12 GENIUS Tips for Christmas on a Budget | minimalism + saving money

Today I'm sharing 12 genius tips for celebrating Christmas on a budget. One for each of the 12 days of Christmas, which is so much better than a partridge in a pear tree. Wouldn't you agree? And speaking of birds, when it comes to budgeting, the early bird catches the worm, which is why tip number one on this list is to start thinking about your holiday budget and plans well before the Christmas season rolls around. Planning ahead and starting to budget early will help you spread your expenses out over time, which reduces strain on your wallet. This method also allows you to take advantage of sales and discounts throughout the year, helping you score better deals on things like gifts and decorations. And planning ahead also empowers you to avoid making questionable impulse purchases at the last minute, especially if you use tip number two on this list, which is to think like Santa and make a list. I'm not talking about a naughty and nice list, although those can be fun as well. What I mean is to maintain an ideas list of gifts for friends and family members of things that they say that they want or that they show an interest in throughout the year. And that way you can keep your eyes peeled for deals on those things as the year passes. And doing this also means that you won't have to scramble at the last minute to try to find a gift for them. I usually create an Amazon wishlist for my boys at the beginning of the year, and then I add things that they mentioned or ideas that I have to that list as we go through the year. Remember, you don't need to buy everything on the list, but it can be really helpful to have a catalog of ideas for people that you know that they'll like. Tip number three is to decorate your home with simple and minimal decor because the more decorations that you buy, the more money you'll spend and the more space those decorations will take up in your home. Especially if you have champagne taste on an eggnog budget, this less is more approach means you can still decorate with holiday cheer without breaking the bank. In our family, both my husband and I have our own favorite things when it comes to Christmas. One of his favorite things is to hang up the twinkling Christmas lights. What do we have here? Yeah. I think I'm going to put it on both sides. One side to the street, one side to the popcorn. Okay. You're excited, aren't you? You're so cute. These look good. And as for me, I love decorating the Christmas tree with the boys as we listen to Christmas carols and making your own decorations like Christmas wreaths, popcorn garlands or orange slice tree ornaments isn't just about saving money, but it can also be a good way for families to create fun memories together. Number four, do a gift swap. Choosing to do a gift swap instead of buying gifts for everyone can be a smart way to save money during the holidays. In general, the fewer people you have to buy for the less money you'll spend overall. You can pick names out of a hat and either keep the names a secret like you do in a secret Santa gift exchange or you can choose not to keep it a secret. Either way, it's a lot easier and more affordable to have to buy a gift for one person instead of five, 10 or more depending on the size of your family. And also when you're doing a gift swap, make sure to set a budget limit for the gifts, which also happens to be tip number five on this list. Budget limits are good for setting boundaries to ensure that people don't overspend on gifts and also keep things fair, particularly in families where members are not at the same socioeconomic level. It can help people not feel embarrassed or guilty if they're gifting someone a $25 gift card and someone else is gifting a $250 purse. I know I definitely felt pressured in the past when someone got me an expensive gift and I knew it was something that I couldn't afford to reciprocate in kind. So it's important to get everyone on the same page and make sure that they stick to the rules that are preset in advance when it comes to this budget. Christmas tip number six is to say no to the Christmas traditions that you have lukewarm feelings about. If cooking a five course Christmas dinner stresses you out, then don't do it. If your kids never eat or play with the toys and goodies that they get as stocking stuffers, then you can choose to stop paying stockings. My husband and I stopped giving Christmas gifts to each other years and years ago because for us, the joy of Christmas doesn't lie in getting gifts for ourselves but rather giving gifts to our children and seeing their faces light up with joy. So just because something was celebrated a certain way in your family when you were a child doesn't mean you need to continue celebrating that way. And the same thing goes for traditions that you used to enjoy but don't anymore. Things are always changing and sometimes that means that our budgets, our time and our energetic bandwidths need to change as well. Number seven, buy less, choose well, make it last. This is actually a quote from Vivian Westwood, but I think that it's just as relevant to Christmas