Christmas has to be one of the most expensive holidays. It drives me nuts thinking of all of the things that people waste money on when I think deep down that everyone knows that they would all just rather spend time together than race around a mall for a month.
I didn't let myself stress this year because I knew that I could do everything on a budget and could avoid all of that lousy pre-christmas chaos (I work in the mall so that was enough for me!)
When buying gifts I:
- Tried to go in with other family members to give more bang for our buck
- Always bought all my wrappings at the dollar store
- Baked instead of giving small and meaningless gifts
- Shopped ahead of time so that I could stretch my money out more
My most expensive gift (besides the gift for my parents) was the one I was getting for my boyfriend. The boy definitely didn't need any material gifts and we had talked about seeing a play in Toronto before. The Evil Dead was made into a musical and we had commented before on seeing it. The tickets were pretty expensive ($165.00 for both of us) but I was willing to buy them to get a gift he'd enjoy. When December hit he started stressing about what to get me. He would send me ideas and they usually had price tags I was uncomfortable with for something I didn't really care about. After thinking I approached him with the idea that we should both just buy our own ticket to the musical. We've never been a couple who cares about giving gifts to each other (last year we even decided to forgo the gifts because we were going on vacation) so we decided that instead of wasting our time stressing over gifts every year we should use our money to do something together. I love this idea and suggest it to couples!
Not only was I smart about what I got others, but I was smart about what I asked for.
When asking for gifts I:
- Asked for things I wanted but wouldn't usually spare the cash to buy for myself (like a gift certificate to get a manicure or clothes)
- Asked for things I needed but hated to buy (like laundry detergent and things like that)
All of these little moves left me with a stress-free Christmas. Keep these in mind next year and you can actually enjoy the holiday the way that it should be enjoyed!
And don't worry: I've got a NYE on a Broke Girl's Budget coming soon!
From the desk of:
Taylor Brown
Stress-free Shopper
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