Here are some of the things I do that have been working for me so far:

1. Choose your supermarket.

Consider the following factors: product prices, travel time and distance (Are you commuting? Are you taking a cab? Are you using your car? How much will you be spending for the fare or the gas?), parking fees…

2.  Make a list.

Lists are our friends. They keep us away from impulse buying and help free up space in our brains so there are less things that we have to remember. Einstein did this, and look at the theories he came up with!

Free your brain!!!

3. Set a budget and stick with it.

Remember: there’s always next month to buy all those other items.

4. Bring a calculator.

Or the one in your cellphones would do. I have this thing that I just can’t get out of my system…I just have to calculate unit costs….per gram, per liter…..but one centavo saved per item, in ten years of grocery shopping will add up to… wow I’d be a millionaire!!

5. Don’t go to the supermarket on an empty stomach.

Hunger is your enemy! (I should know.)

We hear this often, probably because it does have an effect on our spending.

6. Leave the kids at home.

Well, sometimes I get to follow this. The supermarket is such a wonderful world for the kids, it’s like their version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. This is always a difficult decision for me. On one hand, they do get to learn a lot in supermarkets; On the other hand, we also tend to spend more whenever they join us. So I just follow this piece of advice when the need to save more overrides my desire to be with the kids….which seldom happens.

7. Look out for items that are on sale.

Your well-loved products might be selling for half the price this time!

This could be tricky though, make sure you don’t end up buying something you have no use for just because it’s on sale. These things have expiration dates, my friend.

8. Bring cash.

As they say, cash is king. Plastics (credit cards) have a way of deceiving us into thinking that we are on a shopping spree. Cash would remind us of reality.

9. Don’t be deceived!

The words “New and Improved!” translate to me as “New and improved packaging so we can get more of your money!”.

10. Choose the least busy time.

“Fools rush in.” This just doesn’t just apply to love, you know. Don’t you notice that when there are more people, our competitive spirit seems to rise up, causing us to be more aggressive in shopping?? In the same breath, when we are in a rush, we usually end up buying on impulse.

Be wise and think through your purchases.

Okay, that’s ten. Any more will ruin the beauty of this numbered list.

Of course, I’m sure some of you have more great ideas. Please do share!!!

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photos (in order of appearance.. hehe):

bbc.co.uk

kara.allthingsd.com

causerelatedmarketing.blogspot.com

And my free day this month is…was…is….

nada!

tsk.tsk.tsk…

The word I seem to be using a lot this month is “DELIBERATE“.

With all the activities and parties this month, I have to be deliberate in making sure that we and the kids get to to enjoy each other more than we do the parties. I have to be deliberate in making sure that we don’t miss out on the beauty of being still, taking it slow, and just appreciating the love and joy this season brings. I have to be deliberate in sitting down to blog. I have to be deliberate in making sure our scheduled advent nights push through. I have to be deliberate in checking that we are not exceeding our set budget. I have to be deliberate in making sure I get to spend time with my God before the rest of the day becomes chaotic. I have to be deliberate in reminding myself that more than the activities, it is the relationships I have that matter most…specifically my relationship with God.

Yep! My magic word for this month is “deliberate”!

What about you, what’s your magic word?

It doesn’t take very long for parents to realize that humans (i.e. kids) are born with a self-centered orientation. That’s a nicer way of saying that we are generally born selfish. This is one of the things we never teach our kids, but for some reason one of the earliest fights they have with their siblings revolve around what’s theirs.

“That’s mine!”                                                                                                                                                               “Me first!!”

“I was first!”

“She didn’t follow me!”                                                                                                                                                “But I need it!”

“I want that!”

It all sounds too familiar. It’s also no wonder if all of a sudden Christmas becomes about them and what they wish they could get during this season. And who can blame them? They do see a lot of presents under the tree; They would hear songs about making sure they are nice so that Santa would give them gifts; People would always ask them what they want to get this Christmas. What’s a kid supposed to think??

We can be sure that our kids’ will most likely be thinking of the presents they’ll be getting for Christmas each day that they wake up and find those beautifully-wrapped gifts under the tree. It’s like they catch this “All I want for Christmas” bug every year. If there is any hope of beating this bug, then we have to be deliberate about teaching them that first, Christmas is about Jesus’ birth and what that means for all of mankind; And second, this season is a chance for us to mirror God’s heart when He gave us His only Son.

One of the ways we can overcome this self-centered nature is by being generous and coming up with things we can do in order to be a blessing to others.

Here are a few things we can do to teach our children about generosity:

1. Wrap your gifts as early as you can and place all of them under your tree. Assign each kid a pile of gifts that he/she will be giving away. Instead of focusing on the excitement of receiving lots of gifts, let them be extra excited at the idea of having less and less gifts under the tree, which implies that they’ve been giving out more and more of those presents.

2. Instead of making a Christmas wish list of what they want to have, let them make a Christmas wish list of what they wish to bless others with.

3. Before the house gets filled with presents from other people, schedule a “let’s give away!” day with your kids. Mark your calendar before it gets filled with party schedules and set a day or two just to go around the house searching for things you can give away.

4. Go to the grocery with your kids and let them pick out some goodies or snacks that they’d like to buy for street children. Let them be the ones to pack those goodies, and set a time when you’ll drive around town just to hand out those goodies to the kids.

5. Prepare something that you would like to give your guests this Christmas. Have the kids pack those things, too, and let them be the ones to hand out those gifts as the guests arrive/leave your house.

6. Involve your kids as you pray and decide on what and who to give to this Christmas.

7. “Adopt” someone you know is away from his/her family this season, perhaps invite them over for Christmas dinner or on Christmas morning.

