I know that all too well. When we needed $500 to fix Sam’s car I didn’t think we would be able to do Christmas this year. We had no savings left and we had to borrow money from Liam’s savings account to pay for Sam’s car. So what did that leave for Christmas? Well nothing, at first, but I was able to buy Liam a Leapster 2, the Wall-e game for the Leapster and Hungry Hungry Hippos Game. I also bought Casey the Leapfrog interactive dog Violet. All without spending a dime from our checking account. First I got a $20 refund for Luvs diapers since they leaked and they have a leak guard guarantee. Then I got $20 for my birthday (I would rather spend it on my kids than myself). I got a $15 gift card for Amazon.com by submitting reviews on products I own at ExpoTV.com. I got paid $27 from ScrapDish (sales are going up). And last of all I got a $10 gift card for Toys R Us for buying formula. So the total was $92, yet I bought $125 worth of stuff and still had $13 left over, which I am using for shipping costs of free photos and photobooks that I am able to get (over 200 free photos so far).

The Leapster 2 I got at Amazon.com. They were having a short term discount that lasted only a few hours and I bought it then for $43. The Hungry Hungry Hippos Game was on sale for $15 at Walmart and I had a coupon for $4 off (total $54). The Leapster game was on sale (until Nov 26) for $18.50 at Toys R Us and I had a $4 off coupon (total $68.50). Violet was on sale at Target for $15 and I had a $5 off coupon (grand total of $78.50). I think I have done very well.

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I have been so busy for the past week that I really didn’t have a lot of time to go online. My son can now open his own toy store with all the toys he received and we told everyone not to buy him toys because he already had too many that we have no place to put them! I thought that would reduce the amount of toys received (I knew that they would buy him toys anyway) but he got more toys this year then the last two years combined! I guess that is because my family hasn’t seen him since he was 11 months old (now he is 28 months). I just hope we can fit it all in the car!