The holidays are fast approaching and with them comes gift giving. It can be hard to stay in a budget with all the gifts we wish to share with loved ones and friends.

So what are some frugal ways to give a gift that shows you care?

I have a few suggestions:

1. Home-baked brownies or cookies are a popular and frugal gift.

2. Create a special experience. Take that special someone on a long walk and then come back for cocoa or hot tea. Just spending time with your loved one can be more special than any gift you can give.

3. Chore coupons. Make up coupons to do chores or other tasks that your gift recipient hates to do. We can all use a little help with everyday tasks in our busy lives.

So what gift ideas do you have? Please share with us.

I plan to do some salt clay handprint ornaments for my kids' grandparents. All of them are getting to the points in their lives where they have everything they could want and are starting to downsize, so stuff from their grandkids will be appreciated.
I was thinking of doing some spice mixes or rubs, perhaps baked cookies for people at work. I make pepperkrakor cookies every year for St. Lucia day. This year I may take some in to work.
I am also thinking about snatching up some wool sweaters from our free recycling areas, washing them in hot water to create boiled/felted wool, then cutting and sewing mittens. It is a local variation of sorts on Swedish lovikka mittens. They are VERY warm.
My cousins, siblings, aunts and uncles are the tough ones - I want to get them something nice, but I don't want to create credit card debt for myself. I will also have to mail these items, so shipping creates another expense. I am interested to see what else gets posted here!

The ornaments sound delightful.

What are pepperkrator cookies? I believe I've heard of them but never made them. They sound good.

I like your creativity with the mittens. I think anything homemade makes a wonderful gift.

What about sending photos - either framed or in a scrapbook? Maybe photos and stories of the family when your aunts and uncles were younger. Sort of like a short genealogy.

Peperrkrakor cookies are a traditional Scandinavaian cookie made iwht clove, ginger and cinnamon. There are some recipes floating around on the web. It is a cookie that not everyone makes, yet has along history so I think it is good for gifts. They are also really good with plain tea or coffee - its like they bring out one anothers flavors.

Another idea for frugal gifts is homemade herbal cough drops. Bettina from our own Bellaonline.com's herbal site has posted instructions. Thoughtful and seasonally appropriate!
I like the scrapbook idea. I live far away from my extended family,s o keeping in touch is hard. Mini scrapbooks that are tailored to each family member is personal, can keep old memories alive and also be useful o keep in touch,more than just phone call or face book post.

Those cookies sound delicious. I'll look up the recipe. I often make cookies for friends and family for the Holidays.

Bettina's herbal cough drops are a great idea. I would have to adjust the recipe though. I can't have sugar.

A table arrangement or decoration made with pine or other greens and pinecones and a bow could be an inexpensive gift. Especially it you live where you have access to nature.

One year I received an all-natural bird feeder. It was a pinecone covered in peanut butter and bird seeds with a string for hanging. The birds loved it and I had a wonderful time watching them eat.

Oh, I my kids have made those before! another variation is to smear peanut butter on toilet paper or paper towel tube, then roll it in sunflower seeds. run string through the top for a hanger.
I saw a great tree ornament on Facebook where a star was formed out of cinnamon sticks, then a few greens and berries were attached. THat would be a nice ornament for both Christians and nature based pagans.

My fav gift to receive is a digital photo of the family.

I make cookies to give - put 12 in each ziplock bag and store in the freezer till needed.

I make doll clothes for my youngest granddaughter.

Lisa,

I like the star idea. I'm going to keep it in mind and try it. Maybe next year.

Susan,

What a wonderful gift to give your granddaughter!

My grandmother always made me crocheted items for gifts. She once crocheted me a turtle.

I truly cherish the items she made me and I think something made from the heart is the most meaningful.

The holidays will be coming along quicker than we realize! Start thinking about gifting and frugality right now.

Remember that the price tag on a gift is essentially meaningless in terms of how much you care about someone. It's about thinking on the recipient and solving their needs/wants.

