Christmas shopping for nine kids!

I have no idea how we did it, but we ended up finishing Christmas shopping for all nine(plus our friends son) for under $1,000 in all. It honestly looks like we spent A LOT more, the gifts are overflowing and it's kind of been crazy trying to wrap them all and making sure they were all evenly bought for. Pretty much the moment January hits we start shopping for birthdays and Easter because we have five million kids. It's kind of funny to be buying our kids in August their birthday gifts that early, but when we find a good deal we tend to eat it up. After August we normally start Christmas shopping, literally the moment Estella's birthday is over we go and get our list for Christmas. It helps that around this time Toys R Us starts their free layaway so were able to get pretty much everything we need. Once we start buying for Christmas we keep probably the most detailed list in the world, I put what we bought, how much it cost, have a section for each kid, and I keep it even! We spend the same amount on each kid and try really hard to make all the piles the same size. I will admit this year, Skyler's pile is a little smaller than the others, but she hasn't really grasped opening gifts yet and she tends to steal other peoples' presents anyway so her's is smaller. We make sure every single thing is accounted for and that we didn't spend too much money. One of the major ways we have saved money of Christmas shopping was by shopping used, there is no need for us to spend tons of money on a toy that they're going to beat up or possibly not even play with much. There have been so many times we have found almost new toys at a thrift store for more than half the price, our kids totally get that they can't have all new things and we love that. Hopefully I can make it another week without buying anything else, then I can honestly say we didn't go overboard this year! Merry Christmas everyone!