This
week our Christmas budget took a major hit.
Last
spring, while purging and packing up for our failed attempt to move, we decided
to donate our huge seven foot Costco Christmas tree to the thrift store. I planned to buy a new smaller one for our
new place which was also smaller than our current home. It seemed reasonable as I was making fairly
good money at my old job.
Fast
forward to the present and, as you all know, our circumstances are much
different and I took on the $100 Christmas Challenge this year. Over the weekend I climbed into our attic to
see if our old four foot tree was salvageable.
I figured, despite it being wrapped in plastic, it would be dusty and
that I could wash it up in the shower.
Worth a try right?
We
found it intertwined in the middle of an abandoned raccoon’s nest. Three years ago our next door neighbor had a
portion of her fascia board on her side of our townhouse sag and some critters
moved into her garage attic. She had
them removed and the repairs made but apparently before that happened they
chewed through to our side and also set up shop. By the condition of the nest I’d guess they
didn’t have the opportunity to fully move in and other than a pile of chewed
insulation they hauled over from next door they hadn’t done any harm. Thank goodness.
Needless
to say I was no longer interested in trying to salvage this tree, now full of
chewed up insulation, and only God knows what else, so I placed it in our trash
can and bid it a fond farewell yesterday.
After a
family meeting we decided to try to find an affordable tree to replace
ours. We discussed all options including
cutting down one in the forest or at my parent’s property. I’m not a fan of live trees for a variety of
reasons, although they really smell nice, so I nixed this option almost
immediately. The girls impressed upon me
that the tree was more important to them than the gifts that might go under it
so I knew we needed to make this happen.
Wednesday
evening we headed over to Big Lots to see if we could find a nice looking and affordable
tree and we did. They had a seven foot
unlit tree that looked really nice for only $49. It is thinner than our old one and to me that
was a bonus. Our old one was really too
big for our home. We purchased it and
used up half our budget in doing so. I
had just ordered a couple gifts for the girls from Amazon so now I am just a
few dollars away from $100.
Will we
stay on budget? No, I seriously doubt we
will but I’ll try to stay close. Should I
even count the tree purchase as part of our budget? Good question. I probably should. What do you think?
I wouldn't count it:)
ReplyDeleteNo. Send your old boss a bill for the tree!
ReplyDelete