How to Save Money on Christmas gifts

Christmas is a time when many people spend more money on gifts than they plan to. Christmas is a time for gifts, but it is not a time for home equity loans to buy those gifts. Here are some tips to help you spend less money on Christmas gifts.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Make a list of all the people that you want to give gifts to. Then decide what to get each person before going to the store. Use the internet to look up the price of the gifts and find the total amount of money that you will be spending for Christmas.

2. Take some people off the list. You should plan for gifts for your parents, kids, siblings, close personal friends, etc. but you do not need to give a gift to your cousin's in-laws, unless they are close personal friends.

3. Only buy what is on your list. Do not go to the store trying to figure out what to buy someone. It will only make you spend more money that you had planned.

4. Give frames picture to Grandparents. Grandpa doesn't need another tie and Grandma doesn't need more perfume. They will love a picture of your family or their grandkids. Put the picture in a simple frame and you can give them a new picture each year.

5. Give baked goods to your neighbors, co-workers, and associates. The best gift I ever received from a neighbor was a plate of a dozen cookies. They were some of the best cookies I had ever tasted, and I still remember it all these years later.

Tips & Warnings

• Make all of your gifts by hand. The gifts will mean more because you put some time into them.
• Instead of giving gifts, donate money to charity in the person's name. This won't work for your kids under 18, but everyone else should appreciate what you have done.

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on 11/20/2008 These are very good ideas. It can be difficult to keep spending in perspective sometimes.