Hi Friendos,
Where I live, it feels like Christmas has already started and I am (silently or less silently) shouting, âWe havenât had Thanksgiving donât skip Thanksgiving it is great and I love pie and cranberry relish!â No matter, the catalogs and emails are arriving and Iâm planning out gifts and taking advantage of early Black Friday sales.
Reporting on people taking on debt for holiday gifts abounds. Debt-ridden or no, people often set a budget and then ignore it. For your consideration today I have ten boring ideas to help you have a delightful year-end season without messing up your finances. No, I am not going to tell you to make homemade candles for everyone but as a crafter myself I am very pro DIY for both personal finance and for presents.
1. Make a spending plan. Not exactly an original tip here but it must be said. But Stephanie, didnât you just say that people often ignore their budgets? Yes, but I still think youâll be better off with a spending plan than without one (a budget is just a spending plan). You might still ignore it, or ignore part of it, but I think youâll end up in a better place vs having no plan at all, and hey, you might stick to the plan!
2. Use paper money for in-person shopping. Psychologically it feels different to spend physical cash than to use a debit or credit card and the envelope system for budgeting works for a lot of people.
3. Shop secondhand stores and websites like Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace. Your recipient won’t expect certain types of items to come in “new” plastic wrap – think: home decor items like a lamp or a vase, a framed print, a set of vintage drinking glasses, a plant pot, etc. This approach is also environmentally-friendly.
4. Consider the lowest cost way to delight someone. Different people like different things. Iâve learned that for certain of my family members, they really enjoy opening multiple presents. Those items donât need to be costly – the feeling of abundance from multiple items is what matters to them.
5. If your gift ideas are spendy, work on more ideas. Look at some more gift guides. Set it aside for a day or two and then come back to it. This one is hard for me because I love to cross things off my list, but sometimes my initial ideas are expensive so I keep working on thinking of less expensive things that my gift recipient will also really like.
6. When youâre done, stay done! Sometimes I am susceptible to moods of holiday cheer and, living in a place awash in commercial messaging, I have to work to resist impulses to buy more. Not just presents, but also decorations, cards, fancy gift wrap and ribbons, etc. My strategy is to try and channel those moods into less commercial outlets, like a nice cooking project or even just fixing a pot of (holiday) tea.
7. Unsubscribe from shopping emails and catalogs. Be ruthless. You donât need an email to let you know about a Black Friday sale â everyone has them so you can just go that store or URL directly. Is it possible you might miss out on a discount? Yes, but the total impact is more important, and those retailers spend their time and labor generating emails and catalogs because they cause people (like you! and me!) to buy more stuff.
8. Use gift themes to give a thoughtful and low-cost gift comprised of a few on-theme items. Example: for your movie lover you can do popcorn kernels, popcorn flavorings, and a gift card for a streaming service. Your bookworm can get a book mark, a book, and an extra to enjoy with it like a box of tea or a cozy pair of wool socks. Call it the gift basket approach.
9. Request an activity instead of gift exchange for someone close to you where you can be a little bold like this. The activity could take place in January if theyâll be less busy then, and could be something holiday-ish or not, low-cost or not. You could cook or bake something together (banana bread or ginger snap cookies would sound good to me), do a jigsaw puzzle together, or just make popcorn and watch a movie (I’m really feeling the movies-at-home this month). If thatâs not something youâd normally carve time for with them, it will be special.
10. Shop the post-holiday sales for gift wrap, notecards, or other easy-to-store items that you know youâll use the following year. This is extremely boring but I do it every year. I love sending cards in the mail and I always enjoy discovering what this yearâs cards will look like when I bring them out from my closet, because by early December Iâve forgotten what I bought back in January.
There you have it, ten boring ideas for reducing and controlling holiday spending. I hope one or two of these resonated and helps you a little bit this year.
-Stephanie
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