Zehring Christmas Traditions

My husband has been working retail full time for over 2 years now. It has been a blessing and a curse. But most of the time its been a HUGE blessing. The Lord provided this job for Joel when we were looking at losing $500 a month in income through one job or another. We were both working hard and taking care of a 1 year old at the time. When this position came up we were nervous (we had been discussing it for a year and kept putting it off) but super excited over the possibilities.

It all started right after my oldest was born. I always thought I would be a working mom. I thought I would make it work. But after my maternity leave was up, I didn't want to go back to work. I wanted to be with my baby at home. And the Lord provided for me to do that by doing in-home child care. Then I started substitute teaching when child care wasn't enough. Then, the pay cuts with Joel's job started happening. That's when retail management started entering our conversations. Long story short, Joel took the job and I am home more than ever before. I am also at the tail end of my working out of the house. And its been wonderful to see an end in sight and my chance to finally stay home full time. With the exception of  holidays, Joel's job has been a wonderful change to our family. He his home more and we have extra income.

But during the Christmas season, we would never see him. Dinners at families houses were not happening because of Black Friday and overnight inventory. And he always seemed to be the one that closed on Christmas Eve. Which meant that he didn't participate in any of our traditions that Nathan and I started. Then this year, Target gave us the BEST gift ever. They allowed all management to either have Christmas Eve or the 26th off. We chose Christmas Eve. And by far, the best day ever. Here is what we do on Christmas Eve and how Joel was able to join us this year.

First, we introduce Nathan to Santa. We track him on google maps and see how close he is to where we live. We also sprinkled reindeer food for Santa's reindeer. Nathan chose our front walkway because its right by his window and maybe he will hear them. :)

After that, we went to Costco for pizza before we headed over to Winterhaven. Its a neighborhood that goes all out for Christmas and is completely free for people to walk through. All they ask for is donations to the food bank. So we clear out my stock pile of food and head on over. Nathan was actually on the news two Christmases ago while we at Winterhaven.

 

When we got back home, we tracked Santa one more time. Then came the baths, Christmas PJs, and some thing Joel got to do for the first time, the reading of the birth of Christ from Luke 2. After that its getting a plate of cookies for Santa and some Christmas books are read. Then bedtime.

 

 

After the boys are asleep, Santa comes, eats some cookies, and he ALWAYS leaves a Thank You note for our boys.

BEST CHRISTMAS EVER!!!!

How did I earn my Christmas fund in 6 months???

Christmas came and went and it was a blast! Having a 4 year old and an one and a half year old made this time of year AWESOME! I love my kids and I love their excitement for life. I did a lot of posts on how my goal for Christmas was $600 and I made that goal happen here. It only took about 6 months to save that much for Christmas. I also have a huge family to shop for, so knowing how to shop clearance and online deals helps. It looked like I spent a lot on some one, when in reality I spent $10 or less. Shhh, don't tell them. :) I take part in about 5-6 survey sites. Some I use for surveys and others I use for just collecting points. Some one asked me to break those down, so here it goes...

Swagbucks.com: by far my favorite site. They have surveys, polls, videos to watch, shop and earn, web searching and my favorite is using coupons from their site. All of these allow me to earn points. You can join this site by clicking on my points bar on the blog.

MySurvey.com: Strictly surveys. I love them because they some times send free products to test out. I have gotten perfume, toilet paper, paper towels, diapers, food, and other great stuff. You earn a good amount of points too.

Mypoints. com: they are similar to swagbucks but I don't take surveys on this site. They have the shop and earn (similar to ebates.com). But I earn most of my points by email. Now you have to be ok with junk mail to do this site. You earn points just by going to the webiste that is in the email. Most emails give you 5 points just for clicking on the link to go to the website. There is nothing else to it. I get about 50-60 points a week doing this.

Epoll: very slow moving site. But when you do get a survey emailed to you its worth a lot of points.

I have about 2 more survey sites that I am a part of but my Windows crashed and my sites are on that and I can't remember the names of them right now. Sorry.

