What Makes You Feel Secure?

On my way to the grocery store this morning, an odd line of thought took up my drive. “What if something happens or one of the kids needs something, and we can’t pay for it?  Maybe I should have kept that credit card instead of burning it?”

I stewed over this for a while, and pondered why it worried me so much.  For many years, we have had no savings, but I always comforted myself with the idea that I could always deal with things by using a credit card.  I realized that I had been deriving a sense of security from that.  Suddenly finding myself without that (false) safety-net made me feel vulnerable.  I have believed it for so long, that I felt almost bare without that card.

The reality is, we now have some savings. True, it’s not a lot, but we will be able to deal with most things that could come up.  And really, since we never have to worry about medical bills thanks to our province and our health coverage through work, what could possibly come up that is REALLY a need?  Our savings would cover most things, if we didn’t have wiggle room for something that couldn’t wait, like say new boots if someone lost theirs.

But even these savings are not where my security is supposed to be.  No matter how much money I have in the bank, there is always some calamity that is possible.  There are things that could happen.  Who knows, maybe this is the year that the  North Saskatchewan River floods it’s banks!  What amount of money would change or prevent that?

Sitting and worrying about that is not a good use of my time, and not how God wants me to think.  He’s been showing me lately that my life is in His hands, because I placed it there.  True, I want to be wise and use the money He does bless us with wisely, but that is not what makes me feel secure when I think about the future.  I need to remember that God is in control, and that I am His daughter.  THAT is where my security needs to come from, no matter what!

I love Love LOVE the Library!

If you and your kids watch the backyardigans, you might recognize that line from “The Masked Retriever” episode.  At our house, this is a very real thought.  And lots of times, it’s also a very real song, as the kids sing along….

Today I am focusing on some of the many great things about our local library.  Yes, yes, they have books of course, and for a book worm like me, that is enough to inspire a visit.  But there are so many other great things that I have been discovering since taking my kids there.  Our library is part of a consortium of the province’s libraries, so they will order in and hold any item from any other branch in the province.  You can borrow books, movies, CDs and even patterns! Yes, they have kids stuff of course, and that is what many of us think of as the list of things the library has to offer.

But our library also has lots of things to do!  There are knitting classes, which I was tempted to go to this year, but it didn’t work into my schedule.  There are kid’s and teen’s crafts.  One of my favourite features is our library’s full size theatre.  They play kids movies every day of school holidays, like Christmas or winter break.  Most often they are very recent movies, including some of the newest Disney films.  I love taking my kids to see movies there.  I’ve never seen it packed, the seats are great and in good shape, and it is always super clean.  No, you can’t eat snacks during the movie, but I think that’s a small thing compared to what I’m getting.  There are after school science clubs, and anime appreciation club, and so many more!

Last night I took Colleena to pre-school story time.  Yes, we read a lot of books at home together, but this way she gets to feel part of a group and do activities with someone other than mom.  She’s been looking forward to going for a few weeks, and feels like this is her “pre-school time”.  It was special to go out, just her and mom ( we left Daddy at home with Baden and Lily), and she got to read some great books, do a couple of great activities and then make a fun craft to bring home. Mommy got 45 minutes all alone to hang out in the library, a rare treat for me.  She got to experience a lot of the same things that Baden did in pre-school, like being part of a group, taking turns, following instructions and going along with a schedule of activities.  The class was led by a wonderfully friendly woman who was great with the kids.

All of these things are completely free.  There are also lots of summer programs at our library, and I’m looking forward to sharing them this summer too!  Check out your local library’s website, you might be pleasantly surprised at how much they have to offer!!

Cost Break-Down: Tacos

Our family LOVES tacos.  I make it once every week and a half or so, as a special meal, say on a Friday night, as a treat.  I think it’s a cheap way for the kids to feel like we’ve eaten a fun meal.  Now right off, I know there are ways I could cut the price of this meal down, but I wanted a real assessment of what we spend when we make it the same way we always do.  I started making my own taco spice mix a couple years ago, so I had to estimate the price of the seasoning.  I fry two pounds of meat, and I know this is the fastest way I could cut costs, but for us, the meat is the main filling, and I am also trying to have enough for the next day’s lunch left over. Our favourite way to use the left over meat, by the way, is to make a sandwich with toasted bread and a slice of processed cheese on top of the meat.  Our favourite toppings are lettuce, tomato, green pepper, sour cream, and of course lots of cheese!  One more tip, is to put shredded carrots ( I’ve also heard of zucchini) into the meat while you’re frying.  It stretches your meat, and something about the carrot enhances the flavour of the spices, making your meat spicier.  You get more “meat filling” without using any more spice packs than if you just fried the single pound of meat.  It’s also one more veggie, if those are hard to get in around your table.

