It may be too late....

Please excuse me for being low-key lately. Give me a break...it's the holidays.Which is what I'm here to talk about....

I've been on here preaching on how to save money, when in reality, I'm over here digging into my savings account and avoiding my credit card balance when I log onto Chase to see how much money I don't have in my checking account. I'm sure I can go ahead and speak for many of us here by saying the holidays are a tough time financially.

It's the season to give, and I am a giver, so there is no way that I'm looking to just stop giving gifts. You may receive less gifts or I might sit down and be like, "Hey. You're broke, I'm broke. Let's set a gift-giving budget." That way we have an understanding of the value of the gift you will be receiving, and you don't feel terrible when this person is getting you a $200 purse, and you baked them cookies. Some of you may feel there is nothing wrong about that, but if you're like me, you feel TERRIBLE and it just eats you alive that you couldn't do more for this person you love.

Now, I've got it bad (and in turn, so do those people close to me). Here is my calendar of events:
Dec 25: Christmas 

    Dec 29: Nathan's Birthday

          Dec 31st: NYE (aka spend a lot of money to get drunk in a nice dress, which you will ruin)
                Jan 1st: My birthday/New Years

Its exhausting. 

So here is what I did to save money this holiday season:

• Each person receives three gifts from me (plus little pitzly stocking stuffers.)
• 1) something they need 2) something they want 3) something they weren't expecting
• I've made DIY presents for my parents birthdays, and it turned out great. This time, I also made DIY presents for Christmas. I will not be telling who they are for or what they are at this time. How-to blog later, simply cause I want to show more people how GREAT the gifts turned out. I'm quite proud.
• Try buying experiences for someone rather than a physical gift. A memory will last longer. Well...hopefully.
• After you spent all this friggin' money on the actual gifts you still have to wrap it. You might as well tack on an additional $6 dollars to what that gift is worth since it takes that much to make it pretty. Wrapping paper, bags, and all that crap is so expensive..and we just disregard it. throw it away. crumple it up. please! come on! save that bag I paid $10 for it!!. Not sure when I became so cynical about this...Oh wait...yes I do. I don't work at Hallmark anymore so I can't make my presents look like they came out of Martha Stewart Living for only 50% of the price!!Although I'm not going to spend all that money, I still have the gift of making my presents look B-E-A-UUUTIFUL. Yes, this is a skill, and by some of the gifts I've seen and received....not everyone has it.
• I used to go to Hallmark, now I go to Target. They have pretty cute stuff. I bought a big roll of wrapping paper for $2.50. Still some left too!
• Forget bows. Seriously, I went to buy bows and a bag of like 7 bows was $5.00. Um, No. Buy ribbon!! I bought a huge spool of green,white,and red ribbon for $2.00 and it will last me through this and next year. You just need to learn how to be frickin' creative and tie that bad boy up! Just think...Christian Grey would love a present that is TIED UP.                             M-o-t-i-v-a-t-i-o-n.



I told you: Beautiful.

• Wait till about half way through December to buy bags if you need to. I went early to buy some bags at Target and ending up spending $3 because that's the cheapest bag they offered. Went back two weeks later....$1 bags magically appeared! It's because they bring out all the cheap ones after you purchased their expensive ones. They know.
• I made DIY Gift Tags. I'm not going to pay $5 on stickers, when I already have a TON from scrapbooking. Okay, so unless you have a grandma-ish hobby, as I do, I would just buy gift tags. Otherwise, make them! Cut a square out of scrapbooking paper, put a sticker on it!    Voila! 

Top Picutre: ...Made him enough space to right big...he writes tiny...wtf?
Bottom: go ahead...laugh. Its a tradition in my family to right silly names.

I'm sure there are many other secrets out there that I have yet to uncover. And yes, I do realize that by the time you read this, you've already wrapped all the presents. Here's to hoping you still have one left to wrap!

Happy Wrapping!