Buy Smart

Nail Polish Valentine Cards For Kids (With Free Printable)

February 12, 2019 by Stacy Craft Leave a Comment

Nail polish Valentine cards are a fun way for kids to gift a colored nail polish to their friends during the class party.

It is February 12th and we just finished the Valentine’s day treats to send for the school party. If this sounds like you, you can still make a cute, homemade Valentine treat to send with your kiddo without any stress!

And if you are looking for more of a gender neutral, last minute Valentine card, check out these slime Valentine cards.

(Affiliate links are used in this post. A small commission may be paid to me at no extra cost to you and that helps to support this page. Please see my disclosures page for additional information.)

Nail Polish Valentine Cards for Kids

When making these nail polish Valentine cards, I wanted a non-candy treat that my daughter would enjoy sending to her mother’s day out classroom. The favors that are in the seasonal areas at the store are often junk. You know the kind of stuff that is played with for 5 minutes and then litters your home until you can get it in the trash without your child noticing.

And then you feel guilty. Because some parent spent money on that little piece of junk in hopes of delighting your child. So back in October for the Halloween parties, I started searching out no-junk party favors. I was hopeful that I could find some treats to send that wouldn’t find their trash status within a day of arriving to their new home.

So after thinking about that, these nail polish Valentine cards were born. You can create a fun Valentine card with just two items plus the free printable that the girls will love.

Items Needed for Nail Polish Valentine Cards

So, remember I told you it is almost 2/14? There is no time for massive craft lists and lots of intricate instructions! For these nail polish Valentine cards, you need just 3 items (and one of those is a free printable that you will find at the end of this post)!

The rest of the items could be found on Amazon, Target or even a drugstore.

Nail Polish (I like to buy a Princess nail polish multi pack and then break it up for the Valentine’s)

Clear Favor Bag (Or even a ziplock bag)

Free Printable Valentine Card

The cards come 4 to a sheet. Trim the sheet to create 4 cards. Then fold horizontally right above the words. This will create a little tent that you will fold over the clear treat bag.

Click Here for the free printable.

I cut my treat bag in half since my bag was much bigger than the bottle of nail polish. So to finish these nail polish Valentine cards, just place the folded card over the clear bag and tape it.

Voila! Super cute nail polish Valentine cards that will be a hit at daycare or elementary school. These would even be fun for older girls to gift to their friends.

Hope you have a Happy Valentine’s Day! And check out this Nutella and Strawberry Heart puff pastry for dessert!

Easy Way to Save on Cable And Internet Bill

December 31, 2018 by Stacy Craft Leave a Comment

Find out the easy way to save on cable and internet bill without even making a phone call and put hundreds of dollars back in your pocket!

With a brand new year here, budgets have been on my mind. I have been working on lowering my grocery budget and miscellaneous spending. And I knew there had to be an easy way to save on cable and internet bills as well.

It is kind of embarrassing to admit because I started this blog to share all of the money saving tips that I have learned over the years. However, my personal budget is not in the shape that it should be. I had a couple babies in the last few years and my focus moved from pinching pennies to learning to function on 3 hours sleep. Thankfully, debt is not something that I have taken on but I certainly haven’t been saving or managing my money the way that I know I should.

So while I take on a couple of new budget challenges this year, I wanted to go back to the money saving roots that I have developed as well. Going back to some of the basics in order to get my spending down and my savings up is a priority this year. The best way to start that is to decrease some of your recurring monthly expenses. So I have been working on an easy way to save on cable and internet bill expenses that you can literally work through on your lunch hour (and still have time for a sandwich and some Facebook or Insta scrolling).

(Affiliate links are used in this post. A small commission may be paid to me at no extra cost to you and that helps to support this page. Please see my disclosures page for additional information.)

Easy Way to Save on Cable and Internet Bill

I started my new 2019 budget by checking out my large expenses that recur monthly. Of course cable and internet were up there on the expense list. I lowered my bills by $808.20 annually during my lunch break without ever even picking up the phone! I am not sure about you but I can do a lot of things with $800 that sound a lot better than throwing it at a big cable company.

