frankly, I was disappointed that he wouldn’t use his finger. Way to stand behind your product! Come on! I want some violence mixed in with my do-it-yourselfing.)

Anyway! The show reminded me of how seriously we took baby-proofing, and of how much money we’ve spent on fancy retractable gates and outlet covers and window-blind cord covers and drawer locks that snapped in two every time we forgot about them and opened the drawer with the tiniest bit of force. And obviously we DO NOT LOVE OUR CHILDREN VERY MUCH, because we never even bothered with the corner guards and door blockers and toilet locks and coating every vaguely hard surface with bubble wrap. Not that I didn’t stand in the baby-proofing aisle of the store fretting over each and every expensive plastic doohickey of safety. What if our baby DID fall into the toilet? What if he DID knock himself senseless on the corner of the dining room table? What if he DID somehow push a chair across the kitchen to the sink, climb onto the countertop, flip the garbage disposal switch and shove his hand down in there?

And yet, we’ve managed to bring one child through infancy and toddlerhood relatively unscathed, save for one tumble down the (carpeted) basement steps, but that was not for a lack of a working gate. That was more for the lack of me remembering to close the gate.

Phew! My youngest son just turned four and the last few days have been a whirlwind of activity.  I feel a bit bad for him because he’s never had a birthday party before.  We just always felt he was too young. And, to be perfectly honest, his birthday is so close to the holiday season, money is always tight and a birthday party is the last expense we need!

But now he’s four.  He’s being invited to parties and he wanted one for his birthday.  So, we decided to throw a party, but did not want to spend a lot of money.  

I’m a bit believer in Birthday’s without Pressure.  I don’t feel the need to compete with other parties, to reciprocate invites or to invite everyone in my kids’ classes.  I set a limit on the number of invites (usually their age +1), then ask them who they want to invite.  Helps not only keep the chaos minimal, but it also keeps the cost down.

So, what can you do to make sure your kids have a fun party without going over the limit?

When it comes to a mom wardrobe, accessories can definitely take your mom uniform from drab to fab in a pair of great earrings or the perfect ring.  But with the economy on shaky ground and the holidays around the corner, most of us aren’t dropping cash on things for ourselves. And we are, we’ve probably only got a few bucks to spare and that generally means something and your local mall and most certainly not handmade.

Of course, when you hear the words “handmade jewelry,” you might imagine either a noodle necklace your preschooler created at school, or a gorgeous artisan piece that will probably cost you an arm and a leg. But thanks to Etsy, a veritable online craft fair that allows anyone with internet access to thousands of artisans and their wares, handmade jewelry can be whatever you want it to be, and in this case, it’s stylish, affordable handcrafted pieces that can help make or break your wardrobe this Fall without you having to spend money on mass produced jewelry that everyone else might have.

If you’re not familiar with Etsy, then you might find yourself completely addicted and perhaps a bit overwhelmed. However, the search categories, along with their frequently updated gift guide and main page features, make finding cool items a bit easier. The key is to visit often, save your favorites, and remember that the items are handmade, so there might be some discrepancies or minor irregularities that just make it unique. But being able to support an artisan, crafter, and/or small business owner all while decking yourself out on a budget is a fantastic reason to click around and shop.

Meal planning. Sounds so sensible and mundane. Where’s the spontaneity? The allowance for food cravings? And what if there’s no room for the overhead of planning in your already busy life?

I wouldn’t classify myself as particularly organized or systematic, but I do consider meal planning to be the backbone of my domestic week. The fifteen minutes I spend mapping out the week’s meals save me hours of time I’d lose dashing around my house trying to scare up dinner, or running back to the store for an overpriced item from the deli case.

I’m here to reassure you that meal planning does not have to include seven days’ worth of perfectly balanced meals, nor does it require a lot of work or time. Just a few minutes and the willingness to sit down with a cookbook and a grocery list.