How to Spend the Holidays without Spending too much
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The holiday shopping frenzy can pressure us to spend a fortune on presents. The average person can spend hundreds of dollars buying the perfect gifts for their loved ones, preparing food, or planning events with friends and family. Although Christmas may be a dreadful spending time, there are many other great options to fit your budget better this year.
One of the most significant issues with maintaining a budget during Christmas is the pressure to give a gift to every person you’re close to. An easy way around this issue is organizing a Secret Santa gift exchange so that everyone only has to buy one present. This tradition can help to budget, setting a price range for the gift exchange to ensure your loved ones can participate without worrying about overspending.
The gifting season is also a great time to start indulging in fun arts and crafts! A homemade, personally curated card can be a heartfelt present for your friends and family. All you will need is a pen and paper, making it a perfectly affordable option. For those more artistically inclined, this gift allows you to be as expressive as you want through glitter gel pens, stickers, and other decorations.
If you want to give someone something they can use daily, a painted tote bag is the way to go. This gift is helpful throughout the year and eco-friendly, helping counteract the holiday’s environmental impact. Another sustainable option is testing your crafting ability with crochet. Crochet allows many affordable and time-efficient gifts or decorations this holiday season with cute Christmas patterns!
Money can be tight when planning gatherings outside of the initial gift-giving this Christmas. Food is essential for events, but putting together a whole meal or snack bar at this time of year can be financially and mentally taxing. Getting friends to bring food for a potluck is a much more cost-efficient and engaging idea than setting everything up yourself, and it ensures everyone has something they like to eat. Additionally, buying a box of sugar cookies and frosting to plan a hang-out with your friends while cookie decorating is a cheap and easy bonding activity.
Christmas can be a stressful time for many, and finances shouldn’t have to add to the pressure. While elaborate gifts and events can be lively and fun, they shouldn’t overshadow the Christmas joy of celebrating gratitude and the companionship between friends and family.
