Christmas is exactly six months away and Hanukkah is a few weeks sooner than that (Dec. 11), which means…groan…it’s a fabulous time to start saving for the winter holidays. Here are five ways to prepare. I hope one of them works for you!
1. Decide how much you want to have to spend on gifts and divide that total by six months. Set up a special savings account with an automatic deposit each month. Don’t leave it up to chance. If your budget is $500, save $83.33 each month.
2. Look at your budget and see how much you can afford to put towards gifts each month or week. That becomes your holiday budget.
3. Start setting aside gifts you come by now. This is similar to No. 1 but instead of socking away cash you are socking away gifts. I like to keep a box of gifts in my closet that I add to periodically. I currently have a beautiful red sushi plate that I’m going to give to my neighbor, a few small toys for my nieces and nephews, and a handful of cookbooks. Some people swear by shopping for Christmas/Hanukkah year round.
4. Reader Lenita gave me a new way of saving for Christmas when she left this comment a few days ago. “When I come home from each grocery-shopping trip, I check the sales slip to see how much I’ve saved by using coupons. I then put that amount in an envelope to be saved for Christmas shopping. More than $100.00 per month is easily accumulated.” Great idea, Lenita!
5. Hope for a windfall that will cover the gifts you want to buy.
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Welcome to Bargain Babe! I’m Mara, and I’m so glad you’re here. I am an obsessive bargain hunter and penny pincher, and I am determined to live a full life without EVER paying full price. 
This year I started saving $20 a piece per month, for my two children and grandson; $30 per month for other family members or friends. I don’t plan on spending it all on gifts, so hope to have a tidy sum leftover.
I give my family very small, token gifts and then give money to Heifer in their names.
Then I plan a family outing — we’ve done the new planetarium — lunch and movie — Nutcracker — Bob Baker Marionettes etc.
It’s selfish because I get them all together again, and enjoy as much as they do.
This sounds like a fabulous way to celebrate Christmas. It de-emphasizes the gifts but people can still exchange presents, and puts the focus on spending time together.
I buy gifts year round. When the holidays draw near, I empty my gift drawers and figure out who would like what. IT WORKS GREAT!
Since all of the kids are grown, my extended famly picks 1 name and becomes that person’s secret Santa. In addition, I still give to my grown sons and a gift to my husband. My sons give me a present. Our extended family gets together always on the 24th for an evening celebration. Then we are free to spend the 25th as we see fit. Another thing my family does is we clump birthdays together. There are 3 major family celebrations during the year – Spring, Summer and Fall.
We just give cards and vote for the funniest one.
One great way to save for gifts is to do online surveys and use Swagbucks, and cash out on November 1 of each year to do the remainder of your shopping. I do shop year round for nice gifts that I find on clearance or at deep discounts but this “extra” money and gifts cards allow me to buy things that otherwise would not be in my budget. Doing this last year I had an extra $300 to spend for Christmas. Not too terribly much but it helped a lot!
Any time I see something that someone would like throughout the year I grab it, especially if it is on sale, or I watch to see when it does go on sale. If there is a product that I love and want to give as gifts I usually buy them right away so they aren’t sold out, this is mostly at bargain stores, big lots etc. Many years I end up doing “baskets” of several smaller items with a theme like cleaning, food, or a hobby. They don’t cost very much usually, but if you bought something similar pre-made it would be pricey, so people enjoy them.