Same-Sex Households
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Thrifty Thursdays...
I really like these weekly financial related posts, so I'm going to try to bring 'em back.
Holidays are expensive, and that's putting it mildly. What are your tricks to keep spending to a minimum?
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Re: Thrifty Thursdays...
Together, DW and I have a large extended family. Many of these relatives are scattered across the country and we won't see them for Christmas.
While I know it's not necessary to give a gift to everyone that sends a gift to you, I feel compelled to do so. This year alone, we have already received 4 gift baskets in the mail. You know the type, Omaha S.teaks, H.arry & David, etc. (And, I can't tell you how funny we find it that we have already graduated to the stage in life where we receive steaks, fruit baskets and candy towers for Christmas! lol)
After some number crunching a few years ago, a little shock, and some research, we started the tradition of mailing homemade holiday cookies to this segment of our Christmas shopping list. They gifts have been well received and end up costing us about $13 per gift, including shipping.
We also try to pick gifts up throughout the year, and spend sometime in late October putting together our Christmas shopping list and budget. We're still spending a little more than I'd like, but it's not as out of control as it's been in previous years.
You haven't seen one lately because we only do them the first Thursday of the month. No reason you can't do them more often if you'd like.
We really tried to keep spending to a minimum with the boys. And everything we bought was on sale - but what we wanted. I have become a bargain hunter and peruse slickdeals.com and the baby bargains budget boards daily for coupons codes/deals. This year I was able to get their Leapfrog Tag systems for more than 50% off using coupons (was $49 - paid $20), got their scooters for 20% off, etc. I also use FatWallet, Ebates, and Bing for cashback. I waited for weeks to get our Wii for Christmas until I found Target that was giving a $30 giftcard and a free nunchuck as part of the deal.
We're budgeters all year round, and the holidays are no exception. We are pretty minimal with gifts, and we set a dollar amount not to exceed. We keep track of all our holiday spending in an excel spreadsheet.
We buy for each other and immediate family - C's mom and dad, brother and his gf; my dad, stepmom, sister and grandma; my mom, stepdad and brothers. We also buy for one of our friends (yes, just one, LOL we just got into the habit of exchanging gifts with him) and our office gift exchanges.
We really get each person one or two things, not exceeding $25/$30. For each other, the budget is $50 (which we sometimes go over using our own squirreled away spending money). I know by many people's standards, that seems very light, but it's what works for us.
We definitely bargain shop and use sales and coupons to get more bang for our buck.
sahm ~ toddler breastfeeder ~ cloth diaperer ~ baby wearer
C thought of a good way to keep my spending down, she just told me that either we keep our (my) spending habits in check or we have two babies crawling around without diapers next year.
I must say, that worked for me!
LOL.....Yeah, I guess that would work!!!
Thanks for posting these sites. I've never heard of any of them....Off to check them out!
We limit our gift giving to immediate family with the exception of kids in the extended family. We look for good sales that will help us save money (not the sales that make you end up buying/spending more than you would have in the first place). If there are any sales that we see that are spend X, get Y free we will just shift our spending around rather than spending more on one child to get the free gift. This year we bought three of the young girls Tinkerbell toys and were able to get a fourth child's gift for free as a result. We spent the same amount of money on the three other girls that we were originally going to spend, but we saved $25 by getting the free toy.
We also go visit my extended family every year the week after Christmas. We typically don't exchange gifts - we consider enjoying each others' company our gifts to each other. It costs so much to travel home, so it's just kind of a thing we established when I moved. It all started one year when I asked someone what they wanted for Christmas and they just said, "A visit from you."
We also establish a separate account for holiday spending and establish a budget based on that account. We make sure to stick to the budget - no exceptions.
I missed this yesterday but these ideas were really helpful, so I wanted to chime in.
We used to set a holiday budget, but we've fallen off the wagon in recent years. We have a large gift list, but I make 2/3 of our gifts, typically something edible. This year we're giving caramel fudge, cheddar shortbread, chocolate biscotti, raspberry jam and cookie mixes. DW's relatives collect and send us canning jars all year, because we're the only people in the family who still can and they're a bit obsessed with this fact. And we recylce tissue paper. So the packaging of gifts ends up being free.
We also shop for gifts all year, although this is more a sanity-saving strategy than a cost-saving one. Nearly every member of our families has a birthday between October and December 25.