So here is what I spent, when I made tacos this week ( didn’t use carrots this time):

Shells (18 pack of Old El Paso): $4.29
Green Pepper: $0.52
Lettuce: $0.53
Tomato: $0.94
Sour Cream: $0.90
2 lb Ground Deer: $2.00
Cheese (200g): $2.20

Seasoning Mix (est): $0.75

That’s a total of $12.13!  
This is by far the most expensive meal I’ve broken down yet!  If you bought the two spice packs you’d need for this amount of meat at $1.69 ea (last time I looked) and you bought your two pounds of lean ground beef at the store ( for $1.78/ lb) then the total cost would be : $16.32!!

I was totally surprised by how high the cost was on this one.  In perspective, though, our family would spend at least $25 to eat out at a fast food restaurant, so eating at home is still a better bargain.  I still plan to eat and enjoy my tacos, and I will still probably smother them in all those rich, more expensive ingredients.  I think I’ll just make sure we aren’t enjoying them too often!

If you’re wondering how I came up with the cost of the wild meat we used, here is the link to that post: Cost Break-Down: Our Family's Meat.  Everything else I did by either by weight, like the cheese; and the lettuce etc I figured by looking at this week’s grocery bill. We used a third of the head of lettuce that I got for $1.59, so it was $0.53 worth of lettuce.

Satisfying Progress!!

  Taking this picture might have been one of the most fun, most satisfying things we have done for our finances since we started this challenge last summer!

We paid this credit card down as low as we could get it, then moved the small remaining balance to a much lower interest rate( from the credit card’s 20%   5%)
.  
Consolidating helps us save and makes it easier to pay.

When I phoned to close out this account, I was told that I had outstanding reward points to cash out first.  I thought they added up to nothing, but it turns out, they added up to $100 in gift cards from one of the participating retailers.  I opted to have cards from a local hardware/home improvement store.  Now, for no extra cost to me, we’ll be able to use that towards some of the things we’d like to do around our house.  I was pretty excited!

But the day was going to get better yet!!  I was flipping channels when I saw a clip from that show “’til debt do us part”. Gail, the host was talking to  a couple ,asking how talking to their credit card company went.  She says that all anyone has to do is phone and ask for a lower rate.  Everyone can save money this easily! She’d said.  Well, I was sceptical, but figured I had 10 minutes to lose, so why not call?   I simply told the person on the phone that our family was trying to pay down our debts and would like a lower interest rate so we could make more headway.  And you know what? They cut my interest in half!!!!  We plan to continue making the payments we’ve been making anyway, and look forward to seeing more progress month by month!!!

Cost Break-Down: Our Family’s Meat

My husband hunts and fishes for almost every pound of meat our family eats.  I get alot of questions about the cost of hunting as a hobby, which makes me laugh, because you can definitely spend as much as you’d like if you’re going to go all high tech gear etc.Or if you travel to exotic locales.  So while there are a million possible additional costs here, I have taken the time to figure out what our specific hunting season cost us for the meat we gained.

Last years’ Moose:

Gas for return trip to hunting spot : $150

Draw Moose Tag: $55

Shawn’s moose was 900 pounds, conservatively estimated.  We got 400-450 pounds of meat ( again conservative estimate, since we didn’t weigh the total meat pile, but you can expect to get 50%-55% of an animal’s weight in usable meat).  We gut, butcher and wrap ourselves.  We also make our own sausages.  We have all the equipment needed, so our only added processing cost is the wrap we use.  We’ve figured that it costs $0.01 per pound to wrap the meat.

That means, that if every cut and type of meat is valued the same, a pound of moose meat cost us $0.52. This would include roasts, tenderloin, steaks, ground, jerky, stew meat, strip cuts….etc etc.  We get meat cut exactly how we want it, in the size of packages that our family likes.  Around here, it’s grain fed, and it’s hormone free. 

Last Year’s Deer:
Gas for return trip to hunting spot : $150
Tags for 4 does : $40
Ammo for 4 shots : $4

On average, each doe netted us 50 pounds ( averaged out between white tail deer and mule deer).  Again, including wrap, that works out to 200 pounds of meat for $196. That’s $0.98 a pound for that year’s trip.

