Archive for 2009:
When to keep and when to purge baby items
This post was inspired by a Facebook comment from my pal Jes of Beauty from Chaos. Jes mentioned that she was going through some baby stuff, trying to decide what to get rid of, even though she’d like more kiddos someday. Here’s some of my own ideas.
If you have a big, empty basement or tons of closet space, it’s probably worth it to hang on to most of your baby gear until you’re certain you have no future need for it.
But if you live in an apartment with minimal storage space as I do, you really do have to prioritize which items you store and which items to remove from your home.
If you have too much stuff, it’s probably worth getting rid of some items. Living in a cluttered environment can be stressful.
Even if you hope to be blessed with children in the future, it still may be worth going through your baby gear and getting rid of things that you can easily borrow or buy when you need them again.
- See if you can loan out some baby items that you’d like back someday. Things like bouncy seats, swings, large toys, high chairs, playpens … these things require a lot of storage space. If you know another mom who could use them (and treat the items well) let her “store” them for you by letting her use them for her child until she no longer needs them or you need them back. Use discretion though — don’t loan out something that you’d be heartbroken if it was damaged or needed to be replaced.
- Check with family to see if you can store some items in their basement, garage, a spare closet, etc. if they have room. Just don’t pay to rent out a storage locker for baby items. That is almost certainly not a cost-effective way to do it.
- Baby swings, bouncy chairs, exersaucers, Bumbo seats, and certain types of strollers can always be found at the baby consignment shops in my area. Consign yours now (or sell on eBay or craigslist) and hang on to the money to buy a similar item in the future. Yeah, you might lose a few dollars by doing it this way, but what’s a few bucks vs. having an organized, non-overflowing closet?
- Baby clothes by far take up the most of my baby-storage space at this point. I plan to go through all I have and sort them into a few piles: Keep or consign. If I have an excessive number of items in a certain size, it would probably be worth paring those down. Depending on how much I have in my “consign” pile, I’ll sell those at the next Snugglebugs consignment sale here in town or put it in a lot on eBay. I can usually find loads of good baby clothes at thrift or consignment stores or at yard sales for really cheap prices, so I don’t really need to hold onto everything.
What do you think? Is it better to just hold onto it all, or to purge it and get more when you need it? How do you decide what stays and what goes?
It pays to confirm the price before you agree to services
… and I learned this lesson the hard way.
Over the weekend, I went to a salon to get a haircut. The last time I was there, the stylist told me about a $15 option where I could have some “spot highlights” or something like that. Just a few foil highlights here and there.
I had never highlighted or colored my hair before, and thought that it might be fun.
I didn’t have time for the process though, so I thought I’d do it for a future haircut (i.e. the one I got this weekend).
When I booked my appointment over the phone, I mentioned the $15 treatment. The receptionist immediately knew what I was talking about and marked me down for that.
At my appointment time, the stylist did a brief consultation with me and we talked about the type of cut I wanted, and I also talked about the spot highlight treatment. I did not mention the $15 price. I should have.
Turns out, I got regular ol’ highlights — not the $15 highlights. The ones I got cost $38. Gulp.
I found this out as I was checking out. A little too late to say, “Um, whoops, I didn’t want that. Can you remove them?” Yah.
I do like how it turned out, but I don’t think I would have paid that much for the look.
Next time, I’ll remember to confirm with my stylist (not the receptionist) the cost of each service I receive. That way, I won’t be in for any surprises later on.
And ya know, I think I’ll go somewhere else next time, too. I kind of wonder if I had the ol’ “bait-and-switch” pulled on me.
Batch cooking day
I haven’t done a batch cooking session in awhile, but I’d like to change that. I’m going to throw together a bunch of dinners that we can eat over the next few weeks. We’ll be leaving for Indiana on the 18th or 19th, and I’d like to have enough meals to last us until that point.
Today is my planning and shopping day. I’ve flipped through some cookbooks and my recipe box to get some ideas and I’ve made my shopping list and organized it by type (meats, dairy, non-perishables, produce, other).
I’ll make:
- Taco soup (in the slow-cooker)
- Stir-fried pork soup (I’ll only do the prep work in advance for this)
- Ranch hamburgers
- Meat loaf balls (simply an easy meat loaf recipe that I use, but I shape the meat into balls and bake them that way)
- Caribbean jerk chicken
- Sour cream chicken
- Santa Fe chicken
- Quick n’ easy Chinese chicken
- Nan’s Indonesian pork
- Ham with pineapple sauce
Many of these recipes are new to me, so I don’t want to make huge portions of these in case we don’t like them. If we do like them, then in the future I’ll double or triple the recipe since it’s not much more work. A good portion of the recipes are from the Once-A-Month Cooking Family Favorites cookbook, which I reviewed and gave away here.
We’ll have simple side dishes such as rice, barley, pasta and an assortment of vegetables.
Some nights, we’ll go the soup-and-sandwich route, or perhaps have some homemade pizza (I use refrigerated dough, though), pasta and marinara, or breakfast for dinner.
I’m hoping that this batch cooking session will save time and money and let me focus on other things, rather than the dreaded, “What are we having for dinner?” question.
If you’re planning a batch cooking session, be sure to check out Money Saving Mom’s recent session to see what she’s learned.
