How To Reduce Your Holiday Spending

Every year around this time we have to dig into our savings or put holiday gifts on credit cards. It’s as if the holiday music puts us into a money spending mood. If you’re tight on cash this holiday season you can still buy presents without breaking the bank. Here’s how.

• Plan a gift exchange. Instead of buying 3-4 co-workers presents and 5-10 relatives presents, set up a gift exchange. Each person in the group draws a name from a jar and you have to buy a present for that person. In this system, everybody buys 1 present and receives 1 present. The benefits of this system are plenty. You’ll save money since you’re only buying 1 present instead of several. There are also no hurt feelings if you neglect to buy someone a present, since you all agreed to participate in the gift exchange.
  
• Buy gifts as a family. Team up with your spouse / sibling to buy a present for a mutual friend or another relative. When you buy gifts jointly as a group it can save you a pretty penny.
• Edible gifts. Get them something they can eat. Usually presents like video games, DVD”s, gift cards, etc are much more expensive than edible presents. What’s so good about a present you can eat is that the other person will not care nor think about the amount you spent on it. Plus you’ll be sure they won’t regift it.
• Homemade gifts. If a gift is all about the thought that went into it and not about the cost, then surely a homemade gift would suffice. To save even more time and money,  make multiples of whatever you create and give that as a gift to everyone on your list.

What tips do you have for reducing any spending during the holidays?