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Budgeting For Gifts This Holiday Season
It’s the biggest week of spending all year. With Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday all in a row, it’s important to stick to a budget for your holiday shopping or you’ll easily overspend. Budgeting for Gifts this Holiday Season is a guest post.

Stephanie is the founder of Military Travel Mama; she is the wife of a military professional and mother to two children. Follow her blog for more about military life, military discounts, family trips, healthy eating, and parenthood.

Reduce Stress And Increase Festiveness

People get stressed out during the holidays, and one of the primary reasons for that is how much is spent every year on Christmas gifts. If you’re in a married household with sons and daughters who have reached adulthood, five of you could spend around $3,500 on average on gifts. That’s enough for a used car!

While some in the family may be doing well enough to afford so much every year, this can really stress the budget of others. It’s important to remember that there are other ways to show your family you care for them than purchasing expensive Christmas gifts. Following, several ways of reducing and redirecting Christmas spending will be explored to help get your imagination going.
1. Vacation
$700 is the cost of a drive to that resort town an hour away, and a weekend—or even a week—in a hotel there. There are options at $50 a night which a small family could use; seven nights at that rate is $350. Even at $100 a night, you could do six evenings plus $100 for gas. Beyond that, just spend what you normally would on food.

Now granted, this isn’t always feasible for some families; but for those who have the ability to travel, it could be just the thing. There are also discount holiday specials available to take advantage of. In Costa Mesa, California, there are deals available for flights to Hawaii at $99 round-trip. Such deals fluctuate, so shop around; here’s an example of one from five years ago.

If you can find a cheap motel at $100 a night, you could fly in a family of five for two nights at that cost and spend a weekend in Honolulu for Christmas. If you’ve got relatives or friends in Hawaii who you haven’t seen in a while, and are themselves looking to shake things up for Christmas, you might go stay with them a week and still have money left over when you get home.
1. Joke Gifts
You don’t have to get everybody’s dream gift every Christmas. Sometimes that’s the thing to do. But as your children grow older, their desires will be something beyond the monetary. How do you buy your eldest daughter a husband for her twenty-fourth Christmas? Likewise, families strapped for cash probably can’t buy their sixteen-year-old a car.

But you could buy them a Matchbox or Hotwheels toy in the make and model of the car they desire, and wrap it up! Some teens may not see the humor in that, some will. Also, young children love candy, and it can be cheap. If you’re able to steel yourself against the coming sugar rush, this could be a good buy. As could jack-in-the-box type gifts, or wildly inappropriate ones. You might wrap up a stick of deodorant for your teenager.

As long as you have some “real” gift mixed in, you can have a very fun Christmas with gifts meant to be nothing but a joke. Time spent together is the most important thing. Even dream gifts are forgotten after a while, but family time stays with a person.
1. Budgeting And Strategy
You might set yourself a budget per person, then buy multiple gifts within that budget of varying kind. If you’re buying for seven, budget $50 per person and you’re at half the national average on Christmas presents.

You can buy them some curiosity from a flea market, a few savory sweets, maybe a joke t-shirt, and something special. This kind of strategy helps you maximize your buying power. Especially for young children, there are “cheap” toy solutions which are still fun.

Check out the Holiday Gift Guide for Unique Ideas

More For Less

Even the costliest Christmas is empty where families don’t spend time together. The chief element in saving money and yet having an excellent Christmas is spending time with those you love. Factor that in, and you’ll always have a good Christmas even when money is tight.
November 20, 2018
Budget Friendly Recipes #takeyourplace

Today I am joining over 200 other Food Bloggers to spread awareness for Hunger in America.

Have you ever gone hungry?

I have. I’m not saying I’ve gone days/months at a time, but as poor college students with little mouths to feed, I would periodically skip a meal to stretch our budget and make sure the kids got something healthy.

Any mother would do it. Feed their kids before themselves. We have a responsibility to our children to take care of their basic needs – food, shelter and safety.

I was/am lucky though. I have family that always knew when we were hitting an especially rough month. They never took completely over, but they often stepped in to help until we could get back on our feet. Whether it was making sure we had enough money for food, or giving us a place to live.

