Tag Archives: frugal holidays

Avoiding the pressure to have fun (and spend money)


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?

Preparing for a frugal holiday road trip


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! :)

Focus on the memories — not the money


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.

Favorite frugal holiday traditions from childhood

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?

Online or in-store shopping: which is more frugal?

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.

Christmas presents, not status symbols

Over the weekend, Tony and I were picking up a gift card as a Christmas gift for his grandparents. A month ago when we worked out our Christmas budget, we agreed upon an amount that we could afford. But as we stood in line I found myself second guessing our decision. “Do you think this is enough?” I asked him.

This isn’t the first time this has happened. I ask myself that question almost every time I buy a gift. “Is this enough?”

That’s a pretty silly question, though, isn’t it? Enough for what? After all, anybody who would receive a gift only to think it isn’t good enough really doesn’t deserve the gift at all.

Of course I wasn’t worried that Tony’s grandparents would feel that way. They’re probably not expecting anything from us at all, and they’ll be thrilled that we thought of them. So where does this doubt come from?

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this doubt is more about me than it is about them. I enjoy giving gifts to the people I love because it makes them happy, but the desire to give more than I can afford comes from the same place as the desire to buy fancier things than I can afford.

It’s a tough thing to admit, but in the past I’ve used gift-giving as a status symbol. I’ve charged up credit cards and spent money I didn’t have on gifts. I’m sure the people who love me would be horrified if they knew that buying them gifts was putting me at financial risk. I certainly wouldn’t want anyone to risk their financial security to buy something for me.

I told myself that I was being generous. I wasn’t being generous, though. It was quite the opposite. Buying those fancy gifts made me feel good about giving them. Sure, it made the person who received the gift happy, but that’s not the real reason I was doing it. The people I love would be just as happy with a thoughtful gift that I could afford to give, whether it be something small, homemade, or even baked. The truth is, I liked the way it made me feel to give fancy gifts.

The past couple years have taught me valuable lessons about spending that I’ve learned to apply to gift-giving. Spend only what you can afford, and give only what you can give.

I’m still tempted to break my gift budget, but I have to remind myself that the people who love me would much rather I didn’t risk getting myself into trouble. After all, the safety and financial security of the people I love is much more important to me than receiving Christmas gifts. When I’m tempted to overspend, I remind myself that the people who love me want the same security and safety for me much more than they want presents.

The holiday season is a great time to make the people I love feel special. Spending more than I can afford just isn’t the way to do it.

Introducing the “Holiday Food & Financial Diet”!

Photo by rwhitlock

I don’t know about you, but the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas are a dangerous time for my waistline and my bank account. The holiday spirit tempts me to overspend on entertainment and gifts, and the holiday parties and meals tempt me to eat and eat unhealthy foods.

This has been a weekend of gluttony, and with our trip home for the holidays coming up in a scant 24 days, I’m looking ahead to another week of overeating, overspending, and expensive travel. This year, I want to nip it in the bud. I don’t have the will power to resist on the holidays themselves, but the least I can do is control myself in the weeks in between.

So how are we controlling our diet and spending in the next few weeks?

1. We’re reducing our consumption of meat.

We have a couple steaks and a few chicken breasts in our freezer. We’ve decided to pick up some extra chicken breasts to last us through the month, and then ration our consumption for the next few weeks. This will not only reduce the amount of meat we’re eating and buying — it will also ensure that we’re not leaving a freezer full of meat when we head out of town for Christmas.

2. We’re trying month-long menu planning.

I typically only menu plan on a week by week basis. This month, we’re going to try planning out our meals for the next three weeks in one fell swoop. This will allow us to maximize purchases, ration our meat consumption throughout the month, and clear out the pantry before our trip.

3. We’re cutting our entertainment spending and staying home instead.

With our big trip back to Indiana coming up, we’ve decided a few weekends at home won’t hurt us. This will not only free up some extra money for travel and gifts, but it will reduce the temptation to overeat at a restaurant or splurge on movie theater popcorn.

