Any ideas to save $ or cut back on holiday gifts 2023?

[Anonymous]

Anyone have any tips to share on how to save money or cut back on holiday gifts?

I'll post mine in the comments.

[Anonymous]

DH used to never use his CC points, and once a year I used to take them all to buy GCs for holidays but lately he started using his points for other things so now I need other ideas!

Here are a few ideas I have - 1) I have been collecting loose change for a year, and I'll take it to coinstar to get an Amazon GC, but I don't think I'll get all that much money. 2) I'll re-gift gift cards if it's not to a place I know for sure I'll use. (Or sometimes I use GCs to buy new GCs to the same place to give others)

[Anonymous]

gifts only for kids. or a single gift for a family if you exchange gifts with other relatives.

[Anonymous]

Budget and stick to it.

[Anonymous]

Do a big bake and give out baked goods as gifts

[Anonymous]

Just buy less. Once you realize the extent of the consumerism involved in the holidays and how it’s all optional it’s quite freeing actually. I can see doing something for the kids but others than that just say no.

[Anonymous]

I really only buy for two kids. They both want cash.
While I do have plenty of it, I take ca $5k and invest the money when a stock goes down for no fault of the company. There are many reasons why it happens. I sell it later when it's up at least 20 percent, otherwise why bother.
In case it doesn't go up by holidays, I have plenty of cash for a another stock, and I will hold this one long term.
So done cutting coupons, reselling crap, trying to figure out which toilet paper is "double", driving around looking for cheaper gas. Never really did any of them, but I know the "tricks" well.
Collecting all the credit card cash is also ok method. Too slow for me though.

[Anonymous]

We don’t buy gifts for each other and we limit our gift giving with our children and grandchildren to one per person. We also make gifts to 529 plans. The days of piles of gifts are well behind us.

[Anonymous]

I have no children and I'm divorced so the holiday season doesn't cost me much. Four cards is all I buy for the holidays. But the best thing is to set a budget and stick to it.

[Anonymous]

I buy "expensive/fancy" versions of inexpensive things. Maldon sea salt, for example. Waleda skin food on sale. Really high quality things.

[Anonymous]

This year we told all the adults we aren’t doing gifts. We bought for our child, an angel tree, and one thing for each other.

[Anonymous]

Stalk sites like Slickdeals to find deals on gifts and Giftcards.

[Anonymous]

-Spent the last three months collecting most of my kids toys from Buy Nothing Facebook group.
-Secret Santa with family members and a $50 limit so I only need to worry about one gift for the adults in my immediate family.
-Feeling ok with sometimes getting a gift from someone when I don’t have a gift for them. Happy to not start the tradition of gifting presents with closer friends/closer colleagues.

[Anonymous]

Set a budget.
Our budget is 1500
150 for tree
75 for decorations (slowly adding to our house decor)
300 for one kid including stocking (we do big gift, book, wear, need type)
150 x 2 adults
50 x 2 adult stockings
75 teacher gift cards (15 x 2 main, 9 x 5 specials and staff)
Parents/IL x 4 x 50= 200
My siblings (2) get $50 transferred cash because they are younger and just want money
Family friends and their kids $100
Angel tree $100

Look for sales. Buy early. Be okay with buying less.

[Anonymous]

-decided with friends to meet up and not exchange gifts
-we do secret santa for adults in the family - I love spending the time to think of a personal gift for one person rather then buying a bunch of generic stuff to make sure I have something for everyone
-shop sales carefully - if something is on your list buy it, but don't buy something just because it's on sale if you don't need it
-set budget and stick to it - don't panic buy