Offer a free Christmas gift this year, such as a night of free babysitting, a day of house cleaning, an afternoon tutoring a child or adult, or even just spending time with a shut-in person who is unable to get out. The recipient will thank you for your thoughtful gift.
By Ron from Cortez, CO
This page contains the following solutions.
Here are a few of my ideas for inexpensive but thoughtful gifts.
Purchase a glass shaker jar. I found one at the dollar store. In a bowl, mix one tablespoon of cinnamon with a half cup of sugar. This will give you enough to fill about two or three jars.
Many of us frugal folks know that when we don't have money to spend on gifts, we sometimes choose to give people "coupons" for things like babysitting, cooking, mowing the lawn and other useful chores or activities.
I find it challenging to give all the gifts I'd like to without exploding my budget. For many friends and their children, I have a $5 budget.
I just came back from my weekly thrift store run and found small ceramic flower pots, already painted for 40 cents each. I am adding a envelope (downloaded from Alenka's printables) of seeds from my garden and a candy cane. I will give these as a small gift for office co-workers, since I am known as mother nature--this fits perfect with everyone's thoughts of me.
I always have canning jars around. At Christmas, I fill some with assorted Christmas colored candy; those star brite mints, gold and silver foil wrapped candies, etc.
One way to make a great Christmas gift is to take pictures of the children in the family unbeknownst to the family. This is tricky, and then make a photo album.
Here are the questions asked by community members. Read on to see the answers provided by the ThriftyFun community.
I am already thinking about Christmas. I know it's early, but with my budget I need to plan ahead! My whole family buys for each other, even though I have suggested many times to maybe draw names, but this never seems to go over well.
I often choose one thing/theme each year. This year, I'm making personalized Xmas ornaments for people in my family. A couple of years ago it was knitted scarves
I have 2 kids (grandparents), 6 grandchildren (all grown), and 18 great grandchildren (oldest ones are 6 years)! What do I do at Christmas when I live on low income Social Security?
The best gift you can give is yourself. You may record stories of your youth, memories of them when they were young, or stories about people who have passed away. They would also appreciate old photographs or treasured recipes. As the saying goes, they need your presence, not your presents!
How about searching through all your family photos and giving your children a nice inexpensive photo book, one enlarged and framed special photo of them or even just an envelope full of their childhood photos?
You may or may not want to write out a special memory to go with one or more of the photos too!
These memories are gifts that only you can give!
What is the best gift you've received that was not expensive?
Some of my favorites are:
A book of poetry by my adult daughter.
A picture of me drawn by my younger daughter.
I buy teacups for decorative jars {with lids} at a thrift shop and decorate them. I hot glue ribbon and bows on the jars and bows on the handle of the teacup. I then fill with tea bags, cinnamon sticks etc for the tea cup and cocoa for cafe mocha in the jars.
To give of your time to someone that needs it. Be it a job to be done or to listen to someone.
Honestly, the best thrifty gift I've ever given was this last Christmas. I bought about 20 men's tube socks and filled them with rice. After painting each recipient's name on their sock, it became the own personal "rice buddy" to be heated in the microwave and used as a heating pad. I figure each gift cost me about $1.50!
Shelley Dabney
Some of my favorite gifts this past Christmas were:
-a stocking that my 11 yr old daughter sewed, so that Mom would have a stocking too.
-a bottle of shampoo from my 7 yr old son--my husband said he tried to convince him to get me something else, but Thomas insisted that Mommy likes to shower after exercising and he thought I needed shampoo.
-A ceramic angel from my 14 yr old son who said he overheard me tell a friend about how we buy an angel ornament every year to remember the baby we lost 6 years ago.
-Brenda
Go to a fabric store and ask the clerk to cut a fourth yard of the currently popular nylon fleece. It comes in many colors as well as prints, plaids and designs. It is usually at least 60 inches wide. It needs no hem or fringe and makes a super soft, comfortable neck scarf, is washable and best of all costs less than $2.00 including tax. Kids , teachers, grandparents can all use it.
-Judy B
I have a couple of thrifty gift ideas for next Christmas! Neither idea is mine (as, I saw them on another website), but both are EXCELLENT ideas for holiday gifts!
