BellaOnline Forums Money Frugal Living Holiday spending ideas?

With the holiday season right around the corner I wanted to find out what tips everyone has for gift giving and staying within your budget. Scott common sense suggests sticking to a list, giving homemade gifts or gift cards, and my favorite is giving an "experience" or an outing with friends and family. Definitely something I'm going to keep in mind. What other ideas does everyone have for gift giving sensibly?

We create a list and have our shopping done long before Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, ILs are a "standards" kind of gift scenario. In other words: you give at a certain unspoken expected level of value/quality. Oh yeah--priceless.

We save all year for this and have a price limit per person. The trick and challenge becomes finding a great gift in that price range. It can be done--but it takes work and research so we do it early. Like I found gifts for kids aged 4-12 for $5/each (Sunprints--you lay something on the little sheets, lay it in the sun, rinse and there's like a blueprint of the image). And doing it early means no last-minute express shipping fees.

Wow, finishing holiday shopping before Thanksgiving is great! I am just barely starting at that time, haha. That was one of the other tips from the article - avoid last minute shopping and shipping. I always think about starting earlier and come up with some ideas but the week before the holidays I always end up at the mall. I better get started now! Also, I agree that setting a price limit is a great idea and sticking to a budget.

This might be silly but what do you mean by "ILs?"

Our family is going to focus on the grand kids and keeping things simple. I hope people are realizing they don't have to keep buying things to be happy. Some of our Christmases in the past when our kids were young got pretty ridiculous.

Even the grandkids have so many toys it's hard to know what to get them.

If you want to save money, giving the gift of time is always good. Offer free babysitting, to do some gardening chores or take your parents to dinner. Sometimes just spending time with someone or offering to take over some little chores for them is greatly appreciated.

This year my family and friends are getting fragranced gifts. It will help with my articles as well as giving them something I know they'll like and use.

The items I am experimenting with are so much less expensive then in the stores.

Dusting power for women? Try cornstarch and a few drops of fragrance oil. Okay - you have to buy a container and a powder puff....

Our family is agreeing to focus in the grandkids and just enjoy spending time together.

I recently did a blog post on ideas to save money and still give creative gifts

Last year my youngest daughter and I went through the family photos and made copies for the other 3 daughters and put them in an album so each had their own. We spent about an hour on Christmas eve laughing and talking about the memories we found in those photos. A wonderful Christmas and not a very expensive gift.

Christmas is for kids. I'm giving gift cards so my family can go shopping and buy what they need or want.

I definitely am a fan of giving handmade gifts. Young kids might do better with "bought games" but anybody else should appreciate and enjoy a handmade gift or even a "dinner out" or "dinner invite" as a gift. Our family has long since stopped giving gifts to adults.

I love gift cards too. My daughters all love going to Bath & Body Works to spend the gift cards I give them cuz they don't ordinarily spend money on things like that.

I like Starbucks gift cards too cuz having an expensive coffee is a treat too for them.

I used to make lots of gifts for my family but just haven't had time the past few years.

ScottyGirl... ILs=inlaws!

We're very broke this year so dh is taking old films of my MIL's and putting them in DVD format. He gets pretty creative with editing and music. It will be a really good, cheap gift that should meet the "expectation" rule. (insert eyeroll here)