went shopping and came out with almost $200 worth of toys

It sounds like you will have a very happy child and you got some very good deals. My birthday is in a couple of weeks also. Mine is June 23rd. When is your daughters? I have went to the store several times also just to get a few things and came back with more because there were such great deals.

wow, did the store have sales on? at least you didnt shower her with toys today...thats a good thing. i tend to shop early for christmas (i recieved some chinese character earrings yesterday in fact that i will put away for my 14 year old for christmas!) just dont forget that you 1) bought her all that stuff and buy her a ton more and 2)forget where you put it!

WOW! You go girl! Ha! Just think what that 200 dollars worth of toys would have cost you at Christams! Now you can relax during the hustle/bustle of Christmas season knowing that the bulk of your shopping is done! I try to do some of my shoppin throughout the year too!

I have done this before too. I go to the store for one thing and they will be running a great sale on something else. I also stock up. If something is a real good price I will buy it now and put it away for a holiday. I also got a great deal on sodas this week and I will not have to buy sodas for a month now. You have to take advantage of sales and coupons when you can.

I seem to get more stuff than I intend if I go down the toy aisle, too. lol It seems like there is always something on sale that I think Elliott or one of my nieces will like for their birthday or Christmas. We had all of Christmas shopping done for the nieces by the beginning of February. We might buy them an outfit closer to Christmas time if I find really cute ones on clearance in their sizes, but that will be it. We didn't buy clothes yet because it's so hard to know what size they will be in (they are 2.5 and 6). We are getting pretty close to being done with Christmas shopping for our son now, too. We will probably end up buying him more stuff later, though, especially if we start potty training this fall. Because we will use some of his things that we bought for Christmas as rewards for that instead.

well, if you have birthdays and the such coming up, then look at it as prep work. Just be careful not to spend more money closer to the events.

Sounds like you picked a good day to go to the store. Your daughter is going to be very happy. It would have been hard for anyone to pass up buying things that are on major sales. You were needing to get stuff for your daughters birthday and now you are ahead of the Christmas shopping. That is great.