More Ways to Save Money This Holiday Season
November 17, 2008 by Erik Folgate
Filed under Budgeting, Shopping, Spending and Saving
David Bach was on Regis and Kelly this morning, and he gave some good tips for ways to save money this holiday season. Here they are:
- Start with a detailed list for gift giving: Write down all of the people that you want to buy a gift for, and then write down an amount you want to spend on them. Stick to that amount, but don’t go crazy over it. If you go over a few dollars, it’s not a big deal.
- Home Made Gifts: Make something for a loved one, and they will cherish it forever. But, don’t make something that looks like a three year old did it. If you’re not crafty, ask someone who is crafty to help you.
- Give magazine subscriptions: I love magazine subscriptions, but I hardly ever buy them for myself. They are cheap, and they make a great gift.
- Buy books as gifts: You can pick up a lot of classic fiction and non-fiction books for less than $10.00, and they make great gifts for people that you have a hard time buying a gift for.
- Buy in Bulk: Buy a box of wine, books, and gourmet candy for gifts for people like bosses, co-workers, hair dresser, landscaper, or trusted professional in your life.
- Secret Santa: If you and your spouse have a bunch of siblings, then ask them to participate in a Secret Santa game. Each couple will pick another couple secretly, and you can set a gift limit. Then, every sibling gets one nice gift, and you spend less by not buying for every family member.
- Re-use the bags: Re-use the bags you get at a department store for gift wrapping.
- Recycle newspaper, magazines, and wallpaper for gift wrapping.
- Christmas Cards: I’m not a big fan of online greeting cards, but there is another good way to save money on greeting cards. Take a digital picture of you and your family, then go online to Target, Wal-Mart, Kinkos, or any other store with photo printing. Upload the image and choose a holiday design. Last year, we got 25 online greeting cards for $12.00, and the envelopes were included.
- Cash in your reward points: Do you have a ton of credit card points saved up? Cash them in to buy items that you can give away as a gift.
There’s no excuse for not saving money this holiday season!
Instead of doing Secret Santa, some families might want to forgo getting gifts for each other and pool money together to help out a good cause. Many non-profits have ways of doing this. One in particular that I have done before is through Heifer Project. You can buy livestock and other useful things for people in developing countries. Check out this link to see some of the things you can buy. You can spend as little as $10 and as much as $10,000.
http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.204586/