Another deer example would be this year’s Mule buck: 

Gas: $100
Tag:$35
Bullet: $1

Total meat was 110 pounds ( it was a NICE buck!) so that’s  $1.25 a pound ( including wrap).  And that’s about the most expensive number we could get for deer, since he only shot one deer that day, in the farthest he would hunt from home.

The following is what Shawn says would be the average Joe going hunting around his own home:

Doe tags: $20 ( for 2 does)

Ammo: $2
Gas: $40

The average doe nets you 40 pounds of meat ( again, conservative estimate based on average body weights mixed together of the white tail and mule deer does) SO, for 80 pounds of some of the finest meat there is, you have spent $1.56 a pound( including wrap).

I guarantee you are not going to go to the grocery store and buy tenderloin for any of the above prices.  Maaaaaaaybe the ground works out the same as the grocery store, depending on alot of things.

Ok, One more: Last weekend’s fishing trip:
Gas to fishing spot, again one of the furthest places we regularly drive : $40

Bait ( because Shawn insists on the good smelts): $10

Pounds of fish fillets: 15.  That works out to $2.67 per pound for the fish caught on that trip.  If you were to buy Northern Pike Fillets at the fish store here in town, you’d pay $8 a pound.  Seems like a good deal to me.

Now, alot of these numbers are based on averages, but Shawn plans to be a lot more scale crazy this year, and have more specific numbers to go by next year. See, I’m not the only calculator crazy nerd in the house :)

Cost Break-Down: Spaghetti Supper

I’m still struggling to get our grocery budget under control!  One of the things that is tripping me up is that I don’t know what we usually spend on an average meal at our house.  How can I try to spend less per meal, if I don’t know what I am spending now?  I have been trying to spend less but eat the same!  So in order to help me know which meals cost me more to trade them out with others, I am trying to figure out what some of our favourite suppers cost.

I make spaghetti once a week, because it’s quick, easy and my kids love it. Invariably, when I ask them which suppers they want me to plan on that week, they both say “spaghetti”!!  I use ground deer/moose/elk from the freezer, so to me, this cost doesn’t get included in the meal.  We pay for hunting costs in hunting season, and I don’t factor them into the grocery cost the rest of the year.  I use one can of tomato sauce, to which I add the meat and some spices that my kids like ( cumin and oregano).  I used to add mushrooms, but my kids requested I leave them out, so in trade, we have a spinach salad( spinach leaves, grated carrots and grated cheese with dressing).  Believe it or not, all my kids love spinach!  If I’m really on the ball that day, I make a loaf of bread to go with it.  I buy my spaghetti in those huge no name bags, and last time I made it, I figured out that I use about half the bag.

So here is my cost:
Can of NN tomato sauce :$1.07
Spices :$0.05
Spaghetti Noodles: $2.00
Spinach Salad, all ingredients:$1.50
Loaf of homemade Bread:$1.33

Which means this meal costs a grand total of : $5.95 ! That’s supper for 6-8 people and I usually have enough left-over's for one lunch. That’s pretty amazing!!  I could cut the cost more if I skipped the bread.  If you buy a pound of lean ground beef to add to yours, add $1.78 to that, making for a total of $7.73.

I’d love to know what some of your go-to low cost weekday meals are!

Nifty Thrifty Gifty: Crayons

This is a craft I’ve done before with my kids, and this Christmas season made as a gift for some of their friends.  It’s a fun way to use up bits of crayons:

For this gift, we unwrapped crayons and broke them up into little pieces.  I had this sun-shaped pan from a previous craft.

 

 

 

  




The kids had a lot of fun helping!  After we’d put enough crayon bits into each mould, I put it in my toaster oven, on a medium heat so as not to warp then pan while melting the crayons. (Lesson learned from past experience).


After the wax was all cooled down, I pushed them gently out of the sun shapes.  I snapped a few getting them out, and realized that if I ran the underside of the pan in hot water for a few minutes, it softened up the edges just enough to make it easy to pop the crayons out.


This time, we made each crayon one colour to make a nice set as a gift, but in the past I have done this with mixed up shades of left over bits, and the kids still love using them.  A fun activity, even if you aren’t planning on giving them away.  If you don’t have moulds in shapes, like this one, or chocolate moulds that can be picked up pretty cheap at any store, you can always make them in muffin tins, or even use a bunch of tin cans.  I wouldn’t use a pan or mould you intend to use for food again in the future though, since it does stain and leach colour into the silicone of the pans.