I also earn extra cash by saving all my gift cards I earn by buying things in bulk that I would normally buy eventually. I use coupons as well and that brings down my price.

I recycle cans too. I also save all my spare change. I never pay with change. Anything I sell on craigslist or a yard sale gets put towards the fund. And the last thing I do and you don't need kids for this, is I am signed up with Pampers Gifts to Grow and Huggies rewards. You get point codes that add up to get great stuff. I got a gift card off one and a toy for my youngest on the other. You just search for codes or follow them on facebook and they post codes all the time.

Hope this helps some of you out there wondering how to start fund and save for it. Let me know if you have more questions. I will be updating our vacation fund soon. Stay tuned. I hope to have Windows up and running again soon so I can post some pictures too!.

My thoughts about Black Thursday/Friday...

Joel said I had to start this by saying Target does not endorse or support the thoughts and opinions of this post.

Ok.

As a wife of a Target employee I am not opposed to them being open on Thanksgiving day. Its retail. In the end they are about the $$$. I don't complain that grocery stores, movie theaters, gas stations or restuarants are open on this day. And if we are honest, a lot of people don't complain about those either. We like to fill up our tank on Thanksgiving morning on our way to our destination instead of having to think about it the night before. We like be able to eat out when there is nothing else to do. Or go to the movies. We like that grocery stores are open when we realize we forgot to get one main ingredient for our big meal.

So why should it be different for Target? My only concern is that they are open over night. Why not just open during the day? I know its because customers love the rush and feel of getting a good deal in the middle of the night. But I worry about employees that are not use to working overnight, driving home the next morning feeling tired and worn out. That just doesn't seem safe. I also know that ALL Targets ask for volunteers to work those shifts first. And they always have more than they need. Why? Because they offer incentive. They make it worth it. So if you don't want to work that shift, then don't volunteer. Let some one else who doesn't mind take that shift. I am tired of complaints about it because of a few people who think its not right. Get over it. Its retail. Its money for the company. I am thankful that Target has taken into count that some people were working both Christmas Eve and the day after Christmas. Now they are offering that each employee get one of those days off.

They care about family. I know this. Joel had to work those awful shifts in the past. But our family time together was never compromised on any holiday. Target has been good to us and we know that Joel's hard work and his hours could be a lot worse some where else.

So when I see articles like this I get frustrated because people shouldn't be surprised that they are trying to keep up with the competition. GO TARGET!!!!

We Have a Vacation Destination

We have been going back and forth. Talking about the perks of each place. Asking Nathan what he wants to do. Looking at dates when we would want to go. Looking at prices and the cost of everything else besides tickets. And I think we have finally decided on where we are going and when.

Drum roll please...

Sept. 2013 (Wow I feel so old just typing that) we are headed to Disneyland for a 2-3 day adventure there!!!!!!!!!

We were talking about Legoland, Sea World, San Diego Zoo, etc. And we decided we really, really, REALLY want to see Cars Land. Now when I say we are going more than one day, what I mean is that as a family we will go one day. Then Nathan and I will go by ourselves another day. Joel can only handle so much vacation stuff. I on the other hand would go to Disneyland every day if I could!!! I miss living 10 minutes away and having an annual pass. My college roommates and I use to take a "study break" and go for just a couple of rides! FANTASTIC! I miss that. :) We may even stay a night or two in one of the hotels if we can swing it. That's my actual dream vacation. To stay right at the park, in one of their hotel suites, and go to the park every day and being able to head back to the hotel to rest and maybe (if we are lucky) watch the fireworks show from our room! :) But we are very happy to stay with my mom (10 minutes away) and let her cook for us (FREE!) and watch the boys for us (FOR FREE) so we can have some date time too (maybe at Disneyland too). So its no longer the Zehring Vacation Fund. Its Disneyland 2013 Fund!!!!! Stay tuned for a new deposit. Its looking good! :)

The Long Awaited Vacation Fund Update

I don't have pictures of everything because its been a long time!!! And most of these contributions are from the online surveys that I take part in.

