I thought I online shopped a lot before we were all staying at home but now things have gone to a whole new level. 

At least most of my shopping has been for food (hello hungry kids!) or a home project. Most of our projects have involved being outside. The biggest one we’ve been working on is the backyard and garden area. We have a lot of space, and with the pools and things being closed out here, we wanted to beef up the area here so the kids could play, and while we were at it, I decided to take up gardening. 

As I mentioned in our life during a pandemic update, It’s become an “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” situation and buying one thing has evolved into buying more and more things to help set up the space.

A couple of  problems I keep running into are things either being out of stock, or marked up tremendously. Both were the case with a jungle gym I’ve had my eye on. Anything related to outdoor fun, gardening, or fun at home seems to have a premium sticker on it. So I’ve had to work a little harder to find available products and the deals. I’m whipping out all of the tricks from calling local stores, setting alerts and using a plugin called Wikibuy.

It works as a price checker and automatic coupon applier. So when I checkout I’m confident I’m getting the lowest available price. It’s free to install and easy to use. There are a couple of ways I like to use it. If I notice a product I’m looking for is out of stock on one site, I check Wikibuy to see where else it’s available. Or add an item to my Watchlist to get alerts when it’s back in stock. I can even see the price history of a specific product.

It feels like Christmas in summer over here with random orders of playdoh and water tables showing up to keep the kids entertained. But most of the incoming boxes have been for the backyard.

Here’s a little reveal of how it’s going so far, but remember it’s still a work in progress. 

First we set up a little ninjaline for the kids spanning across a couple of our trees. The kids get a great workout on it. 

We have some solar string lights up. I have another box to add probably closer to the garden area. These are a hot commodity right now. I bought them on Amazon. 

A stock tank pool is in the works, with some pebble rocks around the outside. 

We also started a little garden with fruits and veggies. We moved a wicker bench from our back porch to the garden area and here and there we’re adding stepping stones and rocks we pull from the yard. I also ordered a bunch of river pebbles and some edging from Home Depot to make a path to the pool.

There are still more things we’re working on. I’m trying to grow more fruits and veggies from seeds. So lots of experimenting to come with gardening, maybe even rain harvesting. I’d like to get some trellis and maybe some fun garden decor. I’m keeping an eye out for deals and sales and I always run my shopping cart through Wikibuy codes to see if I can get a lower price. 

When I’m shopping online Wikibuy automatically brings together all of the available coupon codes for a store and runs through them at checkout helping me snag a lower price. Or when I’m shopping on Amazon, Wikibuy automatically checks other sellers for a better price, including sales tax and shipping. A notification will appear in seconds if a better offer is found.

It is a great hack if you’re like me and sprucing up some spaces and doing most of your shopping from home. It’s free to use. Just go to Wikibuy and install the widget in your browser then it automatically populates as you shop. It’s available on Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, & Safari. 

I’m still waiting for that jungle gym to get restocked, and I have some more garden sprucing to do, but it’s a work in progress. My husband keeps saying this is something we’ll be gradually working on for a long time. I’m glad that we finally got started. And that hopefully, years from now when we’re pulling fruits and veggies from our backyard we can remember it all started when we were at home together during the pandemic of 2020.

Have you started any new hobbies or projects during the pandemic?

Tags: family, home garden