Giving Gifts

                                      

                                     Hello My Cheap Cheetah Family, Tis The Season.....

Holiday Gift giving. This is the month that we really testing our spending limits. With Thanksgiving out of the way and black Friday. What's a cheapskate/frugal person to do when it comes to giving gifts? Personally I have stop giving gifts a long time ago. I only give  gifts to the main family like mother, best friend and that is it. My partner  doesn't even get a gift we decided to do vacations instead of gifts. But when I did go all out this is what I did.

For my co workers ,family & friends  I always  shopped thrift store, yard sales and flea markets in the summer time. It use to be that I could take $20 bucks and get a bagful of brand new gifts  from yard sales/garage sales  each gifts would cost me less then  $1. I take cruises when I can afford them and if I go places  that offers cheap or free but nice gifts.  I pick them  up  and save them for gifts to give during the holidays. One time the cruise ship I was on gave me a $400 onboard credit because my room had a leak. So I used my onboard cruise  credit to purchase all my holiday gifts  from the ships shops that year.  To me the cruise had just paid for all holiday shopping that year  These are some of the things I do but here's some gift giving suggestions

Re-Gifting- Don't look at me like that a lot of people regift items that are nice but they don't want so they give the gift to someone who they think might need it. Make sure that you do not regift to the same person who gave you the gift that your regifting.

Give gifts after the holidays. That way you are still giving gifts to family and friends but now the gifts are at a 50%-75% discount. Besides who says you have to give gifts on one day. Make a new tradition to give gifts after the holidays.

Yard Sale/Garage sales/Flea Markets. Estate Sales Like I mention before shop for your gifts during the summer yard sales, flea markets  and avoid the worries for the winter.

Don't forget to set a budget for the gifts that you are giving and the money for the food if your making the holiday dinner this year. 

Gift Basket comes to mind for a great gift. You can make your own check out some of the great youtube videos on gift baskets)   Use some of the things  you have around the house .Like the baskets and fillers, ribbons, cute decorations. You can always go to the craft store and see what they have in their clearance binds for your basket. I saw once where a person purchased a nice coffee cup cheap, filled the cup with a small package of coffee, instant milk and a small package of cookies. Wrapped it nice with ribbons and such and gave as a gift. I bet this idea cost the person less then $5 bucks and it was very creative as far a gifts goes. For the basket fillers use coupons  and 50% off items to make your basket simple and cute. 

How about telling  people that you will pass on giving gifts this year  and later on when your money is right you will make a big dinner for family and friends. That will be your gift to them

If you have children that you must give gifts to for the holidays. Then I have found that stores like toys are us and sears offer clearance  section in their toy department which these these toys might not be the latest but it's something right?

Secret Santa- Some people do a secret Santa if they have big family. That's where everyone puts their name in a hat and you pull one name  and that is the person you get a gift for with a budget in mind of course. This helps because instead of 15 people you have to shop for now you only have one. It's less stressful that way.

 Food nothing says gift giving like food. Bake something like cookies, brownies, cake. Or even make a pan of something that the person likes when you make it and give that as their gift.. Who can resist bake goods.

Well these are some of my  ideas on how to be cheap/frugal when it comes to gift giving for the holidays. Have a Great Cheap Cheetah Day and Save that $$$