What ideas do you have for this year?

I'm in the same position...

What I was going to do was make oil-candles out of recycled jars and dried herbs, pine-cones, Juniper,dried cranberries, etc. It's really easy!

You just need a jar, a drill, some wick and believe it or not...you've got to go to like a home-depot and ask where they keep the ehemmm..."nipples."

K...makin' my husband do that, lol. But you need it to thread the wick.

Other than that, I started making my own Vanilla about 7 months ago for Dec. So, it's a Bourbon/Tahitian in pure form. Was thinking about going to a thrift store and looking for baskets or just this year make something myself

I guess I'm meant to learn how to get to this forum, lol.

I meant for this post, to go here, instead of another area in the same forum.

But about the "Frugal Giving" idea, and "Nipple" asking at a hardware store:

No kidding

(I want to be at the round table when they decided to name it that one)!

There's no way on God's Green Earth I'm going up to a hardware store manager or employee and ask for a couple of nipples...even in bulk can't be done!

Either way, one of us would lose it,lol. Hubby gets to do this one.

Not to worry...I always pay it forward. It's the little things that count, especially long-term.

It really is

Elleise, we must have the recipes for the oil candles and the vanilla. Please share. Do they end up being a frugal expenditure?

I usually find nice things for people at thrift stores for my gift-giving.

Some years I ban all gift-giving around holidays completely.

I pretty much HAVE to do the gift giving this year, since I will be with Dan's family and everyone is trading gifts. So I have various books I picked up, plus a huge stack of interesting and unusual business cards for my MIL, who collects them.

My MIL is super easy to get gifts for. The SIL and niece, no so much. The niece especially has expensive tastes.

I found a cool frugal gift for my SIL. Her kitchen is very Tuscany. At the Restore, I found some rustic ceramic tiles that were made in Italy - they were 25 cents each. So I got two of the for her to use as hot plates. I set them out in the kitchen when she wasn't there, and they looked beautiful. So I will wrap them up as one of her gifts.

A thoughtful 50 cent gift that she will really love! The same thing would probably sell for $10 each at a kitchen store.

I went into a Dollar Tree with Dan and he found a col plastic straw-with-cup thing that his mom likes and always gets from walmart for $6 or $8. Here it was $1, so it will be another Xmas gift for her. It's clear with a nice red grippy stripe in the center.

You know one of the greatest gifts I received was from a neighbor. She was 87 yrs old. I use it to this day, every day actually.

But it was from the dollar store and it is a red-rubber-spatula thingy, with a big rubber swipe on one end and a little one on the other. Brilliant!

Since I can NEVER and I do mean NEVER-EVER remember where I put things. Well this little gadget is BRIGHT-RED, yet small enough to fit in w/my whisks.

But it's one of those things cooks use to either ice a cake w/or scoop out all the mixture from a bowl if you happen to be making a cake. I don't know that "spatula" is the correct term, but what it cost?

$1.00

Karen, what a great thing: the best gift is something actually useable! I'm totally on-board with that.

Idea for saving money on gift wrapping:

I will be wrapping people's gifts with some fabric this week - we already have the fabric, it will look cute, and such gift wrap will cost me nothing and ALSO be reusable.

Jilly, I totally get that!!!

To me, I know I might seem odd (I do things a bit differently, but it's honest) but I can only make or send a gift IF I know the person, needs or uses it. It's like a mental block for some reason.

But this year? I started making Vanilla, oh about a yr ago, for Christmas gifts. They range from Mexican to Tahitian and Bourbon and a little mixture of my own w/a bit of lavender and a few other ingredients - "The House Special."

I LOVE the fabric idea. In fact I have some burlap and the old-fashioned twine which I plan to sprinkle w/the lavender I dried and rose pedals in a see through bag, w/a small-musin bag w/a name tag inside, so people can use the dried flowers as sachets if they choose.

It's actually fun to be creative, plus I'm or always have been an "outside of the box" thinker. It used to get me into a great deal of trouble too