8 Tips for Saving on Birthday Gifts

I don’t know about you, but it seems like I’m always toting my kids to a birthday party. Buying all those gifts can be a real budget buster, and nobody wants to go into credit card debt trying to impress little kids (and their parents!) with lavish gifts. Below are 8 money-savings tips to save hundreds of dollars every year on birthday party presents.

Check your budget. This will be harder for some of you than for others, but I promise if you stop worrying about what other people think, you will automatically save some serious cash. Focus on your own finances, and spend only what you can afford.

Click here for the other 7 tips!

8 Birthday Traditions You'll Want to Try

Every year when I was a kid my parents would let me choose where I wanted to eat dinner out for my birthday. Another birthday tradition they kept going was to have a small party for me with family and friends, including a cookout since I have a June birthday. Kids love to feel special, and it can be a challenge to find the time to come up with ways to make a birthday a knockout. Never fear! Below are 8 ideas for birthday traditions to start with your own kids. Pick and choose a few of them each year … and stick with the ones you and your birthday kid love!

Read about all 8 traditions here!

Woolzies Wool Dryer Balls #Review

Okay, so everyone is going green(er) these days, right? I mean, going green is not new. We were kinda green in my family back in the 80s when my mom was big into recycling and could not stand to see someone throw an aluminum can in the trash. She rescued several poor cans during the 80s.

Mom (she reads this blog, go figure!) used Bounce as her fabric softener in the dryer always, and so did I. Then I learned about these wool dryer balls and wanted to give them a try.

The positives of Woolzies wool dryer balls are:

1. They are good for the earth
2. You buy them once and they are good for 1,000 loads, so you are saving money over buying sheet fabric softeners
3. They are hypoallergenic, so nobody is going to get a runny nose or have a reaction after wearing clothes dried in a dryer with these
4. They work: our clothes were static-free and soft!
5. They are just fine for people with a sensitivity to wool

The one negative for my household personally (and it probably won't affect you) is that there are SIX of them to keep track of. I had a hard time sorting them out from my clothes and leaving them in the dryer. Some would always come up in the laundry basket with me, then when I would try to get them to walk themselves back down to the basement, invariably a kid or a dog would get ahold of one of them and it was time to PLAY BALL!

I still give them 5 protein bars out of 5 (I've moved away from the Dove chocolate system, sorry to disappoint)