Journal of a Busy Mom

living one day at a time

Christmas Budget Tip #3: Use Your Mouse

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By that I mean shop online. I have been debating whether or not I will be doing the crazy after Thanksgiving sales. I have gone the last 3-4 years and I don’t think I have scored really big, big sales. I watched some videos last year about how to “prepare” but, what I realized was unless you have a crew of people helping, it is very hard to get all the deals you want and not have to wait in crazy long lines. I know Cyber Monday is coming so I am considering using the web to do my shopping this year.

Cyber Monday

Best Cyber Monday

Offers.com

Amazon Black Friday

If you want to still venture out on Black Friday, I suggest you visit some great websites that are doing all the hard work for you.

The Frugal Find has compiled Black Friday prices for various stores and compared them to Amazon.com (I’m thinking Cyber Monday).

Money Saving Mom has compiled the Best deals for the Black Friday Sales.

IF I decide to venture out this After Thanksgiving Sale, I don’t think I will do the crazy hours. I will go out at a decent time (like 6am) and see what I can scrounge.

Ligia

Operation Christmas Child Delivery Day

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The day arrived to deliver our shoeboxes. In total we brought 10 boxes. We did 6 boxes ourselves, two from our co-op, and two from my mother-in-law. Our church guessimated that they collected 600 boxes. 

Collection boxes at our church:

As a mentioned before in my first post about Operation Christmas Child, they are hitting 100,000,000 boxes this year. I am honored to contribute my two cents for this cause. If you ever get a chance to watch their video, it is amazing. Visit Operation Christmas Child’s website.

Ligia

Gumball Machine Cake

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I had a birthday party this weekend and this is what I ended up making:

First bake a 8×8 square cake and 8″ round cake and 10-12 cupcakes. I made regular sized cupcakes but I think mini cupcakes would have been better. I wanted 12 “gum balls” since my daughter was 12, but it didn’t work out.

Cut each cake like in picture:

Frost cake with yellow and white frosting.I froze the cake for 1 hour and then did a crumb coat. I still got a lot of crumbs, so I did that 1-2 times. Using piping gel create the outlines of the gumball machine.

 

 

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