Post-Holiday Savings

Christmas, and the frantic rush to buy-buy-buy, is behind us. I hope your day was as pleasant as mine, surrounded by family, good food, and thoughtful gifts. We gave away the lion’s share of our leftovers, including the sweets, and I started the after-Christmas year with a virtuous breakfast of veggies and a deviled egg. I tested my new blender with a green smoothie, which I shared with my son, and even though I eventually caved and dug into the leftover cookie tin, I did throw away all the gifted desserts that nobody in my house cares for. I hesitated over the waste right before I dumped the store-bought cake (pawned off on us after nobody ate it at someone else’s party) into the trash, but it was brief hesitation. The only person who would eat that junky store bakery cake with its shortening-based icing is me, and not only do I not need it, but I would be regretting each bite even as I shoved another one into my mouth. I have that sort of relationship with sugar - a relationship I’d like to work on in 2014, but that’s a different blog post. This one is still about savings.

I woke up this morning to an inbox full of end-of-year sales on everything from Hanna Andersson kids’ clothes to Harlequin holiday books. I won’t lie, I clicked on that up-to-60%-off link to Hanna Andersson and I browsed. I even added a few things to my shopping cart before I came to my senses and reminded myself of these things:

It’s not a savings if it’s something I (or my son) doesn’t need.

It’s not a savings if it’s the wrong size next year (in the case of buying for next season).

It’s not a savings if I buy now and put it away for safekeeping, only to forget I bought it.

Buying just because something is on sale is not saving, period. It’s spending.

And I’m trying to lead a more frugal life in 2014 so I don’t have to stress as much about the income I’m bringing in. The less I spend, the less I need to earn, the more I can work (in my case, write) for the joy of it instead of the gut-knotting necessity of it.

During this week after Christmas, I’ll be taking stock of my habits and forming goals for the new year, but I think saving will be a foundation block right beside writing and loving, which I will write more about over time. Today I have saving on my mind, so here we are.

Now I’m off to make a batch of homemade hummus for my son’s lunches and snacks because I have the ingredients in my cabinet, which means there’s no point in buying a container from the grocery store. Saving instead of spending. It’s like magic.

A Yeasty Interlude

Life feels dominated by Christmas and my holiday to-do list. I started in on my tasks early by shopping in advance, making cookie dough to freeze and bake closer to the date, buying paper and plastic for serving (don’t look at me like that, this house doesn’t have a dishwasher) - all those things that in theory will help relieve the stress.

In  theory.

As for the reality, I’m not convinced. I feel like I’ve been doing my to-do list for ages and I’m about to enter full-on panic mode. It’s time to stop and take a deep breath and focus on something besides the “washable bath crayon” I can’t scrub off the shower walls and the film of cat litter dust that seems imbedded in the tiny crevices between the tiny tiles of the master bath floor (what? The cat has to pee somewhere, too).

So to that end, I took a step back from holiday prep today - except for getting my mom’s Christmas box together and ready to mail - and instead decided to bake bread.

Earlier today I mixed up a half batch of the Master Recipe in my new bread cookbook, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. As I write this, the experimental loaf is sitting on my kitchen counter, smelling deliciously yeasty and...crackling. My bread is crackling. I am so ridiculously proud of baking a loaf of bread that crackles. I'm pretty sure I was actually gleeful when I stopped my husband, who was mid-"I don't think this bread turned out right..." and crowed, "Listen! Do you hear that? It's crackling! The book said the crust would "sing" and it is!"

My husband, the well-educated baker and highly-experienced professional cook, paused, and said, "You know, I think I've heard that before with baguette..."

And then I jumped up and down in my kitchen at 10:30 pm*, squealing about my successful loaf of bread and fantasizing about all the other ways I can turn flour, salt, yeast, and water into a hot, buttery orchestra of deliciousness that will do terrible things to my intestines (but that I won't think about until later, when I'm miserable).

So that was my break from the holidays.

Oh, and I exercised! I actually reached my FitBit daily target of 5,000 steps today. I’m making a public declaration right now that I will meet the 5,000 target again tomorrow.

(As long as hot buttered bread doesn’t kill me before morning...and provided I don't wake up screaming my holiday to-do list to the heavens above.)

*Confession: I didn't really jump up and down and squeal, but only because I knew it would wake my toddler. I was partying on the inside, though.