Here I will show you the breakdown of how and what I did to get this $800 savings. Keep reading to see the easy way to save on cable and internet bill this year.

Save on Cable Bill

My husband and I keep talking about moving to a total streaming service and completely getting rid of cable. We haven’t taken the plunge yet but don’t be surprised if that happens in 2019 to save even more money.

For now, we are sticking with our traditional cable service. However, my bill had gotten completely out of control. We moved into our house a couple of years ago and I think the bill was a combo of a few things.

Our initial introductory package had expired
My husband had ordered a special NCAA package (because he HAD to have a particular football game)
Our specialty movie channel free trial expired and we were now paying for those channels
We had a large cable package

I evaluated the items above with my husband and we determined that we were not watching the movie channels at all so they could go. My husband is a big football fan and that is the reason that we got the special sports package. However, since the football season is over, we could at least get rid of the sports package for a few months.

The next thing I did was spend some time comparing the large channel package that we had to the next step down. Thankfully the cable company has a chart that shows what you get or don’t get with each package. We didn’t watch any of the extra channels that we were getting with the bigger package. So essentially we were paying extra money for something we were not using.

Actions to Save Money on the Cable Bill

I was able to downgrade my cable package online without contacting anyone at the cable company. The cable company won’t let you cancel everything using your online account independently. However, I was able to hop onto the “chat” feature and request that the changes be made to my account.

The entire process went very quickly and I was able to save $49.51 monthly or $594.12 annually.

Save on Internet Bill

For the internet bill, I was not as willing to make adjustments. My husband and I both work from home in our day jobs. So we both rely on a reliable and fast internet connection to keep up with our daily tasks.

Of course in addition to work, we need internet for streaming Netflix & Amazon Prime Videos, we have kids with devices, an Alexa. I will be surprised if our fridge doesn’t want to connect to our WiFi soon. So needless to say, I didn’t want to downgrade, I just wanted to pay less. Was it that simple?

It pretty much was. I hopped on a chat with my internet company and asked for a discount. My comment went something like this, “Hi. I have noticed that my internet bill seems higher than usual. Can you please check for any promotions or savings that you could offer?” The customer service rep came back and told me that they could save me $17.84 per month and keep my service exactly the same. I did have to sign a one year agreement but the cancellation fee is less than the new savings so in the event that I did decide to cancel, I would still come out ahead.

My total savings for the internet bill was $214.08 annually.

Total Cable & Internet Savings

Overall, I was able to save $808.20 annually in less than one hour. This easy way to save on cable and internet bill was done on my lunch break without ever even talking to an actual person on the phone!

Do you have an easy way to save on cable and internet bills other than the things that I mentioned? I would love to hear about it!

10 Best Toys for 3 year Old (That They Will Still Play With at 5)

December 18, 2018 by Stacy Craft Leave a Comment

A list of 10 toys for a 3 year old that will get played with and used for years to come. Best of all, they are all under $25.

Toys. Toys. Toys. They are everywhere and they can take over your home quickly if you don’t choose wisely. I love when I find a gift that really gets played with. Even better if it gets played with for years to come.

Over the last few weeks I have been trying to get a big donation pile of unused toys and other things to give to others in anticipation of the new toys that will come at Christmas time. While I was doing that, I noticed several toys that have been around a while that are still being used.

I wanted to share with you the top 10 toys that we bought for our daughter when she was 3 that she is still playing with as a 5 year old.

(Affiliate Links are used in this post. A small commission may be paid to me at no extra cost to you and that helps to support this page. Please see my disclosures page for additional information.)

Reasons We Love These Toys

There are several criteria that put toys on my must have list for my kids.

