Happy new year! Now take your creepy plant and GET OUT. I have no idea what this picture is about, frankly — but I feel like shutting the door on 2017 is probably the right thing to do.
I did way too much shopping in December, more than I had planned to do and a good bit for myself (not just gifts). We’ve been dealing with some serious family stress resulting from the car accident my Mom and Grandma were in in November, and it looks like Grams will have to go to an assisted living home after all. I think that this sort of sapped my willpower for savings. I was also very, very busy with work.
In December, I:
- Paid for my Seamwork subscription with money earned doing surveys.
- Used a few more Seamwork credits to buy a digital Colette sewing pattern.
- Redeemed points on two credit cards for cash back for holiday shopping. We do this every year — it’s one of the reasons we use a credit card for most purchases even though we pay them off in full every month.
- Used coupons on my Kroger card to get the following for free: a roll of Mentos, a Sunkist soda, Jell-O pudding mix, and store brand frozen green beans. (The really funny thing was that just before I got the Mentos coupon I had the old theme song stuck in my head for several days, and didn’t even know they still made them!)
- Had a free drink on my Starbucks card.
- Used a Groupon to treat my elementary school aged cousins to a trip to the science museum while they were visiting on holiday break.
- Used a coupon code to get a free 8 X 10 photo print at Walgreens.
- Used a coupon code to get 40% off at an independent clothing retailer, and used cash gifted to me by my grandma for the rest. Yeah, there really was a lot more shopping than usual this month. At least I looked for bargains!
- Bought some cherry-filled Hershey’s Kisses and a hard-to-find gift item on holiday clearance. I’ll put the Kisses away for Valentine’s Day and the gift away for next Christmas.
- Watched 3 DVDs from the library, and read 7 physical books (including one interlibrary loan) and 17 eBooks from the library. I still spent $28.12 on books, though, so that wasn’t as impressive as it could have been.
All in all, December wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t super impressive, either. I really did shop more than I had intended. Here’s hoping for a more productive 2018.