as it is to fashion. Did you know that around 20% of unwanted Christmas gifts end up in the landfill each year? That adds up to almost 23 million gifts or around $9.5 billion of waste. So what could we do to bring those numbers down? We could do things like asking people to share their wishlist with us to make sure that we can get them something they want and saying no to buying useless junk like gag gifts. For example, these simple choices not only stop us from wasting a lot of money, but they can also prevent a lot of environmental waste from being tossed out in each year. Tip number eight is to earn perks with holiday spending. The savviest shoppers aren't just thinking about saving money at Christmas. They also know how to put their money to work for them and earn things like points, perks, and even cash back on every dollar they spend. And another good way to make money when you spend money is to use the Rakuten app or extension. And here's how it works. So when I go shopping at an online store that I like, it automatically gives me a little pop up that tells me if and how much money I can save at that store. So for example, if I wanted to buy someone a Roomba for Christmas to help them save time on vacuuming, I could go to the Roomba website and the Rakuten extension automatically tells me that I can earn 5% cash back on anything I buy there. So if I went with this model for three 49, saving 5% would earn me $17 and 45 cents in cash back on that one purchase. And remember, this doesn't just work for gifts, but also for things like home decor or airplane tickets or hotel stays. And it might not sound like a lot of money, but it's basically free money that you get back on things that you were going to spend money on anyway, which is a win-win no brainer for me. I will make sure to put a link down in the description box below for you to check out. If you aren't already using Rakuten, I would just caution you that you do need to have a certain degree of self control to ignore the marketing emails that you get when you use money saving tools like this so that you don't get into the habit of spending money on non-essentials. And you can also unsubscribe or send those emails to spam so that you only go looking for deals when you need them. And speaking of money, tip number nine is to sell clutter for extra cash because the holidays are a great time to clear clutter out of your home and turn it into extra money. You can even start selling as early as the fall because that's a popular time for hosting both garage sales and yard sales, especially things like Halloween costumes that your kids have outgrown winter clothes or home decor or unwanted holiday decorations or gifts. Like I said, it's a win-win situation because it gets the extra clutter out of your home and puts extra money back in your pocket. Number 10, re-gift with the proper etiquette. Re-gifting can get a bad reputation, but when done correctly, it can be a great way to save money and also to give unwanted items the opportunity to bring someone else joy. Just make sure that you don't re-gift an item within the same social circle because there's a risk that you might offend the original giver. You don't want to re-gift the slow cooker that great aunt Tessie gave to your sister and risk having great aunt Tessie see it when she goes to meet your sister's new baby. So it might be a good idea to re-gift gifts that your family members give to your friends and vice versa. Number 11 is to explore eco-friendly gifts and wrapping. Nowadays, there are so many ways to make your Christmas celebrations more eco-friendly. One of the things that we have done is to upcycle old fabric swatches and muslin wraps from when my boys were babies into wrapping paper that we can use each year to wrap up our gifts. And if we want to give gifts to other people, we try to use recycled wrapping paper and biodegradable ribbon to wrap our gifts. And again, I will try to link any of the products that I mentioned in this video down in the description box below for you if they sound like something that you'd be interested in checking out. And when it comes to gift giving, you could also try giving consumables like a nice wine or hot cocoa mix or homemade cookies, or even gift your loved ones an experience rather than physical items, which happens to be number 12 on this list. Giving experiences for gifts at Christmas has many advantages. Just imagine the excitement and fun memories that would be created by giving someone tickets to see their favorite singer live in concert or getting the entire family an annual pass to the zoo or aquarium. Unlike physical stuff that you might get tired of, experience gifts create memories that will last a long, long time. And if you want to know more about experience gifts and find out a few more ideas for the kinds of things you can give for a simple or more minimalist holiday, make sure to go check out this video that I've linked over here for you. And I'll also put some additional blog posts and videos that I've done for past holiday seasons down in the description box below for you to check out or I'll see you next week until then. Take care. Bye bye.