Making a Home; How To Pull Off Christmas On a Budget

Christmas can be an expensive affair, especially if one isn’t careful. There is also the aspect that not all of us can afford an extravagant celebration. With all of that in mind, I wanted to share with you some tips on how to pull of Christmas on a budget. Before I start I want to point out two things; not all ideas might work for you, and not all of them can be done this year.

  

Stock photo from Pexels

So, let’s start.

1. Write a budget for Christmas which includes ALL expenses – food, decorations, gifts and whatnot, and stick to that budget.
2. Write a list of all the people you are going to give a gift to and brainstorm gift ideas.
3. Start buying gifts early and by early, I mean January. Personally I’ve got the rule of being finished before December 1^st with all my Christmas gifts and starting as early as January has helped me a lot so I don’t need to spend too much money in one month on Christmas gifts (added bonus that I can focus on doing other stuff in December).
4. Make inexpensive handmade gifts, like gifts in a jar, cinnamon ornaments, baked goods, your imagination sets the limit basically.
5. Instead of giving individual gifts to every single person on your list, why not combine gifts to couples on your list. For instance, I have given one gift to my grandparents, instead of individual ones to both my grandmother and my grandfather. Another option is to give gifts only to the kids.
6. Speaking of gifts to kids; don’t overdo it and give them a gazillion gifts.
7. Generally speaking both for kids and adults, it’s better to give ONE thoughtful gift as opposed to expensive gifts purchased in panic.
8. If you can, set some money aside each month for Christmas.
9. Take advantage of post-Christmas sales to stock up on gift wrapping paper, gift tags, decorations, table ware etc for next Christmas. You can also use the chance to get a head start on gifts for next year, as a lot of stores often have sales on gift sets.
10. Take advantage of sales, coupons and discounts in general throughout the year. Sometimes you might come across the perfect gift for someone.
11. Just a bit of a comment on purchasing gifts on sale; count the retail value, not the sale price. You might risk purchasing even more for person X “just because” the original gift was on sale.
12. Make your own Christmas gift tags. I’m going to publish a post on printable gift tags in December, so feel free to stay tuned.
13. Make your own Christmas decor.
14. Store your decorations well after use.
15. Give handmade coupons as gifts – like “babysitting for one evening” to the couple that never gets out on a date because of kids etc.
16. Use your common sense. Sometimes it’s best to just state the obvious, because it’s sometimes forgotten.

Do you have any great Christmas budget ideas? Feel free to share below.