Beyond our own family, we also belong to a wonderful church (learn more at www.lds.org). Our church believes strongly in Christ’s teaching of feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. They also believe in building yourself up, and standing on your own feet. Across the nation our what we call Bishop’s Storehouse, with basic foods and toiletries. Once your local Bishop has determined how much help you need, they send an order for those things. All they ask in return is that you offer service in some way for payment. Some areas have financial classes to help get you back on your feet as well. It truly is a wonderful program.

Other programs, like WIC and SNAP are also wonderful resources for struggling families. I have personal experience with both, and can say how grateful I am for a program that kept my kids eating when we were struggling financially.

How can we be self-sufficient to avoid going hungry?

Another principle my church teaches is Food Storage. They have recommended that each family work towards having a 1 year supply of food stored. You never know when a hard time will hit – job loss, sudden medical bills, natural disasters.

Since food is one of our very basic needs, we need to make sure we can provide that during the difficult times. We are slowly building up our food storage, but I can already tell you, we have used it many times. Last year when we had a sudden change in jobs, we were jobless for a few months. Since we didn’t know where we would end up, or how our income would change, we began eating our food storage to stretch out the budget, and put some money aside for later. It truly helped us out.

Grow a Garden. Growing your own food is the ultimate way to be self sufficient. Not only that, but a single packet of tomato seeds can cost under $2, but you will get upwards of 20 or more tomato plants from that. That is a lot of money saved! You can then make your own spaghetti sauce, salsa, canned tomatoes for stews, and even eat them fresh. $2 and one small packet.

All these ideas are fine and dandy if you aren’t already in the midst of going hungry. For those currently struggling to put food on the table, here are some budget friendly recipes. These are all recipes I go to when money is tight. The flour tortillas and maple syrup, especially save my family a lot of money, while still providing something good to eat.

Creamy Potato Cauliflower Soup (can easily be adapted for tight budgets)

Home Made Flour Tortillas

Potato Cakes

Stroganoff

Basic Cookie Mix

Chili (can easily be adapted for tight budgets)

Chicken Alfredo Lasagna Rolls

Tomato Sandwich

Home Made Maple Syrup

How You Can Help!

I can’t imagine the mothers who constantly go hungry so their kids can eat, or the kids that are going hungry because everyone else is too. It breaks my heart thinking about it. I’m sure it does yours too.

Write a letter to Congress and tell them you support No Kid Hungry, and preserving government programs such as WIC and SNAP.

I also encourage you to go see the film A Place At the Table: One Nation, Under Fed. There is a problem in this country, and it needs to be addressed.

For more bloggers participating in this campaign with budget friendly recipes, visit The Giving Table and look under the sidebar.

April 8, 2013
Powdered Milk and a Cheap Menu

One item I love keeping around the house is powdered milk. I use it mostly when making bread, but sometimes I like to keep a pitcher of it in the fridge as well. Growing up I had a friend whose family always drank powdered milk. I personally don’t care for the taste of it, but I have found other ways to use it that save our budget.

Milk prices seem to keep going up, and at close to $4/gallon here, it can really add up when you’re trying to stick to a budget. It gets even more expensive when you have 3 little kids who love drinking milk day. I use the powdered milk in just about all my baking now. It doesn’t effect the taste, or consistency of the dish, and it’s a lot cheaper than using your good milk. I’ve also started using the powder milk when making the girls mac and cheese. Then there are days like today where we ran out of milk, and I haven’t had a chance to make it to the store; the powdered milk is a good substitute for the kids breakfast cereal too.

Just look at this price comparison

1 #10 can of Non-Fat Dry Milk – Cost $14-16 (pending on brand)

1 gallon of milk – $4 (approximate)

1 #10 can of Powdered Milk can make approximately 10 gallons of milk. So that’s $14-$16 for 10 gallons

10 gallons of Milk will cost $40.

Double take – will you pay $40 for 10 gallons, or $16? That’s over a 50% savings!!!

EDIT: This all depends on the brand. This comparison was using Peggy Layton Brand. The brand I currently use, Rainy Day Foods, only makes 5 gallons, but also only costs $13. Do your homework, and check the brands servings per container to get the most for your money.

If you’re looking to save some money, and make your milk last longer, I would seriously look into buying powdered milk.

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It’s the last week of the month! That means grocery budget is spent, and we’re cutting corners, and being creative in our menus. We’ll be eating lots of beans this week – at least until Friday.

