My Frugal Holiday: Shop for Christmas All Year

My husband and I are on a fixed income rendering finances tight; therefore we start our Christmas shopping in January and we shop at thrift stores. By starting the first week of January, we allow ourselves the time to be selective, shop carefully and discover wonderful gifts for a fraction of their retail prices. Frankly, when you try to shop at the retail stores over the holidays, you find everything is over priced, all the stores seem to be carrying the same things, and selection is therefore limited.

We have, over the past six years managed to find useful, original, novel, absolutely wonderful gifts that brought radiant smiles to the faces of the recipients. When it is all over and we did the tally, we found that in the end we spent less than three hundred dollars for a gift list of almost twenty people. That includes the wrapping paper and bows purchased at the dollar store!

It takes patience and checking back frequently at the thrift stores, but again we allow ourselves all year, keep a running list of purchases and recipients they are intended for and how much was spent on each item, then pack them safely away. We will start pulling them out and wrapping in the next couple of weeks without the rush, without having to fight the crowds to shop, without the fear of opening the credit card bills in January, and without having over spent or left ourselves in financial hole, which sure goes a long way to removing the stress of the season!

By willow fahy

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