Hooray for me! I finished my Xmas shopping today and came in under the limit I set for myself.

Becus I'm not working, i decided I should spend no more than $100. No one is expecting much, if anything from me for gifts because they know about my employment situation, but I wanted to just tone it down, not eliminate Xmas gifts entirely.

I pared down my list and bought for 4 people.

1. My dad has a special fondness for orange marmalade, especially the good stuff he got when he was in England. So I went to a little gift shop in my town called the UK Gourmet and bought 3 varieties of marmalade: the original, a lime/lemon version and another version made for diabetics. Total: $17.25

2. For K., who mentioned she wanted to buy an immersion blender after the holiday, I bought a Cuisinart immersion blender for $30.

3. For my mother, I decided she also might like the ease of use (lightweight) and easier cleanup of using an immersion blender, so she got one too, as well as a canister of Bag Balm for her very dry hands (this was basically "free" becus I bought it a year ago as a kind of gag gift for someone else and changed my mind) and an Audubon engagement calendar.

The Audubon calendar is something I receive in the mail free every year becus I have named Audubon in my will. I really like the calendar, but it was a way to save money on Xmas gifts so am giving to my mother, who will love the photos. I've also named the Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund and some other groups in my will, but only Audubon gives me this calendar as a token of their appreciation each year.

4. For my sister, I got a used book from the library on edible plants for $5, a very nice set of napkins with a pretty botanical chestnut print 1/2 price for $3.50 and a box of photo paper, normally $8 but after rebate just $1.48! Today was the last day of the rebate at Staples, so i really lucked out.

Spending came in at $87 which leaves me with leftover money to buy a nice bottle of wine for Xmas dinner. If I had paid full price for everything the total would have come to about $113.

I'm also thrilled cus on my shopping errands today i was finally able to use a coupon (obtained thru the freebies email from this site) for a FREE box of Debbie's cupcakes. I had gone to Shop Rite and Stop and Shop looking for these and they had other Debbie's baked goods, but NOT the cupcakes. This always seems to happen to me. The really good coupons I get often can't be used cus i can't find the product.

When I was about 10 years old, I had a serious thing going for Ring Dings, which are very similar to Debbie's cupcakes. In fact, I remember writing the company a letter telling them how much I loved their Ring Dings in the hopes that they'd give me a year's supply of free Ring Dings. They didn't.)

Anyway, i found them today at Big Y. Normal price is $3.09. I also was able to use an Internet coupon for Michael Angelo's frozen entrees, buy 1 get 1 free. 1 large package of eggplant parmigiana is normally $9, so i got the 2 for $4.50 each and each box will give me 2 or probably 3 servings.

I also went to Pet Choice Supply, normally too high priced for regular visits, but i had another coupon for a free can of cat food and bought a few other cans of cat food there. Stopped at a craft show at local hotel, but didn't see anything i liked.

I love productive shopping trips.

I have 4 different work-related projects to work on this weekend, but haven't been real motivated to focus on them yet. But it's all good!