Inexpensive – When buying for a 3 year old, you don’t want to break the bank with a toy purchase in case it doesn’t get used or
Mostly Independent Play – Obviously supervision is required. However, these are good because they provide some level of independent play or quiet time. As an example, my daughter might color or paint at the kitchen table while I am cooking dinner.
Encourage Creativity/Imagination or Motor Skills – A toy that teaches or allows my kids to create something is one that I like buying.

10 Best Toys for 3 year Old

Here is the list of the 10 best toys for 3 year old kids. We purchased these for our then 3 year old daughter that she still consistently plays as a 5 year old now. These toys have held the test of time. They are durable, fun and entertaining. Best of all, you can buy these on Amazon for less than $25 each (and a bunch are under $10)

Mega Bloks Building Set

These big building blocks are perfect for little fingers (our 1 year old even has fun trying to build things). I love the wagon that it comes with for storing the blocks. It is also an easy way to teach your little one the art of cleaning up their mess.

Alex Discover Button Art

This is my favorite item on the list! Starting at 18 months, the kids can work on pushing the buttons into the art. When the child is younger you can work on color identification and matching the correct color to the button. My five year old still gets this out to work on. She can of course do it independently now so it is now a nice quiet time activity.

Playhut Tent

What is it with kids and tents or forts? They love them! My daughter has loved her tent for years. She likes to hide in it, read in it, play with toys in it and play pretend. They also fold up to make storage super easy.

Learning Resources Rise & Shine Breakfast Play Food

Good quality play food is really hard to find! This set is realistic looking and has a couple of really cute features. An egg that you can crack, a muffin that you can fill with blueberries and a small toaster for the bread. My daughter still plays restaurant and loves to serve us food.

Hot Potato Game

The laughter that this game brings is the reason it has made this top 10 best toys for a 3 year old list. Now that my daughter is five and the baby is 14 months, we all get in on the fun. The baby of course doesn’t understand the concept but he loves chasing around any dropped potato! It is always a good time.

Coloring Book with Water Colors

Coloring is fun but painting is a blast! These coloring books come with a watercolor palette and a coloring book featuring your favorite characters.

Melissa & Doug Water Wow

These are so amazing. The kids “paint” with a refillable water paint brush. The pages come to life with pretty colors when they get wet but the magic happens when the water dries. As it dries, the pages turn back to white so you can paint them over and over again. We play with these at home and on road trips or plane rides.

Melissa & Doug Ice Cream Scoop Pretend Set

My daughter wanted this on a random Target run and I didn’t really want to spend $24 on it. I almost passed it up but during the summer, I usually choose to let her get a toy or two. It has been played with so much. I am not sure that I will ever forget her little voice yelling “ice cream for sale” 600 times a week!

The set is very cute with 4 different flavors and cone and cup options. There are magnets in the scoops and the cone so you can serve up a double scoop and it will stay together.

Disney Princess Necklace Activity Set

This is awesome for the ability to create again and again. The necklaces are a silicone type stretchy material with a fastener. String the beads, add a princess and wear. When she wants to change up the necklace, just pop the fastener and create again. This does have small pony beads but at 3 my daughter could do this craft mostly on her own.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Wooden Recorder

Music is always a great thing to expose children to. We love singing silly songs and we have a big bucket of noise makers and instruments. This recorder is a fun way to make some fun sounds. We also have a xylophone and a small keyboard.

Hopefully this list of the 10 best toys for 3 year old children will help you in your gift search. Whether it is for a birthday or Christmas, I hope your kids love these things as much as mine do. I am just happy that we can find some other toys to play with on occasion because my 5 year old is currently LOL obsessed.

Elf on the Shelf Gifts Under $5

December 7, 2018 by Stacy Craft 6 Comments

Our elf has been hanging around our house for the last 3 Christmas seasons. Lots of days she just moves to a new location and does not do much else. But on a few special days, she brings a little treat or gift to the kids. Here are several elf on the shelf gifts under $5 that our littlest member of the family has brought to our home in the past.

Just remember, the elf is fun just to find. My daughter (just turned 5) gets the biggest kick out of searching for her every morning. So don’t get tied up in thinking that the elf needs to bring a treat every day. Ours usually brings something a few times a season.