I feel almost silly to admit that in the end, my total cost for this gift was $0.  Made entirely out of stuff we had on hand, it’s a great idea to keep in mind.

And the Poll Results Are…..

So those of you who read regularly know about the poll I’ve had posted for everyone to answer.  It closed at Christmas, and here are the final results:

Which of the following would you consider acceptable as gifts?( 22 people answered)

Garage Sale find (19)
Re-gifted Item  (21)
Thrift Store Purchase  (19)
Item from Giver’s Home  (19)

I have to admit, I am happily surprised with that.  I thought that people would think less of gifts if they knew that they came from one of these places.  Maybe I haven’t been giving the people in my life enough credit!  What about you? Are you surprised too?

Working on another poll…stay tuned!

Does Money Affect Who Our Friends Are?

Okay, let me say right off that I don’t know the answer, I’m throwing it out there as a discussion question.  I’d LIKE to say no, but I think the real world answer is more complicated than that.

I think that, subconsciously, it probably affect us more than we know.  Most of us tend to make friends with people who go to the places we go, do the things we do, and enjoy the things we enjoy.  So lots of times, those people tend to be in the same general financial state we are in.  I, for one, wouldn’t have that many opportunities to rub shoulders with yacht-owning multi-millionaires to discover that we have lots in common.  Most of the people I encounter in my life, I perceive to be somewhere in a spot somewhat similar to me.  Of course, that’s just my perception, who knows what the reality is?  I have often met moms at the playground, who I was sure from first impression were very well off and somewhat snobby, but later met them for real and discovered they were great people.  I don’t know what their first impression was of me.

I personally feel intimidated and a little “out of my league” around people I think are in much better financial shape than me.  I don’t know why that is, and it’s not something I love about myself, but I am being honest here.  There is a certain award-winning Christian author who goes to our church, and whom many of my friends know and love.  I have always been, well not quite intimidated, but I guess I felt like “why would she want to hang out with me?” “ they must really have it all together, I mean she is an AUTHOR!”.  Dumb huh? ( Haha, you know who you are :P  ) Then one day, I realized we had something in common, and we struck up a conversation, and you know what? I really like her.  I mean I always knew she was nice, but I guess once the imaginary pedestal I had put her on was gone, I realized that she is another Christian wife, woman and mother going through life.  I really love her company…and her crocheting advice.  The pedestal I imagined her on had nothing to do with money, but I think we do tend to put others on these imaginary pedestals when it comes to this area, and it affects how we see them, and how we relate to them.

Doing this blog, and speaking to my mom’s group about money, has really opened my eyes.  People feel free to come up to me and talk about money, or mistakes they have made too.  Its been one of the most interesting things to me, how so many people make mistakes and our perception of them is that they don’t.  Talking to others about how this affects friendships has been interesting too.

It’s easy to see how you most often meet new friends in the same financial class as you envision yourself.  But what about old friends?  If you have been friends with someone since high school, and your financial pictures have slowly changed until there is a huge divide, does how close you are with them slowly change?  If you are still friends, does it affect the relationship?  If you used to enjoy tent camping together and now one of you is a multi-millionaire who travels the world in first class, are you still going camping in a tent each summer?

What about in families?  Are you and your siblings in roughly the same places? Do you expect that?  How do you feel if one of your siblings is much wealthier than you? If you are the sibling who has worked hard and built things up, do you feel annoyed when the other sibling seems to feel entitled to what you have or to imply that they will still do better than you, as if it is a competition?  How do you interact with those who are nowhere near as wealthy as you are right now?  Do you feel free to strike up a conversation with that mom at the playground who you perceive to be really wealthy? I have to admit, I’d feel intimidated.   What about a friend who makes three times what you do, but is always complaining that they can barely afford to live? 

In what ways has money affected the relationships in your life?

What to do with Gift Money?

What do you do with money you’ve received as a gift?  I always hate the idea of it being mixed in with everything else and just being part of my everyday spending.  Somehow that doesn’t seem right to me.

When  our parents give us money as a gift, they tell us to use it where we need it most.  But what if where we need it most is making a payment on a credit card?  That doesn’t seem right to me either.  Someone else shouldn’t have to put their money towards the hole I dug all by myself.

