Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Making a Birthday Gift Fit

My oldest is in Kindergarten now, and woooo wee does that mean a lot of birthday parties! We already had one this month, so when the invitation for another arrived in the backpack, I knew it would be a challenge to fit a gift in the budget. I checked our regifting box, but unfortunately found nothing suitable for a soon-to-be 6 year old. Which reminds me that I can't wait for garage sale season to stock up on new books, games, etc...to have on hand at times like these.

Anyway, back to my dilemma...birthday gift. Then I remembered a $10 gift card I had from Best Buy for recycling an old TV. The way it works there is that you have to pay a $10 fee to recycle your electronic item, but receive a gift card for that amount to use in store. I also remembered that I had a DVD player waiting to be recycled.

So $20 of in store credit (with $10 out of pocket this month) let my son pick out this for his friend.

What is it with those penguins? A little reused packaging paper decorated by Tucker and we are good to go with about $5 left on the gift card!

2 comments:

MLDB said...

Great thinking! We aren't getting invited to tons of parties yet (with Avery only being 4 andin preschool), but the 2 that we have been invited to have requested "no gifts".
On the other hand, we do have 12 nieces and nephews and a couple of close friends that we always buy birthday gifts for. This year we decided to try something new. When we got our tax refund back, we went straight to the bank. Instead of depositing everything, we bought $50 savings bonds for all the nieces and nephews (and the close friends). We spent about $350 (our state refund), and was able to give them something that will double by the time they graduate. We figure that by the time they all graduate and the bonds mature, that they will have each received at least $500 from us for college or whatever. It's seems like a lot of money upfront, but since it was our refund, it didn't feel like a financial sacrifice to us. AND, the parents really seem to appreciate it.
Then, Avery and I made handmade gifts for them so they would have something fun (as well as the bond) to open. For this last party, we made bow headbands, barrettes and hair clips. I only spent about $3 and used lots of ribbon and artificial flowers that we had here at the house

Teresa said...

That is brilliant and very resourceful! Oh, I remember the days of zillions of little birthday parties.....fun times!