Category — frugal holidays

photo by yoniamir

As much as I love the holidays, I breathe a sigh of relief when Christmas is over. This year I managed to escape the pressure to spend a ton of money on gifts and entertaining. Instead, I found frugal alternatives to extravagant shopping to show the people I love that I care.

Now comes the pressure of New Year’s Eve.

The older I get, the less pressure I feel. But there was a time when all of my friends were heading out to fancy, expensive parties to ring in the new year. All dressed up in new clothes, they’d drop $50 a person on tickets to these parties or head out for expensive nights on the town at fancy restaurants.

One year in college, Tony and I gave in to the pressure. We packed some party clothes and headed to the city with some friends. I have no idea what we spent after travel costs, hotel, food, and a night on the town, but I know it was a lot. The worst part was that we were pretty miserable the whole time. It was freezing, and every place in the city was charging $50-$100 just to walk in the door. We ended up going back to the hotel at 9 p.m. and watching the ball drop in our pajamas … something we easily could have done at home for free.

I know many of my readers will be celebrating the new year with young children this year, so you may not be feeling this pressure. If you are feeling pressure, though, my advice is to resist it!

Instead host a small get together or a movie night. You’ll have plenty of time to go out on the town in the coming year if that’s what you want to do — and you’ll spend a fraction of what you’d spend on New Year’s Eve.

Two years ago, Tony and I stayed home in our pajamas and enjoyed a 24-hour “Seinfeld” marathon. We made a lovely dinner, and toasted to the new year at midnight. It was the most fun I’ve ever had on New Year’s Eve, and it cost practically nothing.

What’s your favorite frugal New Year’s Eve activity?

photo by munzer

I can’t believe we’re hitting the road in less than a week! I’m so excited to see friends and family for the first time in 6 months, but I’m rushing to finish last minute preparations for what will be a pretty big trip.

We’ll be traveling a total of 2,000 miles in 12 days on a shoestring budget. Here are some of things we’re doing to keep our costs low.

We’re driving ourselves.

Plane tickets are more expensive than ever. Even when gas prices were higher, driving was still the most economical option for us. We drive a small, fuel efficient car in good condition, so even when gas prices were $4 a gallon, our total costs would have been about $350 round trip. That’s about the cost of a single plane ticket. With current gas prices, we’ll probably only spend about $200.

We’re bringing the dog.

Boarding him for a week and half would have easily added $200 to our total travel costs. Instead, we’re loading him into the backseat and bringing him with us.

We’re packing snacks.

We have healthy snacks like fruit, raisins, and granola to help us save money on expensive (and unhealthy) food on the road.

We booked our hotel room in advance.

The trip will take about 12 hours of driving. Add to that extra stops for bathroom breaks and dog walking, and we’ll probably be driving for a total of 14 hours each way. To make the trip easier on us and our hyperactive dog, we’re splitting it up into two legs. We’ll drive half of the distance Tuesday night, stop to sleep, then finish the trip bright and early on Christmas Eve.

I booked a room for us at the halfway point at a cheap, dog-friendly hotel. When I booked the room two months ago, Hotel Club was offering a $25 discount off already discounted prices. We paid only $65 for a night at a moderately rated travel hotel. According to reviews, it’s clean and comfortable. They also don’t charge extra for pets.

Most importantly, we don’t risk spending a fortune for an overpriced room just because we’re exhausted and tired of driving. The room is prepaid, and we know exactly where we’ll stop for the night.

We had the car checked out.

With a tight schedule and cold temperatures, we didn’t want to take any chances on car trouble. So we took some money from our car maintenance fund for an oil change, tire rotation, and inspection to make sure everything is in good working order.

We’re prepared for emergencies.

There’s always a possibility for car problems, bad weather, and other mishaps. To ensure our safety, we’re packing extra blankets, food, water, cash, a spare tire, and jumper cables. We also have a membership to AAA, so we can call roadside assistance if we need a tow or other assistance.

Thanks to some advance planning, it’s shaping up to be a pretty stress free road trip. Hopefully the dog will cooperate. I’ll let you know how it turns out!

photo by kspeterson

Last year at this time, our financial situation was pretty bleak. I was working two jobs — a part time retail job and a temporary office job that paid well but only lasted until the end of February. Though we had some extra money coming in, we were saving aggressively because we didn’t know how long our savings would have to last.

We were also away from family. I couldn’t take time off work and we couldn’t afford to travel, so we stayed here, 800-miles from our families.

At the beginning of the season, I was dreading Christmas. I imagined us alone in our apartment with no family, no gifts, no decorations and only sadness.

We looked at our budget and decided we could afford to spend $100 on Christmas. In the past, we had gone overboard on gift shopping for each other. I had come to associate Christmas with fancy gifts and extravagant meals. I couldn’t imagine recreating Christmas with so little money to spend.

We were surprised, though. Finding practical frugal gifts was a fun challenge. I aggressively shopped sales to find little things to put under the tree. I used creativity to come up with ideas. I reassessed our priorities and shopped only for things that I knew Tony wanted and would use.

We had fun putting up our old decorations and fashioning new homemade ones.

Christmas Day we dined on cheap Chinese food and caught a half-priced matinee at the movies.

Instead of focusing on how little we had, we made the most of every dollar and every moment.

