Have Yourself a Frugal Christmas

If food inflation isn't bad enough, then you have to add Christmas shopping.

Love your friends and family, but don't go into the poorhouse trying to buy everyone's dream gifts.

These are things I've done to keep costs low.

• Only one gift per person. Where did we get the idea that every kid has to have a gumillion presents?
  
  
• Buy gifts throughout the year--when they're on sale. Although many stores have sales around this time, it gets to be a burden to spend for everyone all at one time. Make it easy on yourself and shop throughout the year. If you see something your aunt or your kid might like to have, buy it while it's fresh on your mind and store it until Christmas.
  
  
• Shop at thrift and antique stores. I guarantee you, you will find one of a kind gifts here, and usually better made than what you can buy at regular stores today.
  
  
• Go grocery shopping. Nothing says love like buying all the fixings for a grand dinner for a friend or relative. It makes a great family gift too if there are a lot of mouths to feed.
  
  
• Go one further and make and deliver an entire meal for your intended recipient.
  
  
• Decide not to exchange gifts. Occasionally, this backfires. I had (what I thought) a very good friend who  lived in another country. She was very generous and always sent me gifts, but I found it too expensive to reciprocate. Postage often cost more than the gifts. One year, I was frank with her and asked that we no longer exchange gifts. She agreed, but soon after she stopped corresponding with me.
  
  
• Trim your list. If it's a gift you're giving because of false obligation, you're doing it to save face. Be brave. Don't give in to peer pressure.
  
  
• Have a party--but make it potluck. I love this. It helps you celebrate, and it shares the burden of expense so no one person foots the entire bill.
  
  
• Ahead of time, ask everyone you exchange gifts with to stick to a predetermined price cap.
  
  
• Make it hand made. Do you hand make beautiful soaps, bake breads, or garden? Turn your hobbies into gifts. One of my neighbors is a wood turner. He gave us beautiful salt and pepper mills one year.
  

Finally, remember why we give gifts. We do it to show affection and to let them know we're thinking of them. If all you do is grant expensive wishes, people are going to start looking at you as a cash cow instead of a cherished friend or relative.

I also think it's an important lesson to teach children. Teach them that gifts are tokens. If you want to give them something big, let them work for it through good grades and good behavior so they don't grow up thinking the Bank of Mom and Dad will always get them what they want.

What kind of gifts are you giving this Christmas? 

It's a little bittersweet for me this year. My mother is the one person I mail gifts to every Christmas, but she insists that she doesn't want anything. She's old and she's had enough. 

This has actually been going on for a few years, but she loves food so I usually send her something from Harry and David, or a Collins Street Bakery fruitcake. Sadly, she eats very little of what I send her anymore. She's slowing down.

I guess the best gift you can give someone is yourself...while you still can.

If after all this, you still have to go shopping and plan to shop Amazon, start from this link.