Monday – Potato Casserole and Salad

Tuesday – Bean and Cheese Enchilada casserole

Wednesday – Chili

Thursday – Leftovers

Friday – Dinner at my parents

Saturday – Mark’s Birthday: I’m taking him back to our first date at a Japanese Restaurant.

Sunday – Dinner at my parents

I’m linking this up to Organizing Junkie’s Menu Plan Monday

February 25, 2013
Birthday Parties on a Budget – guest post
Princess C’s birthday is coming up. Next week actually! I’ve had so many ideas run through my head, and I still don’t know which idea to run with. It’s hard having her birthday so close to Valentines Day. I’ve thought of having a party just for her. Or having a Valentine’s party and inviting some of Princess V’s friends as well. I don’t like inviting friends over and having them feel like they have to buy a present. Maybe I should just call it a playdate. Or we could do what we did with Princess V. Mark and I take her out to dinner and an activity, just the three of us. Perhaps we’ll do that anyways. I really don’t know yet.

Check out these 10 great ideas for some Cheap but still Fun birthday party ideas from Molly at Live-in Nanny
1. Pool party: If you are lucky enough to have a birthday in the summer then it’s a great time to have a pool party for your birthday. Bring two dozen colorful helium balloons with weights on them. (Inexpensive weights can be made by adding some play sand to balloons and tying a knot.) Bring coordinating paper plates and napkins from the Dollar store. Go early so you can grab a couple of tables and cover them with inexpensive plastic colorful tablecloths. Make your own cupcakes topped with crushed graham crackers and a paper umbrella. If you’d like you could take some pretty pitchers full of fruit flavored water with fruit floating in it. Budget: $50
2. Ladybug party: Cover round tables with red table cloths and set out round black plates. You can find red napkins with black polka dots and these would be cute, but would cost a couple dollars more than plain ones. Use red cups and decorate them with black punched out circles. Serve pink lemonade with lady bug cupcakes. Make your own cupcakes and frost with red frosting and using black licorice you can make the wings and you can make the spots with some black icing or M&M’s. You can play pin the antennae on the ladybug (draw your own or buy at the Dollar Store.) Play freeze tag outside or musical chairs inside. Play pop the balloon with red balloons with black polka dots. Blow them up with air and then each child has to try to pop the balloon by sitting on it. Budget: $40
3. Tea party: Have everyone meet at the food court at the mall. Cover all of the tables with inexpensive pink table cloths. Set the tables with cute plates and cups. Serve pink lemonade and little sandwiches. Simple baby carrots and grapes can round out the little lunch and then bring on the tiny treats. The fun thing about a tea party is to have little bits of several things. Mini muffins or mini cupcakes, small cookies and maybe some butter mints in little paper cups will make a fun dessert course. Decorating with some pink helium balloons that can be sent home with the kids when they leave the party is a great favor idea. Budget: $50
4. Sports birthday party: Wal-Mart has a great selection of plates and napkins for $ .97 each along with matching tablecloths too. So you’ve got $5-$6 in with the paper goods. Make a cake in the shape of the sports ball that is the theme. Footballs, soccer balls, or basketballs are easy. Juice pouches go on sale for less than $2 for 10. When the kids get to the party break up into two teams and play the sport that you are there for. Make sure to have plenty of water on hand and small paper cups for quick drinks. Bottled water is not necessary for this because most of it will just get wasted. Once the game is over serve the cake and drinks. If you still have time, play some old fashioned games like Duck, Duck, Goose with the kids in a circle or Red Rover, Red RoverBudget: $20
5. Under sea party: Truly a fun party to throw. If it’s for a girl she could be an undersea princess like Ariel and they could wear tiaras. You could send all of the kids home with a live goldfish. At the discount store you can get buy goldfish for $ .19 each. If you’d like you can also buy a little glass bowl for the fish at $1 ea. You can play pin the eye on the goldfish or clown fish or whatever fish. Your child can help draw fish to decorate the walls and some inexpensive green streamers hanging from the ceiling as sea weed and you are all set. You can show the movie Finding Nemo or read the book version. The kids can dance around to music from the movie and do the fish dance. The cake can be a fish that is made using an 8” round cake and part of another round cake for the tail. Frost both pieces together and use candy or frosting to decorate it like a fish. If the child can help with the cake it will be even better. Budget: $50