Remember: Gifts don’t last, but memories do.

The most important lesson we learned last year was that gifts really don’t make or break Christmas. Shopping is fun if you can afford it, but the best part of last Christmas is the memory.

Twenty years from now we won’t have any of the gifts that we gave to each other. No matter how much you spend on it, stuff doesn’t last forever. After 24 Christmases I can only remember a handful of gifts. Many of them didn’t even last a year. What I remember is the time spent with family and the traditions that cost very little or nothing at all.

Keep that in mind if you’re struggling this year. Even if there’s no room in your budget for gifts, focus on the memories.

Make this Christmas a happy memory. Cherish the good moments and remember that the bad won’t last forever. Remind yourself that “stuff” is fleeting.

If you focus on the negative, then all you’ll remember is the sadness. Instead, focus on the memories you want to keep forever.

If you told me last October that our $100 Christmas would be the best we ever had, I wouldn’t have believed you. A year later, I know that I’ll always cherish the memory of last Christmas not in spite of our struggles but because of them.

Photo by yogi

Tony and I have only been married six months, so we’re still working on building our own family traditions. While some of our own traditions are completely new (like our private gift exchange and candle lit dinner at home a few days before celebrating the actual holiday with family), many of them are borrowed and adapted from our families.

We’ve been thinking a lot about which traditions we’ve to carried over from our own childhoods. Here are some of our favorites, and the ways we’ve adapted them.

Then: Every year, I watched old Christmas movies with my mom (”It’s a Wonderful Life,” “White Christmas,” and “The Bishop’s Wife” were our favorites).

Now: Tony and I still watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” every year. We’ve also added “Love Actually” to our list of holiday favorites. This year, we’re attending a free screening of “It’s a Wonderful Life” in an old theater downtown, so we’ll get to see it on the big screen.

Then: Tony listened to a local radio station’s frequent on Santa’s whereabouts Christmas Eve.

Now: Well, not right now, but someday when we have kids we’ll track Santa with them online at a site like Norad’s Santa Tracker.

Then: Both of our mothers baked huge trays of Christmas cookies for us to eat every year.

Now: I don’t trust myself with large amounts of cookies around the house, so if I bake I’ll give away most of the cookies to co-workers or family.

Photo by ggladman

Then: We both grew up in the Midwest where there was plenty of snow for snowmen, sledding, and snowball fights.

Now: No snow in North Carolina. We’re heading north for Christmas, though, and we’re hoping to see snow then. Cross your fingers for us!

Then: When I was a kid, we opened one gift on Christmas Eve and the rest in the morning. Once we were all too old to wait up for Santa, we began exchanging gifts at midnight on Christmas Eve. We celebrated all evening by eating good food, listening to Christmas music, and playing board games. Tony’s family has always exchanged gifts on Christmas morning.

Now: We’ll celebrate on Christmas Eve until we have young children who are expecting Santa. But as they get older, we’ll probably abandon the Christmas morning gift exchange for a Christmas Eve celebration. As a teenager, I loved celebrating with my family on Christmas Eve then sleeping in on Christmas morning and relaxing all day.

Then: My mom always put an orange in the bottom of our stockings. It was a nice healthy snack that didn’t at all make up for the pounds of junk food we ate at Christmas. But it was a nice touch.

Now: I will always put oranges in stockings, no matter how weird Tony thinks it is.

What about you? How have you adapted your family’s traditions?

Photo by engnr_chik

Who doesn’t love online shopping? It’s fast, convenient, and often offers lower prices. But it’s not always the most frugal way to shop.

I bought all of my nieces’ and nephews’ Christmas gifts through Amazon. They were shipped right to my door, and I did all of the shopping right from my couch. It doesn’t get more convenient than that.

But what happens if one of them already has the gift? What if it’s defective or they just don’t like it? In the past, I loved including gift receipts with any and all gifts. There’s no way to include a gift receipt with gifts purchased online.

It’s also easy to overlook shipping costs when shopping for online deals. Sure, the item itself might be $5 cheaper than in stores, but you’re not saving money if you’re paying $6 to ship it.

Time is another important factor. Are you shopping at the last minute? If so, it’s best not to risk holiday shipping delays for a few bucks off.

Shopping online may be more convenient overall, but it requires extra research and care.

Compare online and in-store prices, and be sure to factor in shipping costs when shopping for the best deal.

Consider the likelihood that the gift will need to be returned. For gifts like clothing that must be tried on, it might be worth it to spend a little more in-store so you can include a gift receipt. If it’s an appliance, book, or other item that you know the recipient wants, online shopping is the way to go.

Find out the person’s clothing sizes before you start shopping, and make sure they don’t already have the item you buy.

Because I knew I wouldn’t be able to include a gift receipt, I was extra careful when I shopped for my nieces and nephews. I checked with my sisters to make sure the gifts were a good fit. I also read product reviews to ensure I was buying quality toys that weren’t likely to be defective.

Shipping was free, and I paid for the gifts with an Amazon gift card I received through MyPoints. You can’t get a better deal than free, but if I had been paying out of my pocket, I would have comparison shopped to make sure I was getting the best deal.

In our culture of convenience and technology, it’s very easy to convince yourself that online is always better. Be sure to look at the whole picture before you make a decision, though.