Sometimes when we receive money, it’s towards a specific thing.  Last year we asked all the grandparents to help us pay for the activities the kids wanted to do when we travelled to Drumheller.  Shawn and I paid for gas and tenting, and we paid for all the attractions and mementos the kids wanted with money that was given to them at Christmas.  We’ve also been given money and told “ I know you’ve been wanting to paint that room ( or buy that light fixture,or whatever project) so here is some money to help you out with that”.

This year, the kids were given money from grandparents, and we’ll use that towards paying for an activity.  Then we can tell the giver that “ we used to money you gave them to pay for swimming lessons” and that person knows what we used it for.  I like being able to share with them what we used the gift for.

Sometimes, when I don’t have a good idea for the money yet, I just put it in our savings and think about what would be good to use it on.  This year at Christmas, Shawn and I received a sum that was large to us and totally surprised and astounded us.  So We have the happy job of deciding what to do with it.  We decided that we would use some of it to get us to our $1000 which we are saving first following the Dave Ramsey plan.  We were getting pretty close, and finally getting there is a great gift.  Some of it will be put aside to re-paint our house in the spring.  This was another job we knew we needed to do but weren’t sure we’d get enough saved.  Not having to worry about that is a great gift, and I will do a few extras that I might not have been able to if we were scraping together just enough.  I can’t wait to get rid of the hideous yellow glass 70’s light fixtures on the front of our house, and now thanks to the Christmas gift, I will do that when we re-paint.  After that, I think there are still a few dollars left, and they will set in our savings account, marked so they don’t get mixed in, to await a special project.

What do you do when you receive money as a gift?  Do you make sure you use it on something special, set it aside?

Looking forward to the New Year

Okay, I haven’t been writing in a while.  I took a bit of a hiatus because our family had a lot going on. We’ve been sick with a cold, busy with commitments, and of course, it was Christmas.  But now I am looking forward to the new year, and have lots of post ideas rattling around in my brain.

I am looking forward to starting the new year off on the right foot budget-wise.  We made it through Christmas in good shape, but it’s time to get back to planning where to spend our money.  We were fortunate to receive some money as Christmas gifts, both for us and the kids, and it’s fun deciding what to do with it.

We have some fun things to look forward to this year….mainly Baby #4!  This is the main reason I’ve been sick lately and now that we’ve surprised our families, the secret is out.  We need to figure out what to do about bedroom arrangements, for one thing, but there are lots of other changes ahead.

I used lots of neat gift ideas this season, and I’ll still share them, in case you want to use them for upcoming birthdays, or store them away for later.

I had a great Christmas, but I am ready for things to get back to normal around here, and to do come clearing out.  This weekend Shawn has extra days off, and I am looking forward to the family time.  I hope you and your families had a great Christmas too!!

Life Insurance

Today we had a meeting with a representative from FaithLife Financial.  Looking into insurance has been one of those things we knew we should do, but never got around to.  And, I admit for me, Life Insurance hasn’t really been something I considered part of our financial health plan. But it is! 

At first, it was hard for us to think about spending that extra each month, when we are trying to pay down debts, but really, neither of us wants to leave the other with all that debt alone!  Plus, our advisor gave us some good advice.  Ditch the mortgage insurance through the bank.  You pay the same thing the whole term, but you have declining coverage ( as you pay off your mortgage).  And, once you need it ( your spouse is injured or dies) THEN they put an application through.  So you may not qualify, after you need it!  You’ll pay that premium for years, and could still not be eligible.  Instead, he recommended having enough life insurance to cover your mortgage.

So we sat down, and came up with how much coverage we need.  And let me tell you, it’s waaaaaaaay more than I might have guessed.  To cover the mortgage, and replace Shawn’s potential lost income long enough to get on my feet, as well as cover a funeral added up to a lot.  We covered both of us for that amount, so that if something happens to me, Shawn will also be okay left to take care of all the kids without my contributions to our family. 

Then we discussed insuring our kids.  No one wants to imagine that eventuality, but IF something happens, I do not want to worry about how I will pay for a funeral.  We added a bit more coverage, too.  If Shawn wanted to take time off to grieve, I’d like to have the freedom to make that choice. 

We also know that if something happens to both of us, the guardian of our children will be left with enough to care for our kids without worries.

