Frugal Fridays: Frugal Easter baskets

This is my first time to participate in Frugal Fridays, although I have often read everyone's ideas. I haven't yet read through all of the links, so I apologize if this is a little bit of a repeat, but here's my great frugal idea for this week: frugal Easter baskets.

I never realized until recently that some people don't save their Easter baskets from year to year. As a child, we always had the same Easter basket. In the same tradition, we have reused the same Easter baskets each year so far. And of course you know that I bought my daughter's on clearance the year before she needed it and my son's at a thrift store ($0.50).

First of all, here is my son's:



It's one of those soft ones that's shaped like a vehicle. I forget which year these were so wildly popular ($8 each), but I found two of them later that same year at a thrift store. My son prefers this format for the moment, so I don't argue.

Notice the lack of loads of candy? I hope the kids won't notice. Or, if they do, I hope they won't mind. (I doubt they will. I have great kids.) His basket has a few candy items: a 2-oz chocolate cross (Dollar Tree had the cheapest), a small bag of Kissables someone donated to the cause, a lollipop, a pack of sugar-free gum (wildly popular in our house) and a plastic shaped egg filled with a few Hershey's Kisses. The non-candy items that I know he's going to flip over include: a John Deere tractor clock ($4 at Goodwill), washable markers ($0.50 back-to-school sale), and a notebook I decorated especially for him. For instructions on the notebook, see this post.



My daughter's is filled similarly. The candy items: a 2-oz chocolate cross , a small bag of Kissables, a lollipop, a pack of sugar-free gum and a plastic egg filled with a few Hershey's Kisses. Her non-candy items include: a "Leap Pad" toy ($0.25 at a local thrift store), washable markers (she's been wanting my son's regular markers for a month), and a notebook I decorated especially for her.

The candy is courtesy of post-holiday sales where I managed to get huge bags of candy for $1 each.

Of course, this wouldn't be a frugal post without a cost analysis. For both baskets together (not including baskets), I paid $9.51. That averages out to roughly $4.75 per basket. Not too bad, compared to those baskets filled with junk at Wal-Mart that go for a minimum of $10.

For more Frugal Friday posts, visit Biblical Womanhood Online.