(Affiliate Links are used in this post. A small commission may be paid to me at no extra cost to you and that helps to support this page. Please see my disclosures page for additional information.)

Elf on the Shelf Gifts Under $5

When thinking about elf gifts, there are lots of options. I like small gifts because well the elf is small. Also, since it is so close to Christmas, we don’t want to overdo it. But a fun little surprise from the elf is a great way to increase the anticipation and magic of the upcoming holiday.

Here are some of my favorite small elf on the shelf gifts under $5 for your elf to bring.

Breakfast with the Elf

The elf moves at night. So breakfast is one of my favorite elf ont he shelf gifts under $5 to bring. I mean, your kids have to eat breakfast so a fun Christmas inspired breakfast delivered by their elf is oh so special.

Your kids will think your elf is the coolest for bringing these special breakfast treats! Throw in a banana or something to add a little nutrition! Of course this is just a treat – I don’t want the organic breakfast police on me!

Christmas Crunch Cereal – This is the breakfast treat that our elf brought this year.

Gingerbread Spice Oatmeal – I am not sure if my kids would eat this but it sounds good to me!

Hot Cocoa & Marshmallow Mini Donuts – I found mine at the grocery store. And can I just tell you, I broke my diet for one of these. And then I noticed the serving size was 4, so I went ahead and had a serving. I got these for the kids and the combo did not even sound that good to me but they are really yummy!

Sugar Cookie Poptarts – We had these at Halloween and they are so fun.

Clif Bar Peppermint Bark – What a fun flavor for a holiday granola bar.

Books from the Elf

The Littlest Elf – What is cuter than the elf bringing an elf book? We read this during our 24 Book Christmas Advent Countdown! It is a cute book about a tiny elf looking for his purpose.

Stained Glass Christmas Coloring Book – This is a small book with 8 pages that you color and then hang in a window for a stained glass effect. Cool concept and great price (especially if you need to get a couple to prevent fights).

A Christmas Celebration Sticker & Activ ity Book – This is by The Beginner’s bible which we own and love. We don’t have this activity book but it gets good reviews and looks like a fun way to remind kids of the reason for the season!

Disney Princess Christmas Eve Coloring Book – With 40 pages, this is a big coloring book of Princesses in Christmas settings. If your little one is Frozen obsessed or princess obsessed like mine, this might be a good choice.

Candy from the Elf

Candy Canes – We did a candy cane hunt this year during our A to Z Christmas countdown. My 4 year old searched around for candy canes hidden in our living room and had a blast. Your elf could hide the candy canes!

LOL Surprise Finders Keepers Eggs – My daughter would probably eat broccoli if it had an LOL Surprise doll on it. I made a huge list of LOL gifts because she loves it so much. The toy in these is very small but it is still a fun little treat and the chocolate egg gets eaten quickly!

Magic Seed & Candy Cane filled Candy – Our crazy little elf did this the other day. She brought two magic seeds (you could use M&M’s, cheerios, dried beans, raisins, tic tacs) and a bowl of powdered sugar. The note instructed that we plant the seeds and wait to see if they would grow. When we got home from school, the seeds had grown into two candy canes filled with candy! So fun and easy.

Hot Cocoa & Snowflake Shaped Marshmallows – We like to do hot cocoa and a Christmas movie a few times during the month of December. I would usually buy this anyway but it is a little more magical coming from the elf.

Other Cute Elf on the Shelf Gifts Under $5

Good to Grow Character Top Juices – My kids go bananas for these.

Frozen $1 Bill – Fill a 4 oz Glad container with water. Put a $1 bill in a snack size ziplock bag and seal it. Roll up the bag/dollar combo and stuff it in your water filled container. The elf will deliver a frozen $1 bill in the morning for the kid’s piggy bank. The elf should sit with an Elsa doll if you have one!

