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Preparing for Christmas | A guest post from a reader

Today’s post is an email I received from a reader of mine named Juliana. I was so encouraged when I read her story, I asked if I could share it with the rest of you, and Juliana graciously agreed.

Of course, it’s a little bit late in the season now for you to make all the preparations Juliana did, but hopefully her story will inspire you to starting saving for and thinking about next year’s Christmas celebration a little earlier than usual.

I’ve been reading your blog for about 18 months now and I just love it. I rarely comment (sorry!), but I love hearing about your frugal tips – particularly those on budgeting. Money was never really talked about it our family and so when I moved out on my own and was earning an income I’m afraid I had a few (too!) many frivolous years purchases before I started to work out that it doesn’t matter how much you earn – it’s what you do with it that counts. So I have been slowly trying to educate myself about budgets and saving and your blog has been great to help me learn from it in practice. I see your blog like the money education I never had from my family! Every day I check in a learn something – small or large – about how to help be more frugal. I particularly love your definition of frugal – it’s about getting great value for your dollar, and being frugal in most areas so you can save up and spend good money on things you love (like your camera or holidays and vacationing).

Anyway – I just had to write and say THANK YOU! Back in February 2010, you wrote a post on preparing for Christmas with three ways to do so – start saving, buy gifts year round, and think about what I could make for Christmas. I thought your ideas sounded great and I had recently set up an entire savings account for all my bills (as per your post on multiple savings accounts!), so it was easy to add an extra category for Christmas. So I looked at your email and I:

1) STARTED SAVING: I added up costs of all my Christmas expenses (airfares home, gifts, Christmas trim, even the birthdays in late December and early January were accounted for!) and divided the total by 26 paypackets. I then arranged for that amount to be automatically put away each time I got paid. (Automatic transfers are my friend! The money is spirited out of my sight and into an ING account before I even see it. It makes it much easier not to think of it as “my” money, or “money-I-can-transfer-back-and-spend-if-needed”. Not that I would ever do that. Ahem.)

Note from Kristen: If you’re interested in learning more about how I use ING accounts to save, you may want to read my post about my multiple savings accounts, which Juliana also linked to above.

Anyway, the money had been sitting there, growing, out of sight, out of mind since 4 Feb (the date of your post!), until yesterday my mother called to say there was a sale on Christmas-New Year airfares, and wouldn’t it be a good idea to buy my ticket now? I looked – they are reduced and after a few clicks to see the nice little pile in my Christmas account, I was able to buy the ticket at a great price! Such a change from last year when I had the same phone call from my mother – but I had to think “that’s a great deal – but I had to wait until I get paid/next week/after the next big bill etc” and by that time the good deal was finished. I just bought my air ticket today and am thrilled at the savings! That’s even more saved in the Christmas account!

2) KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN FOR GIFTS: This one was actually a two-part process. After an 11th hour Christmas phone call from my brother-in-law about what to get my sister (his wife!) for Christmas (nothing sends a shiver down your spine like “so what should I get your sister?” on Christmas Eve), I started to keep a list of potential gifts for people – everytime one of my sisters said “that looks good” or “I’d like to read that book someday” or “your nephew is really into trains at the moment” I would jot it down on a notepad in preparation for Christmas.

(An aside: this was easier that I expected! I bought a little notebook that fits in my purse and after any conversation which mentioned an item (or if they told me they had bought the book/train/item in question!) I would jot it down (or cross it out!) for that person).)

By having this in my mind because of the adding to the list meant I subconsciously kept an eye out for those things or other possible gifts when I went shopping each week. It didn’t happen often, but when it did it was an easy matter of buying it and I adopted the method you wrote about in your response to the comments on the Christmas post – if it was a few dollars I didn’t worry about it, but if it was slightly more I would either transfer less into my Christmas category the following week or go in and transfer that amount back to my account. But it was lovely to see these items (often on sale!) and know that I could afford to buy them, and wasn’t taking money from other bills of groceries.

For example: there was a big mid-year toy sale and I bought a few of my nieces and nephews Christmas gifts then. Normally I wouldn’t have had the money to take advantage of the sales as much as I did (and for such good prices!), but as the money was specifically allocated to come out the of “˜Christmas Budget’ category, and wasn’t grocery (or other allocated) money and I didn’t feel bad about it! And I got some great deals!

3) THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU COULD MAKE FOR CHRISTMAS: Whilst this isn’t strictly within the category you wrote – I still think it’s in the spirit of it (making something and starting ahead of time!).

Anyway, I had wanted to make (and finish!) these lovely Santa sacks for my newest nieces (having already made some for my other nieces and nephews, it was high time I finished these before they were old enough to notice they didn’t have them!). Last year I tried – but fell woefully short when I started to sew them in the last 2 months before Christmas. Christmas time is so hot here (Australia) and the last thing you want to do in the lead up to Christmas is sew a heavy, hot quilt.

