How to have a happy frugal holiday season?

Kswiss: How to have a happy frugal holiday season?
Every year, I spend WAY more that I should on Christmas presents, holiday baking and holiday shopping. This year, I will be moving into my first apartment and cannot afford to spend a lot of money. I am so stressed about it, that it is make me ill. I would still like to give decent meaningful gifts to my family and I would still love to do my holiday baking. Any advice would be much appreciated.

Answers and Views:

Answer by Lisa
First off there is nothing wrong with not having a lot money to spend over the holiday. It shouldn’t even be about that anyway. Your family should understand your financial situation if you tell them.

Congratulations on your apartment and welcome to adulthood where as you are finding out paying rent and utilities is your #1 priority.

I think you should start off by making a budget of how much you have to spend for Christmas.

Then make out a list of all the people you feel you have to purchase presents for. Then you can figure out how much to spend on each person.

Keep that list with you. Anytime you come up with an idea for a present write it down and see if you can find it in your budget. Or if you see something in the store write it down and keep watching to see if the price will drop.

If you are still finding that there’s just not enough money to go around consider only purchasing presents for the kids. Isn’t it all truly about them anyway?

You should still do your holiday baking. Food truly captures the holiday spirit. You could even bake each one of your family/friends favorite and place that in a gift box for them. I would tell them ahead of time though. It might not be a surprise but then you won’t feel cheap and awkward if they got you something really nice and you just handed over a box of cookies. If they know ahead of time that all you can afford to give them this year is a box of homemade cookies and they still decide to get you something expensive you have 0% guilt in accepting the gift.

Be honest. Your family and friends will understand. I would rather have a box of cookies baked with love and a hand written card over a present that caused someone else to be stressed out because they could barely afford it any day.