The first one is a gratitude album/scrapbook. I purchased 2 pkgs. (100/ea. pkg.) of plain, white index cards. Each pkg. was ONLY 50 cents! In the top, right-hand, corner of each card, I wrote dates, beginning from December 26, 2000 all the way up... to December 25, 2001! I pull them out EVERY DAY and write, on the card, what I'm grateful/thankful for (about the person I'm giving the gift to!). As I'm a rather "crafty" person, I also love to draw/or paint... so, I also design little pictures (etc.) to go with each item I'm thankful for. I draw the picture right under where I write. If you're drawing/painting-impaired, you could always use different stickers, pictures from magazines (etc.)... just as long as it's small enough to fit on the card. Then,
I will purchase a ONE-DOLLAR, 3-ring binder (from our local "Dollar Store"); a ONE-DOLLAR roll of clear, contac paper; use paper we already have and create a, ONE-OF-A-KIND, PERSONAL (THREE-DOLLAR!!!) gift... that my spouse will SURELY appreciate! I'm doing the same for my 8-yr. old son, as well! This is a gift for ANYONE... no matter age, sex, religion, etc!!!
The other idea is to create one-of-a-kind coupons, custom-made... for each person on your list! For instance..... my son LOVES Pokemon. I might make, for him, Pokemon coupons (featuring pictures, TRACINGS, etc.) of different Pokemon characters, for such things as "THIS ENTITLES THE BEARER TO ONE FREE, POKEMON DINNER... FEATURING "Pikuchu's Party Pizza," "Sandshrew's Sensational Salad," and "Jigglypuff's Jolly Jello." I KNOW, my son would LOOOOOVE that! Another one might say, "THIS COUPON ENTITLES THE BEARER TO ONE SATURDAY NIGHT OF YOUR CHOICE OF MOVIES (games, etc.)."
For my husband..... he enjoys science-fiction and action movies. An example of a coupon I may give to him may be, "THIS COUPON ENTITLES THE BEARER TO HIS CHOICE OF ONE SCI-FI BOOK." I find various things, like this, at flea markets, yard sales, consignment shops, thrift stores, dollar stores, etc. He also works with computers... so, another idea might be, "THIS COUPON........................TO HIS CHOICE OF ANY NEEDED COMPUTER GAME."
Again... these things are found, inexpensively, on the internet or any of the other places, mentioned above. Well..... those are JUST a few! Happy hunting!!!!! -HMS
This Christmas I made hot pads and mitts our of recycled blue jean material and lined with cotton mattress padding or old placemats. I then put on a nifty tag which I copied out of Amy Dacyczn's TIGHTWAD GAZETTE which is as follows: "Our products are made of naturally seasoned denim with an unpatented process."
"First sewn into pants and worn by actual human beings, the material is exposed to sweat, grime, sunlight, and hundreds of washes to achieve an authentic fade and uniquely confortable feel. Then using only select portions of unpatched, seamless, and pocket-free fabric we handcraft our original potholder design." "THE BLUE JEAN POTHOLDER, a product alrady withstanding the test of time."
My friends and I are interested in the same types of music, so a while ago I went to Costco and bought a big package of cassette tapes. Through out the year when I don't have the motivation/money to buy gifts, I've made tapes taking songs from the radio, various cd's and tapes. It's also fun to add on a little comedy from my Bill Cosby or Hank the cowdog collections. (this can be done using a cd burner also)
I have a friend that I met online and we've been emailing back and forth for almost two years now. I wanted to send her a little something for Christmas, but don't have a lot of money to spend. Any ideas?
Because this is someone you know online, why not take excerpts from the emails you have been sending back and forth. Find the passages that mean the most to you and put them together in a "friendship" book to say "You mean a lot to me" and thank her for her friendship.
In two years I'm sure you have impacted each others lives. Let her know when and how this happened.
Just an idea,
Susan
I love Susan's idea! Just a thought also - by now you two have worn out at least 1 mousepad - how about sending one with a picture or saying that would mean something special to her or both of you?
Roxsie
I send one of my very close on line friend, that I also met 2 years ago from CA, a box of my homemade Christmas cookies every year. She looks forward to them as they are ones she doesn't make. It's a way of sharing part of my traditional Christmas with her every year. I find a good box and fill cup cake liners with them and put a piece of fitted cardboard between each layer and they arrive all in one piece, and I live 3000 miles from her. Some of the ones I make are very fragile too. Good luck.
Large and multigenerational families can make gift giving at Christmas quite expensive. This is a page about thrifty Christmas gifts for a large family.
