Christmas Shopping on a budget is definitely a challenge. For those of us who have done this before, I know you totally agree. Christmas time can be a stressful time for a lot of families, especially if you have more than one child to shop for. Stressed caused by sitting in holiday shopping traffic, spending stress, trying to find the right gift stress, just so busy stress….. Well, I recently found a way to relieve some of that stress, by doing some online shopping.
Have you heard of Cookie’s Kids? I recently had the opportunity to shop there and I was amazed at how inexpensive their name brand clothing is. This was my shopping challenge.
The Christmas Shopping on a Budget Challenge:
- Shop for my 2 boys 5 and 8.
- Do online shopping at Cookieskids.com.
- Total should be under $35
- Buy quality items.
- Buy more than one thing for each of them.
Does it sound impossible? I will show you what I was able to do with $35 for my Christmas shopping.
I decided to focus on pajamas but there was more to be had, see below. My boys look so adorable in pj’s I am not sure if it’s because I know it means bedtime is coming soon and that makes them even more adorable, he, he, he. Regardless, they look absolutely heavenly in pajamas.
I bought them each a pair of Carters pj’s but that’s not all. Keep reading to see everything I got for a total of under $35. This pair of pj’s were only 6.99.
One of the great features about Cookieskids.com is they have a size tool for those of us who need to figure out what size your child wears. It’s near the bottom where the price and size options are located.
Two pairs of name brand pajamas were only $16 so I still had some money to play with. I added a fashionable cardigan sweater for our little guy that only cost me 9.99. And a long sleeve U.S. Polo Assn shirt for only $7.99.
If you have been doing the math you realized by now that I am over $35 but when I went to their website I signed up to receive their newsletter because it would enter me to win an Ipad. Well, in my inbox this is what I read one morning “Can we give you $10 Mari? Duh, yes of course. I remembered that email as soon as I started my online shopping and I pulled it up and grabbed the code to get my $10 discount.
I used it at checkout and my total for all four items was $33.96 and I got some bonus items: $25 Restaurant gift card and Parents magazine subscription for free! You can see my online shopping story here.
Are you amazed? I most definitely was amazed at how much I was able to purchase and we will definitely be shopping at Cookieskids.com {#CookiesKids} again. They also have a huge selection of toys and accessories!
5 Tips for Budget Christmas Shopping
- Create a budget- Figure out how much you can spend, write it down and stick to it.
- Price Compare- Go online and look into where you can find the same items at a cheaper price.
- Look for discounts- There are many online resources that offer codes for discounts at stores. You can also subscribe to a stores mailing list and they usually notify you when sales are happening.
- Don’t overdraw – If you do the math you end up paying double or triple for that $5 blouse because you overdrew.
- Make a list of the items you are needing to purchase.
Cookieskids.com has an amazing story on how they got started:
In 1972, a young man named Cookie and his brother Marvin went into business together. They rented a 1600 square foot store in Jamaica, Queens, fixed it up, bought inventory and Summer and Fall, and opened a day after Thanksgiving with a full stock of holiday toys. The toys were a success and they put the extra money toward buying children’s clothing for the next season. When that did well, they bought more clothing. The business was on its way.
As the brothers Cookie, Marvin and Sonny, who had come in as a third partner in the business, began to open new stores in new locations, inventory expanded. Besides the latest fashions, our customers wanted shoes, toys, backpacks and accessories and we were prepared to deliver.
By the late 1990’s there were six superstores throughout the NYC area, and though they previously had different names, by that time they were all named Cookie’s Kids. Also in the late ’90s came an important addition to Cookie’s Kids’ inventory: school uniforms. It was the steady success in uniform sales that paved the way for founding CookiesKids.com in 2007, which originally sold uniforms and soon after the entire Cookie’s Kids Inventory.
You can find Cookieskids.com at any of there 7 stores in the NYC area in Bronx, Brooklyn and Jamaica as well as online at CookiesKids.com and via their social networks.
I am a member of the Collective Bias™ Social Fabric® Community. This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias™ and CookiesKids.com #CBias #SocialFabric”
