I suppose it is what it is for now.  If I do not get a chance to get back in and write before holiday then Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone out there (Happy Holidays in general if you do not celebrate Christmas).

• Frugal Dad has five daily actions we can take to improve our financial lives.
• Single Guy Money warns of hidden holiday costs.
• Lazy Man and Money has his 2008 Gift Guide out.
• Northern Cheapskate has 7 gift ideas for the person that has everything.

My reading was a little light this week as well due largely to some work issues that came up.  At least I was able to at least skim a few articles.

While we were planning our move to a new, bigger, more comfortable apartment we looked at our budget and now all the costs should play out.  I managed to get us a trailer for free that I could hook up to the back of my Jeep for the larger items and it looked as though we would be able to move all of our belongings pretty inexpensively.

All looked pretty good and our move looked promising.  Overall we should save roughly $100 each (my girlfriend and I) in our new place and we should have a better living situation. However - we did not remember to account for feeding the family during the transition process.

We normally cook at home and make meals that are somewhat healthy and not too expensive to put together (that the kids will eat).  When we started the move process we forgot to take into account that we would have both kitchens in a state of disarray until we could start settling into our new place.  We had the ability to start moving over time so our entire move process lasted the better part of two weeks.  During this time we ended up dining out or grabbing take out most nights to feed everyone; net result - increased spending on dining out.

I think that the total increase in spending on food items was probably around $300 - $400 more than usual (a bit high but we also took the kids out for a fancy Thanksgiving dinner since they would not be home the holiday weekend) for the four of us to eat for two weeks.  We did manage to settle the kitchen first and start getting back into a normal routine as soon as we started staying at our new home so that helped.  I just can not help thinking that there was probably a better, healthier and less costly way.  Sure we saved money on movers and getting our stuff here but spent the cost of having movers on dining out over the course of two weeks.

Has anyone else had a similar experience?  If so how would you combat the situation next time it comes up?

Anyway - over the weekend we picked up our Christmas tree for the year.  I had thought about going up to my grandmother’s land (where I grew up) and hunting one down myself for free but time was not on my side.  We stopped in at a pretty nice tree lot (they had a fair amount of space to set up, not like the urban style fit 1 million trees in 25 square feet lots you sometimes see).  I was hoping to get away for under $40 (which I managed to do at $35 for a really nice tree) but was surprised to see that the majority of trees were closer to $50.  In fact my girlfriend’s four year old son was helping me and the first tree he ran up to was not priced visibly - when we asked we were told it was $50.  I convinced him that we should look around a bit more for the “best tree ever”.  As it turns out we found it and the tree was the best ever due to the fact that it had “a red tag on top”.  It seems that everything related to the holidays is just getting more and more expensive (and showing up earlier) every year.

We got the tree and decorated it yesterday and spent an entire day as a family fun, holiday decorating day.  It was a blast and easily worth the $35 cost of the tree and I would have paid $50 for the day we had if it came down to it.  I guess I just can not believe how much everything costs - I mean to pay $50 for something that you are going to keep a couple of weeks (maybe) and then throw out?  Seems a little silly to me but I guess the market is there.

How about you? Anyone out there pick up a tree yet?  How much did you end up paying for your perfect Christmas tree?

I am really excited and relieved to be out of our old apartment and hope to have all our stuff unpacked and settled in time for Christmas.  I guess November was a busy month between my job responsibilities changing and moving - I hope December slows down a bit!