A MARY KAYristmas

This Christmas (and every Christmas) I was looking for a way to not go broke around the holidays. And by that I mean not spending like $1,000 on Christmas presents because I'm a teacher. But that's harder than it sounds because giving gifts is one of my love languages and also...I'm really good at it. I love to brag, but I am a darn good gift giver. I may not buy gift bags because I think they're ridiculously expensive, I may not buy cards because same, and I may only use 100% recycled tissue paper (you're welcome, environment) but the actual gift will be good.

Part of my holiday savings plan involved getting a seasonal job. So I sent my resume in and secured a spot cleaning my church. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a retail job where I could use an employee discount to really save on gifts. But with this job, maybe I get a discount on tithing? I don't think it works that way but I'll pray about it.

My next money saving idea was a classic, homemade presents! Not like the hug coupons my oldest brother offered me but thoughtfully and properly executed crafts.

One Christmas craft I love is wine cork Christmas trees! But the hard part is collecting the wine corks...I don't drink wine so I have to rely on friends to supply me with them and I don't want to encourage binge drinking but I also want to craft.
 

A new craft I tried this year was these reindeer ornaments. They're adorable but kind of annoying to make because they're 70% hot glue.

Most of the products needed to make these, like felt and paint, were really cheap but the clear ornaments were $1 each and that really adds up if you make 32 of these like I did. The weirdest thing about shopping at 3 different craft stores for all of my reindeer ornament supplies was discovering that apparently pipe cleaners are a thing of the past. Gentrification, am I right?

My final frugal trick this holiday season wasn't about spending less money, but about redistributing products. And I don't mean re-gifting. A few years ago I tried selling Mary Kay. That was a mistake. I'm way too affirming to be successful at sales. If someone tells me they don't need mascara I'm not going to say "of course you do Casper, no one can tell you have eyelashes" I'm going to say "oh I'm so sorry I bothered you, have a free lipstick as my apology."

So when I finally accepted that I wasn't going to be the Vicki Gunvalson of Mary Kay, I was left with probably four hundred ish dollars worth of inventory. So guess what grandma is getting for Christmas? Moisturizer! My best friends from college? Eyeliner! My aunt? Eyelash primer! My cousins? Mascara! My mom? Nothing because she doesn't really care about makeup other than her favorite rum raisin lip gloss that got discontinued and I already got her literally 17 other presents!

Have a MARY KAYristmas everyone!