The AP has moved a wire story about how to cut your budget around the holidays that I pored over with much enthusiasm, until I realized that it was filled with useful tips like, give to charity throughout the year instead of a bunch at the holidays and limit your outings to just one or two special plays like "The Nutcracker." Hmm.
The only tip on there that I considered useful for lower/middle class us was try making more holiday gifts this year and offer to see a friend and go out for lunch and a movie instead of swapping gifts, as your time is more precious than stuff anyway. I totally agree with the sentiment of this idea, but in my book, lunch and a movie is still quite expensive.
We most certainly won't be spending that much on any one person on our list. It's so huge that we're trying to keep it between $5-10 per person, but it's getting hard. I've spent $15 on my mom, and I still feel bad because I'd love to be able to afford to get her more. There's a DVD out there that I know she'd love ...
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As a person with holiday budget strains, I find that shopping throughout the year, instead of just in Nov/Dec, really helps.
I can usually get all my friends and family much more by spreading the shopping over 12 months instead of trying to cram it into 2.
That being said, I totally feel ya with this one!
yeah, every year i say i'm going to do this and then we're usualy lucky to get started by thanksgiving. but this year we actually did it! we started in late september and have been buying steadily (and on clearance sales!) through the last few months. we're more than half done and its not even thanksgiving yet.
but the downside, is it means we are actually paying for the gifts ourselves. (most years, we end up using the money we receive from relatives for christmas to pay off our december credit card bills in january.) its sad, but it gets us through. so this year, perhaps we will actually have some money in january that we can use for ourselves or maybe put down on all of our debt ...
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