This year, Purim falls out on the evening of 2/28/18, which means that, we are now officially just a month out from Purim! Here is the first installment of my annual Purim deal roundup that I post each year, with lots of new deals and fresh items.
Amazon is just swimming in great deals on supplies for Purim and for Mishloach Manot AKA Shalach Manos AKA Purim Packages. (I know some of you can do better at local stores, but we can't all live next to an Amazing Savings, LOL.) Costumes deals will be posted separately.
Please make sure you check the dimensions of the product that you are ordering so that there will be no surprises when it arrives. Pictures can be deceptive; look at measurements. Some of these bags are meant to hold loose candy/food inside of larger shalach manos containers, so those bags will be much smaller.
In my experience, prices tend to go up rather than down on these containers and bags, the closer we get to warmer weather, so do try to shop early.
How much you spend on your Shalach Manos is a very personal matter. Here's what I do: we divvy our Shalach Manos up into two categories: fancyshmancy thank-you ones (these go to people who have done us special favors during the year) and en masse ones (these are the smaller one that we give to our friends and the general community). Passover follows Purim by 4 weeks, and no one wants a ton of junk in their homes on the day after Purim, so we go for quality rather than quantity items in our shmancy ones, and put only 4-5 food items in our en masse ones. We don't do "themes." It's not our style, I'm not a big baker, and I don't have time to be that creative.
That said, I'm not critical of overly-done Shalach Manos (though they do sometimes make me laugh) because if it gets kids more engaged in Purim and the idea of enjoying giving and sharing, well, that is priceless. But if you can do the same Mishloach Manot for less by snagging deals on Amazon, why wouldn't you?
Shalach Manos packages tend to generate a ton of trash and waste, so this year (at readers' requests), I've created separate sectiona for reusable bags and containers. Both reusable and disposable bags have their places in busy lives, and I understand the preferences for using either one. Please keep in mind that reusables will be a little pricier than disposables. Almost all of the disposable items here are recyclable.
