Remember your holiday spending hangover last January? Start now to avoid the same thing in 2015 by resolving to change some of your gift giving habits.

At Community Purse, we are motivated by our Christian faith to help others in our community. Our philanthropy group helps members watch their spending and increase their saving in two ways. We offer money saving tips at our meetings (you will have to attend to find out!) and through our blog. The purpose of our blog is to give women the resources and wisdom they need to help free up money to donate to local charities. The idea is that by making small changes in their spending, each woman is able to donate $100 every 3 months ($33.33 a month). By pooling our donations together as a group, we can accomplish more for the community.

We all lead crazy, busy lives, which prompts us to seek quick tips, tricks and methods to make things easier and more efficient. In this post, we are going to focus on finding savings by rethinking our gift giving. The overarching point is to give thoughtful items that have meaning and try to avoid adding to the clutter in everyone’s homes.

15 Ways to Save on Gifts in 2015

  1. If you have an area of expertise…give that. If you love to bake, give cupcakes, cookies and candies. Do you sew? Make a personalized quilt out of old t-shirts.
  2. Offer to clean their car or help them de-clutter a closet.
  3. Take an inexpensive cooking or community class with them.
  4. Propose a no gift policy with your girlfriends and for birthdays, treat your friend to a lunch or dinner as a group.
  5. Suggest to family members that you will draw names and buy a present for just one family member this Christmas.
  6. Collect presents year round when you spot deals and store them in a gift drawer to avoid last minute overspending.
  7. Look for items that are in sets and then split them up to make several, inexpensive, gift baskets.
  8. Buy online if you are mailing the gift out-of-town. Many e-retailers offer free shipping on orders and this will save you time, shipping costs and gas.
  9. Give a magazine subscription.
  10. Give a treasured heirloom that you no longer need or use.
  11. Give babysitting coupons.
  12. Make a recipe book as a gift.
  13. Create a family video.
  14. Design a digital photo album.
  15. Produce notecards from a favorite picture image.

 

giving-a-giftFor even more ideas, use Pinterest as an inspiring resource for craft ideas and to learn creative ways to save throughout the year.

 

“Buying stuff is the happiness equivalent of dropping your money into a puddle. Giving it away? That’s pure sunshine”. Catherine Newman

Wisdom: In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil, but a foolish man devours all he has.” Proverbs 21:20 (NIV)