Once we knew what all we needed to cover, we added up what the premiums will be.  And you know what? It wasn’t that much more than what we are paying for the mortgage insurance alone.  Once we cancel the bank’s mortgage insurance, and have the new insurance in place, we’ll only be spending a little bit more each month.

He also recommended that we meet with a mortgage broker to see if we can move our mortgage to save money, so we’ll be looking into that this week.  Next up after that? Wills.

Real Tree or Fake?

Real.  There, shortest post ever.

Just kidding, of course I have more to say about it!  Ok, I know everyone has a preference, and ours is a real tree.  I love the smell, and look of a real tree.  I plan on spending the money for a nice one every year.  We usually get a Balsam or Fraser Fir.  I know they cost more, but I just plan on spending what they cost.  I love the ideal “Christmas Tree” shape of them, and oh the heavenly smell when you walk by it!!!

I live in an area completely surrounded by pine trees and places I could just walk out and cut one down for free, but they aren’t the type of pines I like.  So every year, I pay for one again and again.  I don’t care how many artificial trees I could pay for over a lifetime of buying real trees.  I have never seen a single fake tree that looked real enough to fool me into liking it.

If you like the fake trees, you are probably making a better budgeting decision than me, but I’m happy wasting money on the trees every year.  Going to pick out the tree with the kids is one of my favourite Christmas moments every year.  Baden is always determined to find a big, heavy tree. “It has to be a 60 pounder mom!”.  I’m not sure just what that means to him, or why he thinks it needs to weigh 60 pounds, but each year, Shawn dutifully lifts each tree until he declares one of them to be “the” tree.  Colleena wanted it to be “as tall as Mommy” this year, and Lily? Well, she just didn’t care, all the trees made her say “ Priiitty!”  Then Shawn does all the hard work of hauling it home, cutting the base, putting it up and rotating it until everyone in the family is satisfied that it’s perfect.  Then we deck it out in lights and ornaments, drink egg nog and have wonderful family time!

Throwing the Budget Out the Window…

This last few weeks, where we’ve all been sick, I have fallen behind on entering each purchase into our budget/ spreadsheet.  And you know what?  Trying to remember what that $30 at Wal-mart was for over a month ago is impossible for me.

So, I’m cutting myself some slack.  Yup, November is a write-off as far as tracking the spending goes.  I just gave up, decided not to feel bad about it and moved on to December instead.  But when I sat looking at the budget sheet, trying to decide how much to allocate to each category this month, I found I just didn’t care.  So, I’m cutting myself some more slack!!

I paid all the bills, and what’s left is left.  I picked up the Christmas presents we still needed to buy, and mailed the parcels.  I stocked up on groceries, and I’ll fill the gas tank.  I already know we are not going to get any money to the savings account this month, and that’s okay with me.  I’m going to just enjoy this holiday and not feel any guilt at all.  I’ve done everything I can to keep the gifts simple and inexpensive, and now I just want to watch the joy on my kids’ faces.

I’m still going to try and track what we spend this month, and I’ll get back on track for the next year!

Saving on Christmas: Wrapping Paper

I haven’t been writing much this week, since everyone in our house has been sick, but I have still been getting ready for Christmas.

I am a gift wrapping nerd.  I like perfect corners and fancy ribbons.  Every year I savour the task by wrapping everything at one sitting, drinking egg nog and listening to Christmas music.

Just a quick post today on one of the easy ways I simplified wrapping presents.  Years ago, I was watching this show where an organizer said that everyone has these drawers and boxes full of things to wrap presents.  Paper, ribbons, bows, bags….it all starts to take up a lot of space.  Plus, they charge a ridiculous amount of money for that thin paper!  His tip is one that I have followed since: wrap everything in one color paper.

You can buy “poster” rolls of paper, either white or brown, in craft areas or  at a business supply company.  They are dirt cheap.  Wrap all your presents in white paper and keep a couple different colors of ribbon around for different occasions.  Silver is pretty for weddings, anniversaries or Christmas.  Red and Green for Christmas, bright colors for birthdays, spring colors for Easter etc etc etc.

I have been doing this for a few years, and generally pick a theme and wrap most presents the same.  White paper with red ribbons looks like candy canes.  One year, I wrapped everything in the brown paper and used gold and silver pine cones as my “bows”.  It looked very old fashioned and pretty.

Then, as a bonus, when you are ready to ship your items, you have brown or white paper to wrap the parcel for shipping, and you still only have to have one roll of paper in the house!