The holidays have arrived! This means you may feel pressured to get something perfect for everyone on your list. Christmas gifts show how much you care about someone and create a sense of reciprocity. However, when shopping on a tight budget, finding the best gifts at the right prices can be challenging. Make the process easy by following a few simple suggestions to help your money go a long way!
How to Afford Gifts
Before you start shopping, it is important to consider how much money you have and how much you want to spend. It's good to start saving and planning ahead of time, but sometimes that's not always possible. This guide will help you create a holiday spending budget you can easily follow, even at the last minute.
If you received a Christmas bonus or had a year-end commission, consider that income for your budget, some recommend spending 20% of Holiday extra income on gifts.
For the most, that don’t receive an extra income, the best idea is to make special savings for the seasonal gifts, if you didn’t prepare your wallet for the spendings, you can check out the article on How to create a basic budget and start making your budget for next year.
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Now, with your gift-giving savings fund, you should now follow the steps ahead.
You're Making Your List
Break up your list into categories of family, friends, coworkers, etc. This will make it easier to find something appropriate for each person and stay on budget.
- Family: Family is a suitable place to start when buying gifts. Presents for family members should be meaningful, special, and tailored to the individual. This includes your children, partner, parents, in-laws, godchildren, and extended family.
- Work obligations: Holiday gifts show appreciation for the people you work and interact with.
Don’t forget to give a token of appreciation to your key clients, your boss and your mentors, these gifts don’t need to be expensive, but they should be worthy, let them know that you remembered them (you don’t want them to forget about you).
Employees and providers fall into a different category, if you know about any of them going through a tough time, try to give them something to show them that you are there for them. Also, if you know they will give you a gift, find something to give them, this presents should be more professional rather than personal.
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- Friends: Your close friends are also a priority for holiday gift-giving. Presents for friends should be a symbol of your connection and relationship. This could include classmates, neighbors, or any other meaningful person in your life.
- Charity: Every year, charities host donations and Holiday fundraisers for those less fortunate. These often include toy donations, food pantries, and more. So, if possible, it's always good to have some expenses for this as well.
- Miscellanea: Sometimes, work or friend groups host Christmas gift exchanges or other gift-giving activities. These presents can be easy buys, such as gift cards or small souvenirs.
Set Spending Limits
Now that you have your list, it's time to set spending limits for each person. Take into account the relationship you have with each person. For example, if you're buying for a family member, you may want to show more affection and spend more than if it was for an acquaintance.
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You can take into consideration how important your gift is (for them and for you), what is the meaning of your relationship and what kind of present should they expect from you.
Once you know how much to spend on each person, compare it with your budget and see where to make adjustments. You may need to remake the list and set new limits until you reach a number that works for you.
What to Give
Once you have set your spending limits, it's time to think about what kinds of presents to give. Consider making categories of presents that match your list.
For example, you may want to buy practical gifts for family members, personalized gifts for close friends, and more general items for coworkers.
Also consider their age or stage of life they are living, set some breakable rules, such as children should get toys, newlyweds something for their apartment, clients should get something for their office.
This will make finding something within your budget easier and still showing how much you care
Remember You Can Give a Lot of Cheap Sweaters
After you've determined what kind of gifts to buy for each person, it's time to start shopping.
Remember, you don't always need to buy the most expensive gifts - Hunt for deals and discounts, such as online coupons or store sales.
You can also check your emails for promo codes or use store loyalty cards.
If you find an article at a great price, you can include it in every group in your list, for example, previous models of electronics can be found at significantly lower prices, you can include one of them for your family, one for your family in law, for some friends and for your office gifts; they won’t know you gave them all the same gift!
Gift giving doesn't always have to be expensive – you can give a lot of cheap sweaters or items that look more expensive than they are.
Last-Minute Gift Ideas
Last-minute shopping can be tricky, especially when you're on a budget.
But we tend to forget about some important people or run into an old friend that we wish to include in our list or even (if we are lucky enough) we get some extra money to buy something for those that did not make the list.
Instead of resorting to overspending or settling for generic Christmas gifts, consider the following ideas:
- Gift cards
- Homemade treats
- Box of chocolates (if they don’t like them, they should not be in your list)
- Subscriptions
- Books (check out some financial books in this article)
- Digital downloads (movies, music, eBooks, etc.)
- Previous gifts (be sure they can’t track them to their original giver)
Get Shopping!
Don't stress about gift-giving this year, follow us for more content on Instagram (@_DearMoney_), listen to our advice, and you'll be sure to find something perfect for everyone on your list!
