Creating a title for this article was difficult, because I always recommend that people purchase gifts throughout the year to make Christmas a bit easier on the budget, it is an extremely frugal thing to do. People tend to overspend when faced with the daunting task of shopping for everyone on their Christmas list in November and December.
I still hold true to that, but I have a bit of advice while you are doing it. Typically I suggest assigning a person to each month, which means that person is shopped for during that month. However this year we did not follow that because we found things for other people on sale/clearance during that month. It worked out great for us, and our children will have a blessed Christmas because of it.
However, we did learn something through the process. Keeping track of what you have purchased is extremely imperative to this working in a frugal way. What would up happening is that I brought out all of our holidays gifts that we have purchased throughout the year. We used some occasionally for birthday gifts, so we tried to make up for that by purchasing a gift or two to replace those.
When I had all the gifts divided up into piles for the children, we discovered a problem much to our dismay. Two children had twice as much stuff as three of the others. One child had practically nothing. It wasn’t that we forgot about said child, it is that the child has particular interests that are hard to shop “off season” for.
We wound up having to do some serious shopping to make up for that child, as well as fill in the gaps for the other two. It didn’t put too much of a damper on our budget since the majority of it was already done, however I can see how easily it could have.
Purchase a small notebook that you can slip into your purse, glove box or somewhere discreet. Give your children a coded letter or number to indicate that child (just in case they find the notebook) and then code the type of gifts you purchase. If you purchased a Webkinz, you might put the letter W or SA for stuffed animal. We also keep track of the stocking stuffers we purchase in the same way. We write SS in the corner next to their name and then put a | each time we purchase one, keeping a running total.
Buying gifts each month is still a very frugal alternative to trying to shop for everything during the month of December, however keeping track is the definite way to go.
I am proud to say that we are completely finished with all of our children’s Christmas shopping and what is not in our hands yet, will be in the next day or so via UPS. It feels great. Now, I just need to get started on my significant other.
So what’s on your wish list this year?
Be sure and watch for dozens more articles dealing with frugal stocking stuffers and frugal Christmas ideas coming soon.
Nicole Humphrey writes articles for the Scrapbooking Blog and for the Frugal Blog. She also guest blogs on a variety of topics. You can read more of her articles by clicking here.
Related Articles:
Last Minute Frugal Gift Ideas (1)
Last Minute Frugal Gift Ideas (2)
Frugal Stocking Stuffers Under $5.00
More Frugal Stocking Stuffers Under $5.00
Frugal Stocking Stuffers Under $1.00
More Frugal Stocking Stuffers Under $1.00