Aug. 8th was the last time I brought up the Zehring Vacation Fund. And since then I have cashed out quite a bit of surveys. Since Aug. 8 and before Sept. 25th I cashed out $30 in survey points. $20 from one site and $5 from two other sites. As you can see from the picture below I have logged everything.

Then on 9/25 I cashed out another $10 from a survey site.

On 9/27 I received a $5 Lowes gift card from another survey site. I would have done cash but we needed to get a new ceiling fan and a Lowes gift card was less points than the cash gift card so I just took the money from our budget and traded it. We also used out $11.77 in change and took it to a Coinstar machine to get a Lowes gift card. There is no charge for getting a gift card. So again I just traded.

On 10/2 I cashed out $35 from another survey site. Just FYI, I am a part of about 5 or 6 survey sites. And I spend a little time each day, usually after the kids' bed time, and complete some surveys.  On this day as well, I cashed out all of my Huggies Rewards points to get a Christmas gift for Zachary. So I figure that was about $10 that I will take out of our Christmas budget and move to our Vacation Fund.

On 10/18 I cashed out $15 from a survey site and then at Fry's Grocery Store I recieved $20 in Catalina coupons for my next trip. So I will take $20 from our grocery budget and trade.

Then today, at Target I received 2 $5 gift cards for buying All detergent and Snuggle. With coupons and my discount there I save almost 50%. And we are now well stocked up on that stuff.

Also a while back Joel and I each received $25 Target Gift Cards for doing an online health assessment for our insurance through Target. We also received a $10 gift card from Kohls and I used it to buy Joel a work shirt. So again we switched it out.

And that is the update on our fund. I told ya it would be worth the wait! Right?!

So let's add it up...

$30 from before 9/25
$10 from 9/25
$5 plus $11.77 change on 9/27
$35 on 10/2
$10 from Christmas fund
$15 and $20 Catalina coupons from 10/18
$10 Target GC from 10/19
$60 from health assessments and Kohls
 Total: $ 206.77

Grand Total so far saved: $228.55

NOT TOO SHABBY!!!!!!

Ahhh! I am behind!

I know I'm behind on my posts for our vacation fund but this past month has been crazy. Work picked up so I am subbing more than I was a month ago. And I have taken on more responsibilities with our children's ministry at church. Along with that we had a birthday in the house! Nathan turned 4 this past week and we have been celebrating that. Plus, my car has been in and out of the shop. I will get to my update. There is some good stuff going on. Please have some patience with me. I can't wait to share all the good stuff that is coming. So to tide you over, here is a sweet photo of our family from the day at the farm!

Life Update...

It has been a month since Nathan has started preschool. And he LOVES it. Every time we pick him up he tells us everything they did. We are now starting to see improvement too. We couldn't get Nathan to use scissors for the life of us. His first booklet with scissors from school had every page taped back together because he couldn't figure out how to cut around the outside of the page. This last week, no taped pages! And Ms. Anne usually has something to tell us about Nathan's day. Whether she is blown away that he knows the name of every shape plus how many angles each shape has, or its that he staged a sit in with a pouty face and arms crossed because he wanted to play with toys instead of doing group time.

Nathan is still in swim classes and loving it. He can swim underwater to the edge if we give him a push. He is getting better about floating on his back. This is the biggest challenge because he doesn't like getting water in his ears.

Zachary is a walking machine now. Every Tuesday and Thursday if I am working Joel drops Nathan off at school and head to the park with Zachary. The sheer delight in Z's voice shows every time. He can climb stairs and loves the slide. Joel is constantly keeping the boys entertained and wearing them out at the same time!

Zachary is starting to say some words too. We have heard cracker, car, and more. Fun Fun Fun!!!!

Joel is training for two more weeks then its off to the new store. Can't wait until his first paycheck with the new raise in it! I want to stop subbing but this year its crucial. We are hoping this is my last year!!!!

There is our update.