And ummm……they didn’t get finished. (Oops!) Your post motivated me to get started early and make it a winter job. So I pulled out all the materials in July and set myself the goal of finishing the last two Santa sacks by the end of winter. It’s only a little *cough* – 2 months – *cough* past winter now, and I stuck to my goal and finished the last two Santa sacks last weekend!

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I hope that Juliana’s story is inspiring to you! I know how fabulous it feels to prepare for Christmas ahead of time (the saving ahead of time is especially wonderful), so I’m thrilled that someone else has gotten to experience that too. And I must say that I am very impressed with Juliana’s quilting abilities!

Do you do any of those things I suggested in my February post (saving ahead of time, buying gifts year-round, or making gifts for Christmas)? I’d love to hear about it!

Today’s 365 post: These ponies used to be mine…

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frugalfarmhouse

Tuesday 13th of December 2011

There is one thing I do that has not been mentioned. I use swagbucks as a search tool and have made 70.00 in amazon gift cards this year. Not a lot but add it to other frugal ideas, Christmas is close to free to me. My budget is 370.00 for 11 people. Last year I had money left over. I also use my change and turn it in at coinstar to get gift cards that cost nothing. I ended up with 100.00 for Penney's and used many 10.00 off 10.00 coupons throughout the year. Lots of off season clothes for the littlest one and ornaments for all the grands, all free. High end stores (sites) have great sales in January and I use them to purchase high quality gifts for the adults. I do much more, but these are the things not mentioned so far. I hope they are helpful to some of you.

One more note. I bought a purse at Rescue Mission last year with the tags on (1.99) for a daughter. It was her favorite gift. I also received 5 photo journals for free plus shipping. The bargains are out there. It's my job to find them.

Kristin

Sunday 14th of November 2010

I start the day after Christmas each year shopping for the next year, when the perfume gift sets go on sale for at least 1/2 price and so many things are marked down that can be put up for the next year. We have such a limited income that we can only afford to buy "nice" gifts for a few immediate family members that include our parents and our brothers and my grandparents. That's still a lot of people, so we have to find creative ways to either find the money to get the gifts (online surveys, selling clearance items we find on eBay for a few extra dollars, etc.) as well as find the gifts whenever they go on sale. Using coupons and shopping at Walgreens and CVS enables me to add to their gifts for practically (or even!) nothing, as I can fill stockings or goodie bags with very nice razors, shaving gel, llotions, and other toiletries that can be pricey. They don't know, and wouldn't care if they did, that I didn't spend a lot of money.

Anyway, cologne and perfume sets can get marked down for as little as 75% off, and even if I can't find any that my family will like I can often find them and sell them on eBay so I can add that money to my Christmas fund. We're both disabled, and my medical costs right now are astronomical with IV medications and weekly doctor visits, so we can't take the money out of our disability checks this year so I am grateful that I started so far ahead last year buying things.

Fellow readers, keep your eye out for Target and Walmart (as well as other stores') after-Christmas sales because some of that stuff will sell on eBay like hotcakes. Honestly I don't feel like eBay is worth selling most things anymore, especially used items, because of high fees but brand new items you find on clearance often sell in other parts of the country or world for a nice profit! Walmart had some Miley Cyrus (Hannah Montana) pleather jackets on clearance for $5 last year. i saw some sellers sold them for $40- ours sold for $25. i didn't complain :)

Suzanne with Laughing Wallet

Monday 8th of November 2010

My friends and I were just talking this weekend about our "gift closets." We buy gifts all during the year when we find great sales and we store them in a particular spot in the closet. We designate some stuff for particular people for Christmas, but other items are just there and at the ready for a housewarming, birthday, etc. You avoid the cost of a last-minute gift and can really take advantage of great sales throughout the year!

Jennifer

Monday 8th of November 2010

I have a large family and we always spend WAY too much on Christmas gifts. I always end up pulling out the credit card to pay for a large portion of the gifts. Every year I stress about it and I still am! However, this year my husband and I (well, really it was just me since I do ALL of the shopping!) decided to have a debt-free Christmas. This will be very difficult since we have not been saving up all year- although we will start doing that this coming year. So, I have been spending a lot of time trolling the internet for homemade gift ideas and hitting up Goodwill for Christmas presents. I haven't gotten very far, but I am getting there. It requires a ton of work and time, but I'm going to be very happy this year when I see that we didn't add to our credit cards for Christmas!

BTW, if anyone has any great non-food handmade items ideas, please post them! I have birthdays, Christmas, and a baby shower to get gifts for so the more ideas I get, the happier I am!

BarbS @ 1SentenceDiary

Monday 8th of November 2010

We often exchange small homemade gifts with our neighbors. Nothing expensive, just some homemade candy or small jars of jelly or the like. Last year we saved glass jars and put the ingredients for cookie dough in them (with a note explaining how to make them into cookies). This year we're making homemade candles. As we give out the gifts each year, the kids and I start planning for the next year. I find that homemade bread is a gift enjoyed by all. (I'm sure Kristen has the same experience.) I made apple challah as "hostess gifts" for several events this fall, and those families are still raving about it. :-) Thanks, Juliana, for a wonderful guest post!

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