Budget Goodie Bags

Last year, I talked about keeping an eye out for clearanced goodie bag items during after holiday sales. We also check the party store’s clearance table on a regular basis.

This year, I have the advantage of some very budget friendly goodie bag ideas I just saw a friend use and I will be incorporating them in our bags. I thought you all could use some of the ideas, too.

She found a printable coloring sheet and a printable word search with the party theme. Then, she shrank each sheet to 25% of its original size so she could print four small coloring sheets and activity pages on each standard sheet of paper. The quarter page size sheets were the perfect size for the goodie bags.

Next, she created her own themed kits in ziplock bags for each child. She cut the pieces from craft foam, which resulted in a much nicer craft than if she would have used construction paper. I think I’ll use my die cut machine to cut my kit pieces out, since it can easily handle craft foam.

Do you have a great idea for cheap birthday goodie bag fillers?

Photo by Michaela Maslarska

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To make a juice can shaker, you’ll need:

• A juice can and lid (We use Welches)
• Beads, pebbles, beans, or rice
• Hot glue or tape

Thoroughly clean the can and the lid. Pour the beads or other items into the can and hot glue the lid on. If you’re allowing a child to do the project, have the child tape the lid on with a piece of duct tape instead. That’s all there is to it.

We tried different filler items for different cans to create a slightly different sound for each one. If you don’t have juice cans, you can always fill a plastic water bottle halfway with rice or beans instead.

Do you make musical instruments from things you find around the house?

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I usually start my search for cheap or free attractions we can visit at my credit card company’s site. Bank of America gives card holders free admission to a limited number of museums on the first weekend each month. If I can find one we want to visit and kids’ admission is very cheap or even free, we’re good to go.

Next, I check individual attraction sites to see if there are any special offers. For example, the National Aquarium in Baltimore has $5 Fridays that start after 5 p.m. and has a dollar days special that always is held sometime in December. Dollar days are really awesome, because almost all the other family friendly Inner Harbor attractions jump on the bandwagon. You can spend about $10 each and wear yourselves to the bone going from one attraction to the next.

(For homeschoolers, family field trips may be the way to go. The Maryland Zoo at Baltimore offers a free self guided field trip for homeschool teachers and their students.)

Finally, I check with any schools or employers in the family. I used to get major discounts from being a college student and then a college employee. Some of my other employers have gotten nice discounts for employees, too.

How do you sightsee on a budget?

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Bag it up and pass it on.

If that pile of bits and pieces is frustrating you, bag it up and drop it by your girl scout leader’s house or send it to school with a note to your child’s elementary school teacher that explains you were cleaning out and thought the items might be useful in the classroom. While I had plans for most of my other leftovers, there was a huge bag of foam stickers taking up an entire craft drawer that hadn’t been touched in over a year. I sent them to school and the teacher was able to use them in a class project that week.

Make your own craft kits.

Every once in awhile, I take all the bits and look them over to see if I can make a set of new craft kits from them. Usually, I can make several kits by combining foam die cuts made with my Sizzix machine and the leftover googley eyes, pipe cleaners, foam stickers and assorted other items. (I have a ton of dies that I collected over the years when I worked as a librarian and teacher.)

Toss the leftovers in a bin and give it to the kids

Who would ever use that ugly bit of paper or that ratty piece of pipe cleaner? You can toss all of this random stuff in the trash, right? Not so fast. Some of the smallest, most unattractive pieces have been transformed into works of art in a child’s hands. I personally put all the extra scraps in a craft bin that the kids are free to dig through when they just want to make some cards or bizarre recycled container creatures.

What do you do with your leftover craft supplies?

Photo by Valerie Like

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Our family never had these problems because we always pack a “magic bag” filled with things for the trip. Inside the bag, we put:

• Prepackaged drinks, like Capri Sun or Ssips. We tried a lot of different money saving things, like a huge cooler that has a spout and little sippy cups, but they made a mess when we were dealing with the under ten set. For us, it made sense to just look for a good sale and buy a few packs of drinks to tuck away for trips.

• Snacks. Think about crumbs, stickiness quotient and the ability to hang around in a bag without refrigeration when you’re choosing yours. We usually did PB and marshmallow sandwiches, apples that we pre-washed and goldfish crackers in baggies.
• A notebook filled with car game ideas. It can be easy to forget all the fun things you can do in a car if you don’t have something to remind you. Just jot down ideas as you think of them and then you can refer to the book when 25 little voices yell, “Are we there yet?” from the back seat. (School bus trips. Gotta love em!)
• Books on tape. (I guess now we’d have a portable DVD player and movies, but we loved books on tape. The library still carries books on CD, but I noticed the cassette tapes are gone, so if you only have a tape player in your car, you may have difficulty finding books on tape to play on it.)
• Silly stocking stuffer type things that were 90% off after Christmas or another holiday. (Card games, like Old Maid or Crazy Eights, were a big hit.) It was like Christmas in the car to have a parent suddenly pull something out of the bag that was brand new.

In case you’re still trying to think of car games, here are a few we liked to play:

1. Sing a long to Head and Shoulders, If You’re Happy and You Know It or other songs where the kids could move a bit in their seats.
2. I Spy (Keep the things you spy in the car.)
3. Sentence stories. Someone begins the story with a sentence like “Harry woke up and realized he wasn’t in his own bed at home.” Then, the next person adds a sentence of his or her own. It sounds simple, but we would do it for an hour or so and our stories would get crazier and crazier.
4. Find all the letters in the alphabet on signs and billboards. (A variation of the 50 states license plates game that works for places where you’re just not seeing many different license plates.)
5. Guess the animal.