We’ve cut our usual $50 for entertainment out of the budget. Typically this goes to the occasional movie or meal out. This month we’ll stay home on the weekends, utilize the library, and revisit some movies we haven’t watched in ages.

4. We set a budget of $50 each to shop for each other — and we’re sticking to it.

Both of us were willing to give up receiving gifts from the other, but neither of us wanted to give up the fun of shopping for the other. Finding that perfect gift for the person you love most is so much fun. The trick is to avoid the temptation to go overboard. Last year, we were limited to $50 each, and we had a lot of fun finding small, practical but thoughtful gifts to put under our tree. We decided to maintain the tradition. Nothing big or flashy, just small tokens.

5. We kept our Christmas shopping list short.

It can be so tempting to shop for anyone and everyone in your family this time of year. I firmly reminded myself that the people I love who love me will understand that we’re not in a place financially where we can buy flashy gifts for our extended family. We used an Amazon gift card I received through MyPoints to shop for our nieces and nephews who are 5 and under, and we’re putting together gift baskets for immediate family.

I’ll revisit this topic throughout the month to let you know how I’m doing. I hope you’ll join in, too! The holidays themselves may throw off your financial and fitness goals, but if we can control ourselves for a few weeks in between it might not be so bad!

If you’re planning on joining in, please leave a comment and let me know how you’re cutting back for the next three weeks!

Fresh turkey for next to nothing next year

If you’re like me, then you found yourself staring longingly at the fresh turkeys this year, convinced that they must taste better. After all, they’re fresh.

OK, so I’m not convinced that they do taste better. My husband swears by it, though. I’ll admit, the idea of skipping the thawing process with a huge turkey taking up half my fridge for a week before Thanksgiving is appealing to me. But there’s no way I’m ever going to spend $1+ a pound for fresh turkey when the frozen ones are on sale for 49 cents a pound.

I was kicking myself yesterday, though. You see, this year Tony and I went to a potluck for Thanksgiving Day and cooked our own Thanksgiving meal yesterday. We ran out to the store for a few last minute items yesterday and discovered that fresh turkeys were deeply discounted. They were actually about 40 cents a pound.

“Why didn’t we think of that?” my husband asked.

He’s right. We’ve known since before we bought our turkey that we would be cooking on Friday. It makes perfect sense that fresh turkeys would be dirt cheap the day after the holiday. What else are they going to do with a bunch of fresh turkeys with a sell-by date a week away?

Next year we’ll try a fresh turkey, and we’ll only pay 40 cents a pound. I don’t mind cooking a day late if it’s just us again.

Thanksgiving is the most frugal day of the year

According to the American Farm Bureau, the average American family will spend $44.61 on a traditional Thanksgiving meal for 10 people this year. That’s a $2.35 increase from last year’s price, which is more than double the typical yearly increase of $1 and some change.

There’s been a lot of buzz about this increase in the news. You know what, though? That’s not too bad if you ask me. Try finding a restaurant meal of Thanksgiving proportions for under $4.50 a person. Not happening.

Thanksgiving really is the most frugal day of the year. What other day do the majority of American families stay home instead of going out to eat? Most stores are closed, so nobody is out shopping. Instead of spending money, we stay home eating a good home cooked meal and spending time with family.

I was curious about our Thanksgiving costs, so I took the time to add up the numbers for our meal. Here’s an estimate of what we spent this year:

12-pound turkey: $6
Potatoes: $2
Cubed stuffing: $2.50
Celery: $1
Fresh cranberries:$2
Canned pumpkin: $1.25
Miscellaneous cooking items (flour, sugar, eggs,milk): $3 (a very rough estimate)

Total: $16.75

It may look like we’re spending more than $8 per person, but don’t forget about the leftovers! We’ll be eating them all weekend long. :)

What about you? How much are you spending on Thanksgiving this year?