8. If you have extra cash, why not buy groceries for a family you know is in need, and just surprise them?

9. If your kids are old enough, set a date when you can help out in a community feeding program. Real Life Foundation is one of those organizations who have this regularly.

10. Organize or be part of an “Operation: Christmas Shoe Box”. This is where kids would each have a shoe box to fill and wrap to give other community kids. They can fill their boxes with toys, toiletries, books….whatever they think other kids would find useful….and when their boxes are full, they can wrap these and take them to the nearest group or church who is a part of this project. In our case, we would be taking our boxes to our Victory Greenhills center at Promenade. We would then be setting a day when all the other kids would be distributing these to one of the kids’ community groups we have chosen to bless this Christmas.

I just shared some of the things we have been doing in our family for the past years with the kids. I’m sure there are lots more you can do (please share what you have come up with!).

I have no doubt that this is one thing your kids will thank you for when they grow up. Even as early as now, Alyanna and Mika would have a different glow in their faces as they smile every time they hand out gifts and goodies to other people. As early as now, they are already experiencing the promise of Proverbs 11:25 that “he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.”

Merry Christmas!

I have a thing for traditions. I don’t know if it’s the highly-conscientious person in me that prefers things to be predictable and in a sense— controlled; or the sentimental side of me who simply loves the thought of having something to look forward to and look back on through the years. There’s something about traditions that gives me that warm feeling and sense of security knowing that there will always be that one thing that will remain familiar. I think this is a general familiar for most of us— we love traditions!

More than tickling our hearts, though, I view traditions as a tool we use to pass on not just memories of great moments. They are tools that we can use to pass on legacy. What are the things we value? What is important to our family? What makes our family unique?

If you haven’t done it yet, make a list of the traditions that you would want your kids to experience. What lessons about Christ’s birth do you want them to learn? How do you plan to reinforce these lessons, especially to your younger kids? Mark these activities on your calendar so as not to overbook yourself, or worse, overlook these special family activities.

More importantly, enjoy the process of building memories with your family!

As we plan and carry out holiday traditions this season, let us also be deliberate in passing on the reason behind why we do things.

(Then again, there are just some things that we would love to do for fun of it. That’s reason enough!)

Whoa! This is it!!! IT’S CHRISTMAS! IT’S CHRISTMAS!!! *giddy jump*

I woke up this morning excited to do things Christmas-related around the house. The kids slept late last night so I am sure (or I am hoping) I’d have more time to do all the things I want to before they wake up.

- Finalize the Christmas decorations (To this Dennis would comment: “Oh, is it not final yet??”)

- Fix the menu for the dinner parties

We’ve already fixed our calendar so that’s one item off the list (Yay!)

…Oh, wait! There’s one group we NEED to add and invite! Okay so…

*edit*

- Finalize our December calendar

- Finalize the list of activities we would be doing with the kids

- Finalize fixing the stuff we want to give away

- Finalize the gifts we want to give

Wow. Do I have a lot of things to “finalize”!

I wonder if Christmas years ago were this busy. Since when did the Christmas season have to be so full of activities, anyway? I wonder if this is how God intended for us to celebrate Christmas.

Is this really how YOU designed this season to be, Lord?

Maybe God just wants us to celebrate this season to remind us of the one thing He did that finalized everything else we would need in this world:

God sent His Son Jesus into the world to save us. And because of the life we have in Jesus, we are forgiven, we are healed, we are restored, we can experience life to the full, we are brought back in relationship with our Heavenly Father …. Because of the life we have in His Son, we can have everything we would need in this life and more.

Because of the life we have in His Son, we have a reason to celebrate.

And that is really the only reason we celebrate. Everything else we are doing should fall under this reason.

Since when did the Christmas season have to be so full of activities? Since when did it start to become so “expensive”? Since when did people have to rush and stress over many things every time “ber” season came?

I guess since we forgot that there is only ONE reason— the ONE person who finalized it all for us.

Poor blog. You always seem to get bumped off my schedule as soon as something seemingly more urgent comes up. Please don’t get the impression that you are not important to me, because you are. Why, I do spend a considerable amount of time updating you, don’t I? I mean, I do wake up earlier in the morning just so I can fill you in on my thoughts and my life, right?

So how come it’s been dayS (emphasis on the plural form intended) since I last took the time to sit down and update you? How come I manage to find the time to open my Facebook account yet seem to always be too busy to actually write something worthwhile on YOUR page? How come my intention of writing rarely becomes reality once I feel that my schedule is filled with “must-do-this-now” activities?

Ah. It’s always a lot easier to do less meaningful things. It requires less work from my brain cells, overriding the fact that it does take up a lot of my precious time.

Ah. It is always the important things that suffer once the seemingly urgent start calling for my attention. The urgent stuff is quick to deceive me into thinking I was able to get “more” things done, thus making me think I have accomplished more during the day. Of course, “deceive” is the word at play here. The reality is, once I neglect to do the important in favor of the seemingly urgent, it won’t be long before I become a slave of my schedule, constantly trying to manage the urgent instead of successfully fulfilling what’s important.

So note to self: Please don’t confuse what is urgent with what is really important. If you are not careful to do the latter, it will soon start screaming “URGENT!!!” just to get your attention. And you wouldn’t want that. You want to be on top of your schedule, having your priorities in place. The other option— getting toppled over by activities because your priorities are all over the place (or nonexistent), is just way too stressful.

And we don’t want the unnecessary stress. Especially not with the coming holiday season.