Frugal Holiday Tip: Recycling Christmas Candy for Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day

This year for Valentine’s Day I am making lots of various favors, so of course that means I need a lot of Valentine candy. I thought about buying some Valentine’s Day candy at the store the other day, and then it dawned on me that I already had candy at home. A lot of candy. I went kind of crazy after Christmas and did some stocking up, and now I am glad I did since I realized that it means I have enough candy to get through a couple of holidays without spending a ton of money!

See, in the days following Christmas I stalked the candy sales. I found a few coupons online for $1 off 2 bags of candy and printed as many as I could. I snatched up bag after bag of red and green candy for half price, coupled with coupon savings. That took the price of the candy, originally $3 a bag, down to just $1 a bag. Cha-ching! I originally had a bunch more candy, but there were still four surviving bags that I’ve now turned into Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day candy simply by sorting them according to color.

Now, before you wrinkle your nose and say, “eeew, Christmas candy in March?” check out the expiration dates on the bags. They’re good until July and August! Once they’ve been sorted by color, put them in zipper bags for airtight storage and keep them in a cool, dry place until you need them. Nobody will ever know the difference!

Missed out on the Christmas candy sales? I’m also planning to stock up on jelly beans with Easter on the way, sorting all of the various colors to use them for even more holiday and special occasion projects!

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