Maybe not the sexiest or most exciting bargain, but the westside Grocery Outlet has Pete and Gerry's organic eggs for $2.49 a dozen, which is a damn fine deal. Their sell-by date is in mid-August, but most refrigerated, raw, shell eggs last for up to six weeks past that date, so you might want to stock up.

There are 10-ounce bags of Sno-caps on sale at the Lacey Target for $1.88 (they're hidden on an out-of-the-way endcap). Buying them will enable me to make these cookies. Sure, they're totally out of season, but I gave up sugar for Lent, so I 100% don't care. On Easter Sunday, I intend to eat a lot of cookies, and this recipe is definitely making the cut.

If you've browsed pretty much any hipster home decor blog in the past few years, you've probably noticed the popularity of fiddle-leaf fig plants. Sadly, these photogenic suckers are both notoriously easy to kill and ridiculously expensive, costing upwards of $50 for a mid-sized plant. That's why I was so stoked to discover a bunch of healthy-looking specimens (for now, anyway) at the Lacey Grocery Outlet, priced at a mere $14.99. I still might kill it, obviously, but the financial loss will be less painful.

Having just chatted earnestly about charitable giving, I will now return to a more normal subject: stuff I covet. My birthday's coming up, and I've started poking around the internet for gift ideas I can "suggest" to friends and family. (Read: I totally send them links, complete with coupon codes and notes about shipping. I lack shame.) So far I'm happiest with my request for three hard-to-find P.G. Wodehouse titles, all of which turned up on ThriftBooks. The grand total, with free shipping and a 15% off coupon code, clocked in at just over $10. Sure, they're used, but I read all my Wodehouse books to shreds anyway, so why would I care if they show up with little preexisting wear-and-tear?

This isn't the most glamorous thing to dive into, but I thought I'd talk a little about charitable giving, on both a local and larger scale. I do all of my major charity donations online, making one donation per day between Christmas and New Year's Eve. A lot of charities offer gift-matching during this time of year, and my husband's employer does, too. Plus, having a set date for giving helps me organize the related paperwork, and makes it less likely that I'll forget to write off that $50 I donated in March or whenever on my taxes. This year I chose seven nonprofits that I value and, ah, worry might be even more at risk after January 20th.

Environmental issues:

The Conservation Fund
Environmental Defense Fund

Refugee Support:

Catholic Relief Services
UNICEF: United States Fund

Journalism support:

Wikipedia
My local NPR affliate

Plus-one:

Engineers Without Borders My dad, who died of cancer in 2013, was a geotechnical engineer, and I donate to this organization both to honor him and also because it's nice to have at least one item on this list that's intended to improve something, rather than preserve something.

I also volunteer at my local food bank, and I strongly encourage other people to do so. It's fun! And there are SO MANY snacks! And you get to help people, while simultaneously diverting an insane amount of unnecessarily thrown-out food from the waste stream! But if you don't have time to actually work at your nearest food bank, it's easy to call or e-mail them and ask if there's anything specific they need.

It's finally 2017, and in the spirit of all that healthy-eating advice floating around the internet I decided to try this amazing-looking Superfood Hot Chocolate recipe. Sadly, the stores I usually visit either don't carry or were out of stock on some of weirder ingredients: organic cacao, maca powder, and organic chia seeds. I could have ordered these items online, of course, but I find when it comes to me and health food it's best to strike while the iron is hot. Thankfully, I remembered that I'd seen similar-looking names while poking through the packaged food aisle at T.J. Maxx, so I headed over there. All three were available, certified organic, and good through 2019. It was still more money than I wanted to spend ($17), but far less than I'd spend to have them shipped here. Plus, that hot chocolate was ridiculously good.

I recently visited Gig Harbor's Main and Vine grocery store (it's a Kroger concept store that focuses on fresh, local foods). If you, like me, rely heavily on grocery stores for your Christmas shopping, this is an extremely reasonably-priced resource for gourmet chocolate, fancy tea or coffee, and luxe all-natural beauty products. Plus, if you spend $50 and have to cross the Tacoma Narrows Bridge to get to Gig Harbor, Main and Vine will reimburse you the $6 bridge toll fee.