6. Curious George party: This could really be any monkey party, but if you do Curious George you can read a Curious George book or play one of his videos. You can pin the tail on the monkey (see a trend here?) You can dance around like monkeys. You can have this party at the park and play on the jungle gym and act like monkeys. You can serve bananas for a snack with some lemonade. Then when it’s time for cake you can make a 2 layer banana cake with frosting. Then put Runts banana candy all over the cake. Or you can make a monkey face cake. Using a round cake and two chocolate donuts for ears you can easily decorate the cake into a simple monkey face. If you’re at the park you can create a great monkey race where they have to run on all fours. Budget: $20
7. Pizza Party: If you want to incorporate dinner with the party this is a great way to do it. Have the kids make their own pizzas and have some two liters of soda. The dough can be made at home for little or nothing and then pick 5-6 toppings for the kids to pick from. Then as long as the kids have made their own pizza you can let them decorate their own cupcake. Make the cupcakes and then have some colored frosting and various sprinkles and let the kids decorate their own cupcake. All of these things are activities and take time. Once they finish making the pizza you can put it in the oven and let the kids start on the cupcakes. When the pizzas are done they can eat and then finish up with the cupcake for dessert. Play some fun music while the kids are working. Keep the guest list small and you can send each child home with their own apron. Budget: $50
8. Movie night birthday party: Maybe your kid is into a specific movie like Twilight. You can plan the party for after dinner which will save you money. Then set up a cool popcorn bar with popcorn boxes that you can buy 8/$1 at Target. Put out 3 different popcorn flavorings and 3-4 different mix-ins in different bowls and let the kids make up their own popcorn treat. Then everyone can settle in for the movie. Be sure to have bottles of water that you’ve dressed up with a cute label that says Movie night or the title of the movie. After the movie you can have cake. Try to tie the cake into the movie. If it’s Twilight you can serve caramel apples instead of cake. Budget: $40
9. Butterfly garden party: Make antennae for each girl using headbands and pipe cleaners. Then have a craft where they make tissue paper flowers. When they finish the craft you can have everyone go outside and do a bug hunt. You’ve hidden a bunch of butterflies that you’ve made out of coffee filters and clothes pins. Whoever finds the most wins a butterfly net that you can buy for $1. For the cake you can make a butterfly. Start with 2-9” round cakes. Cut them at 2/3 and 1/3. Turn all of the curved pieces in and make the wings of the butterfly. Using colored sugar and sprinkles decorate the butterfly. You don’t have to buy colored sugar, this can be made with white sugar and a few drops of food coloring mixed in. Serve the cake with some inexpensive butterfly plates and matching solid colored napkins from the Dollar store and you are all set. Give every child a butterfly net when they leave. Budget: Under $40.
10. Snowman party: These are best if you have a winter birthday. If you live where there’s snow then you can go out and build real snow friends, but if there’s no snow where you live then you can make snow friends out of Styrofoam balls and felt decorations. Buttons and other little doo dads will help make this a really fun project. For the treats they can make their own snowman face on a white cupcake. You can serve hot chocolate to go with the cupcakes. When everyone is done making their snow friend you can have a contest for the funniest, tallest, cutest etc. Make sure you have enough categories so everyone can win something. Playing pin the nose on the snowman is really fun too.
Original article by Molly Cunnigham can be found at Live-in Nanny. Article reposted with permission!
February 8, 2012
Frugal Living Challenge – Days 4 and 5
Day 4

Reducing your household bills. Again, another great article over on Frugally Sustainable! Most of the tips she suggests I already try to do. Things like getting rid of cable and a landline. Although there are a great number of educational shows I miss, I can find them online if I really want to watch them, but even better I can head outside with my kids, or create something inside with them. I do miss a landline, and Mark and I have looked into putting one back in. Right now though, we’re doing fine with just our cell phones on a minimal plan (you really don’t need text messaging).

For this challenge I decided to try and save money on drying clothes. I already feel that I do a fair amount of saving by doing my laundry all in one day. But I could save even more by line drying some of our clothes, like delicates and the girls dresses. Not only will this save money by using the dryer for less clothes, but it will also save our clothes from unneccesary machine damage. I won’t even go into how many clothes my dryer has ripped apart recently (snapped bra strap, ties on girls dresses, holes in socks). Perhaps I need a new dryer, but really, it does it’s job, it’s just very rough on our clothes.

