anything I can do, I can do better.

When Charlie was two, I knitted her a pink sweater to go with her Easter dress. It was the year I learned to knit, and I thought that it'd be a cute handmade touch to go with the dress I fell in love with and bought her at Baby Gap (normally I don't brand drop, but there's a reason I did it this time, and you'll see why soon).

 

The year Charlie was three, she had a baby sister.  I decided that I'd knit Charlie a new Easter sweater from expensive organic cotton yarn to go with her dress from Old Navy.  Baby Mia?  Well, she'd be fine wearing a dress she already had and a sweater I'd knitted when I was expecting her.

 

When Charlie was four, it dawned on me that I'd need to knit TWO Easter sweaters.  So I hunkered down, bought acrylic (sparkly) yarn from JoAnn's, and knitted them cute little boleros to go with their dresses from Old Navy.  My mother-in-law contributed the hats, which lasted all of 2 minutes.

Last year, I hit on an awesome clearance sale at The Children's Place.   For yarn for the sweaters, I'd long given up on hitting my local yarn store.  Once again,  I got my yarn at JoAnn's.

Which brings me to this year.  After poking around the various websites for their Easter dresses, I decided to hit up a local consignment store.  Lo and behold- I found two super cute dresses.  They were less than $20 total, as was the yarn that I bought for their (bright pink) sweaters this year.

See, my life has changed.  I've gone from spending $45 on the dress alone for one daughter for Easter to spending less than $40 total for the dresses and sweaters for both girls for Easter.  Am I bummed that they won't be matchy-matchy this year?  Yeah, a little, I'll admit.  But does it feel good to have that saved money sitting in the bank instead of at the bottom of the closet, where the dresses inevitably end up?  You bet it does!

If you have kids (or you buy for kids) has your holiday spending changed over the past few years?