Join Cheapskate Living
If you want to comment, access our Members Only Pages, or would like new posts in your email, please Register. Your Email is safe with us. See our Privacy Policy. You can also SUBSCRIBE to our Feed.
Happy Cheap Holidays!
Since CheapSkateLiving.org has been born right in the midst of the holiday season, and this is on my mind, I think it is fair to start with a post on saving money over the holidays. It is so easy to overspend this time of year, right between Thanksgiving, Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanza, and New Years. We want to show our love and appreciation for all of the special people we know, and yet we also need to pay the light bill!
Free yourself from the tyranny of Hallmark!
The first thing I did was to cut out buying cards, especially when they can cost $3 to $5 each, or else only buy them at one of those discount card places where you can often buy them for less than $1 (which is what they should cost). I purchased a Happy Holidays Stamp and some ink, and then some plain index cards. The stamp, plus my signature, seemed to do the trick. Do people think I’m cheap? Maybe, but most seemed to appreciate the thought, and more people than you’d think took my idea up over the years.
Make Gift Baskets!
This is easier than you think! I found some little plastic and wicker baskets, of the sort you might serve informal meals in. You know, like the wicker paper plate holders you find in the summer, or they also make plastic ones. My kids and I went into cookie baking overdrive, which was also a lot of fun. Oh yes, I invested in some holiday oriented cookie cutters. We had fun arranging cookies in the baskets and covering them with wrap and a bright blue ribbon. Then we taped on one of our homemade cards mentioned in the paragraph above. These made fine gifts for many of the people on our list!
Stick To The Budget and Priorities
For closer friends and families, I just had to set a budget. Of course, the hardest people on my list were my kids, and children who are close family members or close to the family. And I always want to make them a priority just like you do. But really, most of the adults really did not require overindulgence, and they understood who came first. So I did allocate the big share of the budget to the kids, but shaved the adult gifts down.
Use Common Sense And Hope People Get It!
Did I do the right thing? It’s hard to know. But I figure that adults can accept skimpy gifts, but the kids should have a nice present. However, I stuck to one nice present, and then enhanced that with little stuff like candy, packs of gum, squishy balls, and novelties like that!
Popularity: 27% [?]
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!No Tag
No related posts.
Recent Comments