What do you do to keep costs down when you travel with kids?

photo by Flávio Takemoto

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The articles on debt free home building and home ownership looked like they’d be right up our alley. I also think I’ll check out the article on recycled wool rugs. My great grandma used to make beautiful hooked rag rugs and I have two left that I keep tucked away to remember her by. I’d love to learn to make my own rag rugs.

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Get an Out of Date System for Less

Our little guy actually got super excited about a reconditioned NES system we bought for $32. We dug out the huge box of games we played when we were young, loaded Duck Hunt and he beamed with happiness. So, if you have a stack of games for a system that no longer works, check around and see if you can find a cheap reconditioned system. Your little guy or gal is going to be so excited to have a game system of his or her own that it won’t matter if everything is brand spanking new or not.

If someone wants to own the Nintendo DS Lite, keep a close eye on sites like Game Stop over the next few months. A new DS system is coming out and there should be a ton of reconditioned game systems pouring in as people trade up for the newest model.

Check for Age Appropriate Game Systems

I saw an awesome alternative to a Wii at Target today. The V-Motion Active Learning System by V-Tech, the company that put out V-Smile. (My nephew has V-Smile and loves it.) The kids can move around as they play just like older kids with a Wii, but they are playing age appropriate games like Wonder Pets or Dora.

The big drawback is that  the games seem to be for ages 3-6. So, if you’re buying it for a 3 year old, he or she will be bored with the system in 3 years. The big plus? $69.99. Games are $24.99. This may be something you can find on Craigslist lightly used if someone bought it for a 5 or 6 year old kid for Christmas, too.

Another option I liked was the Didg from Leapfrog. I love Leapfrog and we have the Leapster. The Didg is the next step up and seems like a great choice for a child that wants a Nintendo DS but is a little hard on toys. I checked out the Leapster website when I got home and there is one package that is really on sale – the Hannah Montana gift pack. Too bad my little saver is a bit young for this system because she would love it! $89 and free shipping for a game console, a game, a case and a customization kit. I checked around and there is a code on Dealtalker for $10 off $50, too.

Of course, if all else fails, you can encourage the child to save for the system of his or her dreams. You may be pleasantly surprised by the child’s willingness to save up for something he or she wants.

Do you have a thrifty solution for buying a cheap game system for a child?

Photo: via Target

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• Shoes that weren’t in primo condition but had good laces. I took out the laces, folded them neatly and saved them for later. Boys and guys always seem to snap their laces and end up needing new ones.
• Really nice buttons on a shirt with stains. The shirt wasn’t going to end up on the thrift store’s sale rack anyway, so we might as well keep the buttons for the jumper I’m sewing for the little gal.
• Speaking of jumpers – A barely worn jumper in the pile from my working outside the house days that was no longer in style, but had cute fabric. I pulled it out of the pile and will be doing a recon to make a second jumper for the little gal.
• Broken hair clippers. My brother spotted them and took them away. He came back with a whole pile of copper wire for recycling. (And was able to use the switch and plug somehow on his portable blacksmithing forge. Not sure how!)

What I had left in the pile was a stack of items that could truly be useful for someone else but really was not ever going to be used by us in any way, shape, or form. Now, that is a thrifty person’s donation pile.

Have you ever taken a second look at your donation pile and found something you could still use there?

Photo by Sanja Gjenero

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First, head to the show’s web site. While you won’t be able to view an entire episode of one of the HBO shows, you can catch complete episodes of shows from some other networks, such as USA’s Monk, Psych, or Burn Notice, after the episode airs on tv.

Next, check one of the online sites dedicated to offering free access to tv shows. I love Hulu.com, but there are several other sites, too. (By the way, if you watched the Super Bowl, you may have seen a slightly creepy, gross commercial for Hulu. If you missed it and want to see it, you can watch it below. Despite the commercial, Hulu really is a great way to catch up on shows.)

Finally, check out the library. My local library has HBO’s Generation Kill miniseries on DVD, five seasons of The Wire, and older shows like The Sopranos and Six Feet Under. Of course, you have to wait a bit for them to come out on DVD if you watch them this way.

Do you have any tips for watching cable television shows for free?

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I grabbed a loaf of bread, my peanut butter and my jelly. I used an upside down glass to cut circles from the bread and then added some peanut butter and jelly, keeping the edges pb and j free. I put peanut butter on a second set of circles, slapped the pb only circles on top of the pb and j ones and kind of smooshed the edges the whole way around the circular sandwiches. Presto. Mini Uncrustables. I put them in the freezer on a cookie tray for an hour and then took them out to repackage them in a freezer bag. (I do the tray step to help them freeze enough so that they don’t all stick together in the bag and can be taken out one at a time for a snack or to toss in a lunch bag, but some people who’ve been making their own say they don’t stick together and they skip this step.)

The test? Lunches this week. And the verdict? They taste pretty much like the ones we tried from the store, but are smaller and much cheaper. The kids didn’t hate them, so all is well.

Of course, if you’re buying the store bought ones for convenience and to save time, you probably aren’t that excited by the thought of making your own frozen pb and j sandwiches. In that case, you may want to think about another reason to make your own – you can do what I did and substitute whole grain bread and healthier pb and jelly for white bread and traditional pb and j in your homemade frozen sandwiches.

Next, I want to try pizza bites. I can get the traditional ones for 30 to 50 cents a box, but they aren’t that healthy an option. Instead, I usually try to get the organic ones as cheaply as possible, which is closer to $2 a box. I think I can make healthy pizza bites using whole grain tortillas and a bit of sauce and cheese for a lot less.

Do you make your own convenience foods for your kids?

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