Gift-Giving and Not-So-Sweet, Sweet Fudge

I met my husband in 2005, relocated from New England to the Mid-Atlantic to be closer to him in 2006, and married him in 2007. This year will be my eighth Christmas with him and his family, the second year I host the "big family Christmas party," and the first year I stop giving purchased gifts to people who neither need nor want yet another pair of novelty socks, penguin change purse, or pop culture trinket.

Before you give me squinty-eyed looks and start denouncing my heart twelve sizes too small (and start wondering where the fudge recipe is), hear me out. Prior to the birth of my son in 2011, my in-laws hadn't enjoyed a "children's Christmas" in a good many years. The youngest guest at the family Christmas party is my sister-in-law, who is well into her twenties, works a few jobs by choice, and frequently complains to me about how much she hates receiving gifts from people. Last year, shortly after Christmas, one of my husband's relatives came by my house with a gift bag full of things other people had given her, to find out if I wanted any of those things. About two months ago, I opened one of those mystery boxes of stuff in my house and found gifts I'd been given at the 2011 party -

grimy with dust.

unopened.

unwanted (however much the thought was appreciated).

Now that I'm a parent, I live in the land of Stuff People Give My Kid, and the stuff has started getting to me. I don't want a can of hair spray or fancy salon shampoos; I don't use hair spray and I prefer to wash my hair with baking soda and vinegar, sulfate-free shampoos, or even plain old conditioner once in a while.

I don't want the stuff people give just so they can say they have a gift for you.

And I don't want to give that stuff anymore, either. Finally, this year, after seven Christmases and one boy-child, I finally convinced my husband that we should scale back on the stuff-giving, and finally, after seven Christmases and one boy-child, my husband finally agreed. This year, my guests will receive something meaningful and something sweet: a small 4x6 photo book of my son's second year and a goodie box filled with hand-made holiday sweet treats.

I think my husband is privately grumbling a little about it all, but I'm content knowing nobody will be re-gifting this precious creature...

and I'm a-OK with the individual decision to eat or re-gift my Dark Chocolate Pecan Fudge, knowing the tasty gift was made and given with love instead of with a need to put on a gift-giving show.

If you need a break from buying - or if you just need a rich, chocolate-y break because 'tis the season for exhaustion - why not try this?

Dark Chocolate Pecan Fudge

Ingredients

1 package (approximately 2 cups) dark chocolate chips

14 oz sweetened condensed milk

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp salt (or a few good grinds of sea salt)

1/2 c chopped pecans or other nut

Instructions

Dump everything except the nuts in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave at normal/high power for 30-45 seconds, stir, and microwave another 30 seconds. Stir. Repeat until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Fold in the nuts and pour the mixture into a greased 8x8 pan. Even the surface with the back of a spoon, cover with wax paper or plastic wrap, and place in the refrigerator for a few hours so the fudge has a chance to set. Cut into small squares or big squares to eat or gift, and give yourself a pat on the back for busting free of that holiday buying obligation.

Tip

Don't do what I did and drizzle Hershey's caramel on top, or you will have a pan of fudge suitable for eating but not for gifting. Or maybe you should do what I did...

An Early Christmas Gift

It’s a week before Christmas and the gifts are all either here or on their way. Soon, I’ll finish the photo albums and goody boxes I’m assembling as gifts for family members, and then my husband and I will begin wrapping. Lots and lots of wrapping, because I really enjoy the finishing touch gifts bring to the Christmas tree.

This morning as I settled in for a day of “last minute Christmas gift browsing”, I checked in with Facebook. A former coworker, from the time before I became a full-time writer and stay-at-home mom, proudly announced to Facebook that he, his wife, and his little boy are enjoying a no-debt Christmas…and my day’s plans clouded over. Envy sank into my stomach because I can’t say the same for my family and our holiday this year. We’re coming out of lush times and heading into lean times, but we have been spending like we’re still enjoying the golden period.

We have attempted debt freedom in the past and we started this year in good shape, but lost sight of our goals. Or we didn’t fully embrace our goals in the first place. Today I realized I need to stop and take a breath and remember how to enjoy the leaner days ahead. Ordinarily I would bury my head in the sand and say “we’ll start on January 1,” but I don’t want to be that person who wakes up on New Year’s Day with resolutions and vows and the amount of debt that can still be accumulated in the two weeks that remain in the year.

More than not wanting to be that person with resolutions and vows, I don’t want to be that person who recklessly disregarded the opportunity provided by these last two weeks of 2013. I started the year with goals I haven’t met and I started the year without some of the bad habits I’ve picked up along the way. Write, Love, Save is a gift to myself - the gift of remembering what I want out of the minutes, days, and years of my life.