I know Mark isn’t as thrilled with this new adventure as I am, but he let me indulge as I used my amazon gift cards (thanks Swagbucks!) to purchase a retractable line dryer to hang across the basement.

I even started looking into these felted wool dryer balls. Supposedly they cut the drying time down a lot, and take the place of dryer sheets, cutting out that expense. Has anyone used these? I’d love to know if they’re worth it!

Day 5

Today’s challenge is cutting costs on your grocery budget. This is perfect for me today, since I didn’t get grocery shopping done yesterday, I will be headed out today. Andrea’s listed 50 tips on how you can save money on your grocery budget, and asked us to pick a couple to implement into our lives to save us money. Here are some of her tips I’m going to try out –
- Cook Ahead. I was planning on making a bunch of freezer meals anyways, for when baby comes. It wouldn’t hurt to start now, and either weekly or biweekly make a bunch of meals. I’ve pinned a ton of ideas for frozen meals, pantry meals, and crockpot meals that I can easily put together.
- Eat leftovers, instead of eating out. We don’t eat out a whole lot, but we do waste a fair amount of leftovers. I’ve already put this as one of my other goals to minimalize our waste, but it will also save on our grocery budget as well.
- Package your own snacks. I know I can do much better at this. The Princesses get hungry, and then I can’t find anything for snacks, so I buy gummies or candy for them. I’d like to be better at this. Perhaps have a bowl of veggies in the fridge that they can always get if they’re hungry. Or buy crackers, raisin, etc in bulk. While I’m at Winco today I’ll be checking the bulk section for any healthy snacks I can purchase.
Here are some things I have already changed that have shown a significant change in our grocery budget. I shop at a store called Winco. They only accept cash, debit, or checks. This cuts their overhead charges, allowing them to reduce prices, but also forces me to pay more attention to the money I spend. At winco you also have to bag your own groceries. One less person the store has to pay for a job we are perfectly capable of. I also am always on the lookout for their ads. They don’t go out often, but when they do they always have at least one coupon for a free item! So check your area for a similar style shopping experience. I also only go to the store once a week. I make a meal plan on monday, and then head to the store with a list so nothing is forgotten.

I can’t wait for tomorrow’s challenge!! By the end of the month I’m expecting to see our household expenses minimalized quite a bit through Andrea’s 23 days of Frugal Living, and I hope I can continue with all her advice after the 23 days!
January 10, 2012
Budget Wall Art: Love Is Spoken Here
When budgets are tight, but you need some inspiration or beauty added to your life, a little bit of DIY Wall Art is all you need.

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I pretty much spent my day yesterday looking at the wall in our front room. We had this large bare spot that needed something, but a framed picture would’ve looked too cluttered. We got to thinking about vinyl lettering and decided we’d go that route. Then Mark came up with the brilliant idea to just paint it. It would be a lot cheaper, and could actually fit into our budget.

The first step was designing what we wanted. I knew it would say “Love is Spoken Here”, but I still needed a good font. After playing around for a bit with the fonts, Mark sat down, and in 5 minutes had the whole design done on photoshop.

To humor Mark, and because not many people will make the connection, the font and star are taken from his favorite band – Smashing Pumpkins. The next step was finding someone to print our 2-foot by 3-foot design. We went with AlphaGraphics for just under $4! Now that’s a deal.

After picking up the poster, I taped it up on the wall and marked the corners where I wanted the final image to be.

Once I had it where I wanted it, I removed it from the wall to cut out the letters, creating a stencil. Anywhere the white wasn’t attached (middle of R), I laid some tape on to keep it in place. Then it was back on the wall.

At this point, I then used a pencil to trace the whole design right on to the wall. Finally the fun part! Painting. We used some black acrylic paint that we already had on hand. Mark helped for a little bit until Rosalina woke up from her nap. At that point I got Venice and Chloe to help take some pictures.

After we took the stencil off, I went back around a few of the edges with a fine brush. This helped fix where some of the paint dripped or seeped through the paper.

It only took about 5-hours from start to finish but was worth every minute and the neck ache. Did you notice my yard sale find? I picked that candle holder up knowing that this was exactly where it would be going!
June 14, 2011