If You Haven't Got a Penny, a Ha'penny Will Do

I don't know about you, but I am flat broke. This is not an unusual situation for me. Sadly. We try our guts out to get debt-free, to build up an emergency fund, and EVERY DAGNAB TIME we get some significant savings we have an emergency. Not an "I need new boots to walk around Disneyland" emergency, but an "the car has stopped running and the baby is out of Pedia Sure and diapers and, somehow, we forgot to pay the electric bill three months in a row and if we don't give them $500 today we will get cut off" emergency.

January 1 last year I set up an allotment from W's paycheck to go directly into our savings account, figuring that with the money we put aside we would have a stress-free Christmas, as well as be able to hit our emergency savings goal.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. HA.

Ten months later? We have six wooden nickels and an old ten pfenning coin. And three tokens for the car wash in Orem.

But it's November! That leaves two months of savings to pay for Christmas!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Tears of a Clown, Ha.

Two weeks ago W's car decided to stop working. We borrowed a friend's auto sensor and it informed us that the problem was most likely a busted thermostat. EASY. $10 fix.

Except once we fixed it our friend said, in his best I'm-sorry-that-you-have-twelve-kinds-of-prostate-cancer-and-only-three-minutes-to-live-voice "Yeah, I don't think it was that thermostat after all. I think it is the (something else I don't remember). You are looking at about $600 in repairs."

Except when we called our shop they said "Yeah, if it IS that, and it sounds like it is, you are looking at $1800 in repairs. Unless the whole thing is cracked, in which case you need a new engine. For $5000."

Did I mention we are still paying on this car? And tears of a clown? Hopefully when we take it in there will be a tender mercy on our family and everyone's predictions will be wrong. But in the meantime, there is NO money for Christmas.

But that's okay, because we don't need very much. And I am not implying that we give each other pinecone art and coupons for backrubs--we do Amigo Gifts. And here are some of the ways we afford them.

Swagbucks
Do you use swagbucks? Because you should. At its essence it is a search engine that gives you rewards for using their site instead of google or whatever. Every few times you search you earn a few swagbucks, and when you have enough you can trade them in for merchandise or gift cards or what have you. In addition, you can earn them for trading in old video games and cell phones, for taking surveys, for just turning on your computer--all sorts of things. Just by using the toolbar this year we earned enough for quite a haul on Amazon. About $100 in gift cards. Which I have saved to use for Christmas.

Klout
This one was unexpected, as it is very new to me, but I am a sucker for free. And with klout you can earn "perks" by tweeting or something. Sometimes the "perks" are crap. Other times they are Subway sandwiches or boxes of Sharpies. I am not sure what, really, klout does or measures or how it really works, but I do know that, for nothing, I got $25 to one of my favorite websites, Ecomom. Which purchased one of Buster's toys, and a bunch of lunchbox snacks. And then I used my budgeted grocery money to purchase diapers.

Babies-Backwards-R-Us
I used to only purchase diapers from Costco, thinking that they were the cheapest around, but every now and then BBRU has deals where if you purchase giant boxes of dipes you get $20 gift cards. And the dipes end up being about the same price as from the warehouse stores, so they are a pretty good deal. The great thing about the gift cards is that they can be used at TOYS-BACKWARDS-R-US. So I saved those cards and bought the toys for the cousin gifts and for Buster.

World Market
Our World Market is right next door to our BBRU, and I love it there. In El Paso our organic and free range food is pretty limited, especially in my neighborhood. So I get a lot of sauces and chocolate and cocoa and tea and things from World Market. If you sign up for their "Explorers" club (free) they reward you with incentives and coupons. At your birthday they send you a $10 gift card. And for every $100 in food you purchase they send you a $10 gift card. And World Market has lots of candy, ornaments, toys, jewelry, stationary, and stocking stuffers in the under $10 category. Which takes care of the little hostess and teacher gifts.

Kohls
I love me the Kohls. Mostly because they want to give me their merchandise for free on a pretty regular basis. They are always sending me coupons online (when you sign up they send you a $5 gift certificate) and--even better--$10 gift certificates just because. They figure that if I come in with a free $10, I will spend $100. Instead, I go in and use a 30% off coupon and purchase that stupid Justin Beaver watch Jooj is dying for and only pay a few dollars. Take that, Kohls! And thanks for the money!

Pinecone Research
This is my other favorite way that we are paying for Christmas this year. Pinecone is a marketing research survey site. (I KNOW.) But instead of being lame and giving you nothing, they pay you with actual checks. A survey takes less than ten minutes, and in return I get paid $3. Which is almost stupidly irrelevant, except that they send me three or four surveys to do a month. Which makes it $10 a month, on average. And those little checks go right into the Christmas account and add up to well over $100 by the end of the year. Thanks, people who want me to tell them my opinion!

Scholastic Books
The final thing I have done this year to stretch our ha'penny of a budget is shop through Scholastic. You may remember them as the ones who do the book fairs and book orders at the elementary schools. Well, they still do the book fairs and book orders. But they also have warehouse sales a few times a year. The prices are ridiculous--up to 80% off of books and pencils and junk. All you have to do is get on the list and go down to the warehouse. You can also shop online, and if you are interested in shopping this month, check out the book fair Jooj's school is holding--if you live in El Paso they will ship to the school for free, even. Stocking stuffers and fun books for the kids. Check.

So that is it--that is how we are paying for Christmas this year. All told, out of pocket, I think we will spend less than $300 on food, stamps, and little incidentals that I couldn't get for free. What do you think? Any good tips I can use? (And don't say Black Friday. I'd rather gnaw off my arm than shop Black Friday.)

Tomorrow? My gift guidelines. Same bat-time, same bat-blog.