Dollar Store Score!
Woman in the Middle | December 27, 2015I mentioned in a previous post that I have become involved in a Christmas party that serves about 800 children a year in my fair city. In addition to gifts, each child gets a backpack with stocking stuffers including items such as toothpaste and a toothbrush, gloves, a pencil, a pad of paper, coloring book, a small toy or two, and whatever else we find to stuff them with. Those backpacks can be a bear. People assume you can just go to the dollar store and get plenty of stocking stuffers. Well, it doesn’t quite work like that.
We have to be careful with our money and if we give 800 children an item that costs a dollar, we have spent $800! If we put 10 dollar items in each backpack, that would be $8000! So we have to be very creative and good bargain hunters.
As you can imagine, the days right after Christmas are our most important time of year to buy stocking stuffers. I headed out twice the day after Christmas and hit four different dollar stores to see what I could find. One chain had items on clearance for 50 cents, the other four for a dollar. Score!
At the two for a dollar sale I found lots of little sticker boxes, 18 boxes to a package. They had plenty left so I got enough for every stocking. Yay!
At the three – four for a dollar stores I found some better deals, but not enough of any one thing to fill all the stockings. But I still found 250 little plastic kaleidoscopes, some more sticker boxes just to make sure I had enough, and 48 little Christmas themed note books (four to a package). But best of all, at the last store I visited I found seventeen copies of a Barbie book called “Winter Wonderland.” Since we are giving books out now, a new book for 25 cents is great!
I hit another two dollar stores today, but, unfortunately, all the items I was looking for were all gone. But that is OK. I feel like I made a good start on next year’s stocking stuffers. Did you do any after Christmas Shopping?
What a wonderful thing for you to take part in, yes the post Christmas sales are the best, I usually get my Christmas decorations at the after Christmas sales
No, I haven’t done any after-Christmas shopping as of now, but who knows, maybe later on in the week.
Have you tried Wal-Mart or Office Depot yet? Sometimes they have fab deals too.
No, I haven’t gone to either of those places yet. We were in Kohl’s, Target, and Penney’s today. But we weren’t really looking for bargains. We were there so I could exchange something and Corinne could spend a gift card.
I love gift cards! Go Corinne!