How do you give gifts without going broke?
By Momma_B
@Momma_B (51)
United States
December 10, 2008 8:33am CST
Each year brings more family members which in turn also means more gifts to give! This is a issue I have had for sometime now and I have had problems explaining to the family that I simply can't buy for everyone. By family I mean extended family. Let me try to explain what I mean. My dad's side of the family there are 5 siblings including my dad. Each of them are married and have children. There are 4 of us grand kids that are now married with children of our own. That of course makes the family extended even more. Families grow more and more as the children grow and marry ect. My parents always bought for both sides of the family meaning they bought for dad's side and mom's side. My mom's side there are 8 siblings so you can imaging how big that shopping list was. Now that I am married I have my husbands family to buy for and can you imagine if I was to buy for both sides of my parents family and both sides of his parents family? It can get real crazy. My dad's family is where this the most issue of buying for every person. It is hard to explain this to them. I believe as we grow and marry that the people we should buy for are our grandparents, parents, and siblings. Even so that still leaves quite a large list when you combine both my family and my husbands family to buy for. How do you handle these situations? Do you have frugal gift ideas that help with the budget? Please share your thoughts because I am quite sure I am not the only person who thinks about this and could use whatever tips I can get!
thanks
((HUGS))
Momma B
4 responses
@thedaddym (1731)
• United States
10 Dec 08
We only buy for the kids parents, and grandparents now. So we buy for our nieces and nephews, my wife's parents, (my parents are diseased), and my grandmother. With mine and my wife's siblings we just have a grab bag type of game that we play every year, wo we only 2 gifts, one for my wife to play the game with, and one for me to play the game with. If I were you I would give each of the kids a small gift, and then give something homemade to all the other adults that are not your family. Like some homemade fudge or something like that. A nice treat.
1 person likes this
@lilcee (2703)
• United States
10 Dec 08
We did most of our shopping online this year. Amazon has a lot of good things and if you spend a certain amount the shipping is free. Most of the things we got were on sale and free shipping. With a large family, what about drawing names? My family used to do that with the Grandchildren until it just got to be too many of them.
@cher913 (25782)
• Canada
10 Dec 08
we have lots of people to buy for but i manage this by shopping all year round and snapping up sales when i see them! i am pretty creative, so i make a lot of my stuff that i give too (which totally helps). also, shop at garage sales and thrift stores (you never know when you will find something brand new there!)
@ZephyrSun (7381)
• United States
10 Dec 08
On my side of the family we only buy for the children. My husband's mother demands that we buy for the whole family ugh So I belong to a few survey sites and earn gift cards and either we pass out gift cards or I use them to buy the "family" things. If we end up having a party to go to I'll usually make a baked good to take for the host.
@Momma_B (51)
• United States
10 Dec 08
Thanks! I have been getting freebies online and I plan this coming year to put some of these away so I can use them toward Christmas gifts. I also do baked goods when we have a family get together. Don't you just love how all it takes is one person in the family to make a decision and the rest of us just have to follow along. That is right along with what I was saying. I think things should change when you are one of the kids and you have grown. I don't think you should be expected to buy for everyone your parents did. Could you imagine.. currently i am expected to buy for aunts and uncles and then what happens do my kids continue it on.. it could get to be ridiculously high amount of people! I did find out about neat site for Christmas gift exchanges. some from the ChaCha forum signed up on site called elfster and the names were randomly given someone to send a card and gift to. I think it would be great for large families to do this. It would be a great way to let family who lived far away to participate in Christmas to!
oops sorry so long LOL
((HUGS))
Momma B
