Frugal Beginner Here

i have been trying to save money as well so i could give some of my friends and family gifts for christmas. i tend to buy some extras whenever there's sale in walmart, target, or anywhere. i go to family dollar store too...and everything for a dollar store

i am happy to hear about your activities and struggles to save more this coming holidays. i think everyone is motivated to save a little bit more in gift-giving and holiday celebration. in my case, instead of buying cards, i may create my own cards to make those personalized. so far, i am still learning from people like you who have something to share about frugal living.

i shop all year round for christmas, so to that end, i have about 75% of my shopping done. i also make a lot of my own presents too such as a crocheted scarf or for this christmas, i have made scrapbooks for our 4 nieces, you could also make a package of greeting cards. i also make my own gift tags for christmas too. your ideas about stuff in a jar is also good (i have had the soup in a jar).

I love homemade gifts and people rarely give them to me. They are the most memorable. I think you should do it, and hand it with a smile. I love freebies. However, it is hard to tell what is really a freebie. I mean I do not want to have to spend a 15 minutes pressing keys and telling my life history to get a free cookie. I like real freebies.

I prepare for Christmas year round. I earn half of my Christmas money online and I do half of my Christmas shopping online because I have noticed I can often find better deals online then buying it at a local store,especially if you are buying good quality used items threw Amazon.com or Ebay ( like books or dvd's). If you would like to earn some nice free stocking suffers join Mypoints, they send you email's daily and when you visit the websites they email you they give you points just for viewing the email they send you and sometimes you can earn a lot more points for signing up for freebie offers, like joining a free website.Once you earn a good amount of points you can cash-out the points for some really great gift cards for some of the best and popular places around, like Barns & Nobel,Target,Walmart,Amazon.com.Starbucks & a lot of other cool places. Last year I cashed out my points for a $50 amazon card and did some Christmas shopping with that and the year before that I cashed in my points for 2 $10 gift cards for Starbucks and I used them as stocking stuffer for my husbands stocking, he loved them! Nice freebies are great for stocking suffers so your doing very well in that area. Sometimes you can get nice high quality men's shavers for free online and those are also great stocking suffers. Other nice place's to find affordable Christmas stocking stuffer and gifts at are at places like Dollar Tree,Family Dollar,Biglots & Wallgreens around the holidays.I know around Christmas time Dollar Tree sells Items to make gift baskets with.If you like shopping at these stores I highly recommend visiting there websites ( especially biglots & payless shoes) and sign up for there email mailing list because they offer great printable coupons to their email subscribers sometimes and you can use these coupons at their stores. Thrift stores are good place's to find treasures, sometimes you can find new clothing with $1 price tags on them .After Christmas shopping is good also if you still have any money leftover after the holidays ( which is something rare for me!..LOL) Baked goods are a great ideal also. Last year I made a large batch of no-bake cookies and put them in pretty holiday tins I brought at the thrift store and gave those out as gifts and people loved them. Being thrifty for the holidays isn't hard if you do year round so you don't have to hurry and scrimp at the last moment trying to find bargains right before Christmas. Good luck!

wow... you are extremely frugal. i suggest just opening another bank account "just for holidays", and put 5% of every paycheck in there, little by little this will build up and before you know it you will have some money to spend on others.

I seldom buy at the after Christmas sales, but I buy all year long. I've found some very good gifts at garage sales as well as thrift stores and I do freebies, too. It looks like you've received some good advice on making a good Christmas! You could probably find the Tightwad Gazette that someone recommended, at your library. There are probably other frugal books there, too. There's a good community of like minded folks at the Dollar Stretcher web site. If you haven't been there, it's worth checking out.

I tend to prefer to shop through the year, instead of at christmas. Normally at flea markets, book sales, garage sales..online. This year I've been using the giftcards I've been getting for online work for presents, and I've discovered a new website that uses barter, and I'm hoping to get my Mom something off there for christmas. There's not a lot of prepations, I just try to get what I can. I have a stigma against buying anything for above two dollars, so you can imagine lol. This year will be much better than the last one, even though I only have very slightly more money than last year lol. This time round I've been getting my Mom Dark Tower comic books and I'm hoping to get her newest favorite movie (Hitman) off that barter website. I'm probably gonna be baking cookies for my brother and Dad for christmas and we'll just have to see what else they get, heh.

Oh, but it does sound like it is going to be exciting, aconner. I think what you are planning sounds very fun. I don't really take advantage of after holiday shopping like so many people I know. I just don't want to have to store everything and keep up with it. Not to mention the fact that I am likely to forget everything I have purchased. But I admire people who are organized enough to make this work out for them. I am not doing much shopping this year. Sending pictures of my son to most family members, some artwork of his to the grand parents and that is about it. My family and I will be going on a vacation this year for the holidays and have splurged a little on it, so it is our Christmas, anniversary and birthdays (hee) to each other this year.