What's In Our Amazon Cart - January 2021

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We have substantially slowed down some of our spending this month. In part because we are trying to be more focused on paying off some of our credit cards and also in part because a lot of our Amazon purchases are for things for our son and he made a substantial haul for Christmas. So, we really want to be able to sort through what he has and see what we need to donate, toss and store away to bring out later. However, there are a few days left in the month as I write this, so it is possible something extraordinary may happen lol. But hopefully we can contain ourselves.

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Of course, you are always going to find books of some kind in our purchases for any given month. Joe and I both love to read and he has taken to asking for specific books. This month, we have purchased three books and two of them were used as rewards for him. He loves both the Duck & Goose series and the Never Touch A series. He received his Duck & Goose book earlier this month. I am positive that he loves these books because they are very short and easy to memorize. So he "reads" along with me and I'm ok with that.  The Never Touch A Polar Bear book is currently being earned. He super loves these books because they are the touch and feel type books. 

The third book is called Trying by Kobi Yamada. I am a personal fan of all of his children's books. We have quite a few of them. I find them to be inspirational, not just for Joe, but for me as well. They have good solid lessons about being creative, following your dreams and trying something new. 

Then of course there were a couple of home maintenance items we purchased. I have been buying my soap from Young Living. I bought the giant refill container this last time around. Because why not save on how many plastic bottles you throw out right? Well, my son broke both of the foaming soap dispensers that I had originally gotten with my original soap orders. No problem, I'll just go to the store and pick up a couple. This was actually super frustrating. If I found a foaming soap dispenser in the store it either was super pricey or looked like it would fall apart after one handwashing with Joe. I had an idea to look for just the dispenser and lid that would fit on top of a canning jar. We have tons of those because we can our produce in the summer when our garden is being productive. I was able to find a pack of two lids with dispensers at the price that we would have paid for a cheaper dispenser at the store. The bonus is that they look pretty cute and my husband approved of them. It was a huge win!

Also, on our list for the home were new covers for our couch. We have a continued issue with our dogs tearing up our furniture with their nails. Now, I know what your thinking. Just keep their nails trimmed. That is great advise and honestly we do a fairly decent job of keeping up on it, but they are all three bigger dogs and it just takes a toll on the furniture. We have managed to salvage this couch with buying these cushion covers. We do have to replace them about every 6 - 8 months, but it is saving us a little money in the long wrong. We have one piece of furniture that doesn't have holes in it lol. We are adulting so hard right now.

The other items that we have bought are all craft items because... well... Joe and I like to craft and have fun. I bought some new washable dot markers. Joe loves to do the do a dot pages that you can find online. I love these because they are washable and there is an assortment of colors that you can work with. We had originally been using the ones I found at the Dollar Tree Store. Those do work, but stained his clothes and had fewer color options. 

I also bought some jumbo craft sticks. Now, I know that when I put these in our cart to purchase I had something very specific in mind that I wanted to use them for, but for the life of me I cannot find the project or remember what it was. They will not go to waste though. I know that a craft will arise and these will be here for me to grab. If not, we will use them in our garden again as place markers for our rows.

​I also bought some mod podge and clothespins for a manipulative that I made for our homeschool adventures. Now after ordering the mod podge I also reorganized my office and found two more jars of it, but I guess you can never have enough of this stuff. I'm sure that I can use regular glue for the projects that I am using them on, but I find that mod podge works better at keeping things together. There are of course, multiple uses for mod podge in the crafting world so it doesn't hurt to have some on hand.

​I also bought some artificial snow that I can make to use in Joe's sensory bin, but have not used it yet. I had an idea for it, but it did not work out. I kept it in the cart because I know that we will use it at some point before the weather warms up.

It isn't a joke that our cart is usually much more interesting than it is now. We really have made a concerted effort to slow down on our shopping and buy only things that are necessary to us or Joe's education. I do have a list of books that I am eyeing up for Joe for next few months, so next month might have a few more books than this month, but we will see. For now, I'm off to help my four year old defeat Bowser in what I am sure will be an amazing game of Mario.