How I had a budget of $1,000 for a nonprofit to buy 30,000 craft beads and 1,460 crayon boxes

Watch a timelapse video of how I searched for a list of products for a nonprofit's holiday project (totaling $2,700), and read on to learn how I reduced the total to $1,243.63

A nonprofit doing their annual holiday charity product for children’s education recently asked me to help them make a big purchase just 5 days before their event.

They told me the budget was $1,000 to buy a list of items to support over 2,000 kids.

For what felt like a ridiculous math problem given to elementary school students (“If Johnny has five apples and gives three away…”), here are the project details and what I did to get as close to the budget as possible.

The “Mission Impossible”

Using $1,000 to buy at 1,500 boxes of crayons (24-ct) that cost $1.50 each. Plus a bunch of other supplies. After a quick calculation, I was horrified to find that to be over $2,000 (and more than 2x my budget).

Setting up the budget spending sheet