Saturday Savings Smorgasbord – The Frugal Gift Edition
I've always been one who only likes to give gifts if I really know the recipient will love it; I despise obligatory gifts given with little or no thought to the recipient. So, Meredith's spot-on post on cheerful frugality and gift-giving this week got me to thinking and poking around the blogosphere for a few more fun gift ideas that are frugal but might truly be appreciated by someone on your recipient list.
Here are just a few links I found and some additional ideas of my own:
Need a gift for someone who enjoys reading? What about a magazine subscription? You can get dozens of different one-year subscriptions here for around $5 each after the Amazon rebate. Jill explains the details here.
Meredith mentioned giving service-oriented gifts. I love this idea! I can think of a lot of recipients who would love nothing more than a "gift certificate" for free babysitting, or lawn-mowing, or house-cleaning, or freezer meals. Lylah gives some more examples and ideas here.
If you have a little girl on your list, I love Lindsay's idea for making cute little socks.
One thing we did for many years was to give our grandparents who lived an hour away a gift certificate for a quarterly dinner at a restaurant halfway between our two homes. They were absolutely delighted with this as it guaranteed they'd get to see us more often.
Last year, one of my favorite gifts to give out was this homemade bread in a bag mix.
For years, we also gave my uncle and aunt a cooler full of freezer meals in disposable pans. They don't like cooking, but enjoy eating home-cooked food so it was the perfect gift for them. Plus, each of our family members contributed by making a few different items so it was truly a gift from our whole family.
Here's a clever idea from Jennifer: What about using freebies as stocking stuffers? (Go here for some recent fun freebies you can sign up for!)
For more frugal gift ideas, check the extensive list here.
And while we're on the topic of gift-giving, I'd love to hear how your family has opted to organize gift-giving in your immediate and extended families. Do you only exchange gifts in your immediate family or do you give gifts to those in your extended family, too? Do you draw names or is it just a free for all? What have you found to work best and be the least-stressful and most enjoyable?
related posts:
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- Saturday Savings Smorgasbord – Christmas Edition #2 I hope you're not tired of frugal Christmas ideas yet,...
- Saturday Savings Smorgasbord: Wholesome Eating on a Budget We all want to save money but I think all...
- Saturday Savings Smorgasbord – Getting Started off Right in the New Year I've been MIA around here for the past few weeks...
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3 Responses to “Saturday Savings Smorgasbord – The Frugal Gift Edition”
November 17th, 2007 at 7:16 pm
Two things going on this year: In our extended family, we draw names. For our immediate family, we have chosen a method to keep things to a minimum this year and for future years we hope. Our children will receive a want, a need and a surprise. That is it. We are looking forward to helping our children understand how unimportant TOYS and PRESENTS are in light of the REAL world…
We have also chosen to sponsor a child through Compassion Ministries.
November 19th, 2007 at 10:58 am
Extended family on my husband’s side has a get-together the week-end after Christmas and we have a white elephant gift exchange. Here’s an excerpt from the email I just sent out to the family this morning as a reminder of the annual festivities:
“Don’t throw away your useless, ugly, tacky, or otherwise unwanted items from around the house (or your neighbor’s house). That’s right relatives! It’s time for the white elephant gift exchange. You know how it works. Everyone high school age and older brings a wrapped gift and throws it into the pile and we politely take turns unwrapping one gift at a time and then the next person on the list gets to steal the gift from the previous recipient on down the line. Something like that. And if you get something you don’t want to take home, remember the burn barrel located just outside the back door for your convenience. Remember, the gifts at our family gift exchange are kind of like art in a kindergarten class. It’s not the product, it’s the process.”
We’ve done this for years now and it’s been lots of fun!
On my side of the family we are all frugal and this will be our second year of a gift exchange with a one dollar limit. There are several dollar stores located near all the relatives so shopping is easy. But several of us have had time to plan this year and with CVS deals and garage sales this may be a really elaborate and fun time. We don’t try to top each other in anything but our frugalness (is that a word?! your spell check is disagreeing with me). There are lots of laughs. We’re enjoying being together and the gift exchange is just one of our activities. It’s been so fun to thoughtfully match a gift with the recipient without the worry of cost, i.e., did we spend enough? nope, just right! will they think we were cheap? yup! what if they don’t like it? they can get rid of it and it was only a dollar!
November 19th, 2007 at 6:44 pm
For my side of our extended family (I only have 2 siblings), we have the kids exchange names and spend $5 or less. Secondhand is fine with my family, so this can be a real shocker – in a good way. (My nephew is getting a remote control K’Nex set that I got for $2.50 at Goodwill.)
For the adults, we do a family gift. Homemade is fine. I’m doing themed gift baskets this year. My sister and her family are getting a Family Night Basket – Grandma Elsie CD from Dollar Tree, old-fashioned popcorn, various movie-style candies all in a large plastic popcorn container (they LOVE popcorn). My brother and my parents are getting coffee baskets – two types of coffee that I found for next-to-nothing on clearance (Folgers brand, nonetheless!), flavored powdered creamer and 2 matching coffee cups (another secondhand find at $0.25 each).
For my husband’s side, you bring a wrapped gift ($3-5) for your gender and age group. Each category goes into a big garbage bag (I’d change that particular aspect, but oh well), and you put your hand in and pull out a gift. They’re constantly amazed by my secondhand finds, but I haven’t been brave enough to try a secondhand gift for these. So I shop a year ahead in the after-Christmas sales. I got fragrances last year for the adult gifts and some neat kids’ stuff, too.
For our own family, we shop for the kids year round at secondhand stores and yard sales. My son is getting a killing in Legos, Tonka and the like. I have to even the score with some homemade dolly outfits for my daughter, but she’s getting quite a bit, too.
My husband and I get each other one gift. If we can’t think of anything to tell the other person, we can usually expect a homemade gift.
I love Christmas!!
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