Christmas Grinch Bandaids – Kids love bandaids. Your elf could get into this box of cute bandaids & put a couple on herself. She leaves the rest for the kids. My kids always get bandaids in their stocking too and they are thrilled.

Christmas Grinch PJ Pants – You can find cute pajama pants for $5 at Target. Our elf has even brought Elf on the Shelf pjs for our kids before (but those fall out of the $5 range).

Holiday Goldfish – The elf goes fishing and leaves some special goldfish for snack! Use a toothpick, lollipop stick or even a skewer for the “fishing pole.”

Hopefully this list of elf on the shelf gifts under $5 gives you some new ideas to make the magic of the elf come alive on the cheap!

Check out my other gift guides while you are here to make your Christmas shopping even easier! We have LOL Surprise dolls and Frozen gift guides. Stuff your stockings for under $5 for your 1 year old and your 3-5 year old.

Gifts for the Goldendoodle Lover

December 2, 2018 by Stacy Craft Leave a Comment

If you need gifts for the Goldendoodle lover in your life, look no further. We have scoured the internet for the cutest doodle merchandise out there.

Meet Murphy. He loves to steal things that don’t belong to him, act scared of inanimate options, and bark when a leaf blows by. He was a gift that I gave to my mom a couple of years ago. It is safe to say that she would love a list of gifts for the goldendoodle lover. She is officially obsessed with this big ball of fur.

Murphy is probably what most would consider spoiled. He has every dog toy available. A deluxe dog bed is waiting for him in the corner of the room (although he opts for the bed or couch typically). Murphy loves to go to doggy day care while my mom works so that he stays occupied and can see his friends. Yes, he has his own friends. He is the product of an empty nest mother and he is proud of it.

Since he doesn’t want for much so as the upcoming holiday season approaches, I thought I would look for some Goldendoodle gifts that my mom might like that would portray her favorite doodle.

A lot of packages come to my door all through out the year. It seems like I buy everything online these days! Even our toilet paper is dropped off by one of the delivery services. But at Christmas, the amount of packages arriving at my door increase a ton. With two young kids, shopping online just makes my life so much easier. So I wanted to find a way to give a fun delivery driver Christmas gift to those that help me during the season.

(Affiliate Links are used in this post. A small commission may be paid to me at no extra cost to you and that helps to support this page. Please see my disclosures page for additional information.)

Gifts for the Goldendoodle Lover

These gifts for the goldendoodle lover are unique, fun and economical. The Goldendoodle Mom or Dad in your life will love that you thought of their fur baby when selecting a gift for them.

Under $20

All You Need Is Love & A Goldendoodle – This cute box sign decor is perfect to set on a tabletop of the Goldendoodle Mom or Dad.

Goldendoodle Christmas Ornament – The dangling legs make this so adorable to me. You can also easily personalize this with a Sharpie to feature the name of the puppy.

Doodle Mom Pop Socket – These pop sockets are super popular and this one is adorable for the doodle mom.

Doodle Mother Wine Lover Shirt – Goldendoodle clothing is one of those must have gifts for the Goldendoodle lover. Does she love to drink a glass of wine and cuddle her doodle? This cute long sleeve shirt comes in a few color options so that you can choose her Dog Mom style.

Home is Where the Doodle is Tea Towel – This would be a cute little stocking stuffer or even hostess gifts for the Goldendoodle lover.

Goldendoodle Memo Pad – A great stocking stuffer for the Goldendoodle mom’s desk at work or the fridge to make quick lists.

Goldendoodle Wall Calendar – Keep track of the year while seeing 12 cute Goldendoodles.

Goldendoodle Socks – Fun socks are always cute stocking stuffer gifts for the Goldendoodle lover.

Under $50

Pet Monitor – The pet monitor allows you to see what your Goldendoodle is doing during the day while you are away. You can even talk to your pet through the monitor!

Merry Christmas Doods – This would be great for an ugly Christmas sweater party!

I hope you find some fun gifts for the Goldendoodle lover in your life!