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Gift wrapping is one thing that I keep arguing about with my wife. I understand the personal touch it adds to the gifts but I hate to spend $3-4 (a usual cost of a gift bag) for something that will probably go in garbage right away.

One of my readers emailed me earlier this month with a tip about an online store she recently launched, PennylanePapers.com, a place where you can buy a great variety of gift bags for just $1 a piece (shipping is extra so you might want to order in bulk to improve your savings).

It is a very small operation at the moment (Patricia, the owner, is running it by herself) but many successful stories start small. Mark Skorlich, the owner of Cheapestees, started selling his t-shirts from home. It is now an established small business with an office and several employees!

Patricia was kind to share with me how PennylanePapers was born, read some of it below. Sounds to me like a good idea and a great start. Good luck, Patricia, with the enterprise and hey, don’t forget to invite me for the IPO!

I started Pennylane Papers in September of 2006. The idea really spurred from talking with my sister who has three kids. She was constantly taking them to birthday parties and spending a lot of time (and money) running to stores buying gifts and gift wrap; piling 3 kids in the car to go shopping is also a chore! She often used gift bags as they require less effort than gift wrapping. She’s an internet shopper and I thought it would be a lot easier if she could just buy some inexpensive gift bags and have them on hand. My goal is to carry gift bags that are high-quality and have nice designs - which isn’t always the case at the dollar stores. I try to keep the shipping costs reasonable so the bags are still a bargain; you’re right though, it’s best to buy the most within each shipping cost bracket. I’ve also found that people buy the small size gift bags for goody bags at parties and showers. I generally have fairly large quantities on hand and can fill an order of 20 or more bags of the same design; it isn’t always possible to find large quantities of the same bag at a dollar store or even a card store.

Check out PennylanePapers.com and if you happen to order something, let everyone know how it goes and if you are happy with the quality of the service.

I went to a few places over the weekend to check if any of the retailers are carrying Christmas overstock merchandise. Wal-Mart and Target already had nothing left. Home Depot, Menard’s and Lowe’s had very few select items on the shelves.

The best selection that I found was in Michaels and Sears. In fact I almost bought a very nice 7 foot Christmas tree in Michaels for $99 but decided to pass after my friend convinced me that buying an artificial Christmas tree is less environmentally unfriendly than buying real ones.

That said, an artificial tree is less dirt in the house and also some considerable savings. If you don’t have a store in close proximity, some of the trees I linked below are still available online. Many look very realistic but still far from the real deal, and if similarity is what you are looking for then I strongly encourage you to check them out alive at least once before buying

Christmas trees from Sears:

• GE 7.5 ft. Just Cut Balsam w/800 Clear Lights for $34.97
• Wish for Joy 7.5 ft. Pre-Lit Appalachian Pine Tree for $25.97
• GE 6.5 ft. Just Cut Grand Fir w/ 600 Clear Lights for $24.97
• 6.5 ft. Pre-Lit Arctic Mist White Tree for $15.97
• Simply Christmas 6 ft. Dawson Pine Tree for $4.97

Note, these are deeply discounted prices, 4-5 times less than what you will pay in season, so if you ever considered a fake tree, now is the right time to buy one.

Photo courtesy of NessieNoodle at Flickr