Christmas is officially only five months away. In past years I have always saved around $50 each month in a separate savings account for my Christmas shopping. However, this year life is a little different and I haven’t stashed away that $50 a month.
Not to despair though! I am actually glad that I will have less money to spend. I have been trying to scale back and essentially “unspoil” my kids. So, a scaled back Christmas is appreciated this year. I am not going to stress out over buying less Christmas presents for everyone, but I am going to get more creative in earning money for Christmas
Unspoiling My Kids
How many of you have young kids who hold interest in a toy for longer than five minutes? I know mine sure don’t. It seems like the more stuff my kids get the more they want and the less they play with it. It’s absolutely pointless to buy young kids a bunch of toys that get thrown in a pile.
I have cleaned out and threw so many toys away over the past few months, and I am done with it! If you get your kids less stuff then they will start to appreciate what they do get. I am set on mission unspoiling. I want my kids to appreciate what they have – not demand more.
Since my girls are getting a bit older and are able comprehend larger stories and books, we will read a bunch of books on the true meaning of Christmas. I am going to encourage them to then make their own stories and crafts as present for family members on the true meaning of Christmas. I think this activity will help my girls really understand what Christmas is about instead of buying into the commercial hype.
I also want to adopt two kids to give presents to for Christmas. There are tons of people who have it much, much worse than we do. I want my girls to value helping others at a young age.
Saving & Earning Money For Christmas
With Christmas only five months I need to start saving at least a little bit of money. I am going to save $25 dollars a month from now until December. This will leave me with $125 plus I can use money from my Christmas Bonus at work. I am also going to go my normal route and try to earn a little extra money. I think that this will be plenty of money for the Christmas I have in mind this year.
Last year I used money I earned from Swagbucks and Inbox Dollars to help fund my Christmas spending. I am going to do the same this year.
Inbox Dollars is a program where you can “read” emails for money. They send you a few emails each day and all you have to do is open them and click the “confirm paid email” button at the bottom. You get .02 for every email read. It’s a very small amount of money but it literally takes 3 seconds to view the email. You can also search the web, take surveys, and complete special offers. I normally just read the emails.
Your account has to reach $30.00 before you can request a payout and right now I have $23.47 in my account. I am going to keep reading emails and complete any special offers that appeal to me. It will be nice to have this little bit of extra money at Christmas time.
Swagbucks rewards you through points called “swagbucks.” You can earn points by searching the web, taking surveys, playing games, and completing special offers. I just use the search engine feature. You get randomly awarded swagbucks when you search. It takes 450 Swagbucks to get a $5 Amazon gift card. I currently have 49 swagbucks. I think I can easily earn 2 – 3 gift cards by December just by using their search engine.
(Those are my referral links above.)
It’s time to start planning ahead! Have you thought about Christmas yet? Have you started saving for it or do you normally just spend last minute?
I have a Christmas club through our bank that pays out in October. They take out $30 every 2 weeks. Whatever is left after the shopping is done goes either to debt or into savings.
That’s a good idea. I like having automatic savings. I took $50 a month out last year and it worked well for me.
“Christmas is officially only five months away.” Ok…where HAS this year gone?! I could not agree more though. We have been trying to do this for several years as our parents send the kids so much stuff that we have become overrun with stuff. We’ve moved to asking them to only send a gift or two and then send the rest in cash. We put that away along with 90% of what we’ve budgeted and use it throughout the year for activities for them they enjoy or stuff like swimming lessons.
That reminds me I need to have a talk with my mom. It really does no good though. My mom goes overboard buying my kids presents, I asked her last year not to get them so much and I felt like she got them twice as much stuff as I did!
Swagbucks is the real deal. I probably started with them 3 or 4 years ago and so far I have collected a little over 348,000. I take advantage of Amazon and Southwest Airlines gift cards.
I have not collected near that amount…but that would be amazing. I usually go on and off with it. I’ll do good for awhile then I forget and start using Google to search! I need to search with Swagbucks all the time, you can’t beat getting Amazon gift cards for nothing.
Have you tried using Plink? I’ve used them for the past 8 months and have discovered that it has been a great benefit for my husband and I. We have been saving our points for Christmas Shopping and have already made it to $300.00
They recently added Dollar General as a merchant and it only takes a $3 purchase to get 25 points. Believe me, they add up very quickly. Check it out, you might find it useful.
Best of luck!
No I have never heard of it before. I will have to check that out. Is it a rewards card type deal? I am going to Google it now or check out your blog…Thanks for the tip!!
The program is tied to your bank account, i was hesitant at first but after some research into the program I decided to give it a try. I’m glad I did, it has been the easiest and fastest way to rack up points. Especially since we have to purchase gas anyway, and we shop so often at dollar general, it has been a great source in helping to suppliment our income. The rewards can be used at Walmart and a bunch of other stores. I hope this helps.
Honestly, my family never bothered with gifts for the holidays, and I think it was one of the best financial and personal development decisions. We would have a nice dinner, and a couple of years I did get some thoughtful but non-extravagant gifts like the Nancy Drew books. I always thought the holidays were so wasteful – all that packaging and money spent on items that almost always end up at the Thrift store or in the closet. I’d say it’s a great decision for you to do this, especially since I’m sure your kids will benefit more greatly from money invested elsewhere for them. Or go to a used item store – you get way more things for the money, and you’re helping the environment!
When I was a kid my family went way overboard and it was unnecessary. My parents would max out their credit cards to get me and my brothers tons of presents. By January 1st we had forgotten about the majority of them. I think there’s a lot more to learn when you get less – you start to appreciate what you do have and show more respect for your stuff.
Hey! I just started thinking about Christmas too! But, i need to get thru ” Back to School ” supplies first.
I love your idea of “Project UnSpoiling” ! Have you heard this little rhyme ?
” Something they want, Something they need, Something to wear, and something to read!”.
I love that.
I think your kids are a little young to give toys away to other kids that are worse off. I know from experience that this can really back fire and turn in to a big headache. We used to join with friends for a ” Birthday Party for Baby Jesus!”. This was simple and fun. A few cupcakes and sing ” Happy Birthday”. It helps the kids remember Jesus and not just Santa and Gifts!
I used to buy the kids presents ahead of time. The month before Christmas the advertisers go bonkers with ads for new products. I always had a kid asking for something on their Letter to Santa that was a brand new product that I had never heard of !!!! Grrr…
Great post!
~ christie
Yes!!!! I have heard that before but I couldn’t remember how it went. I was trying to think of it when I wrote this post. Thank you! The birthday to baby Jesus is also a great idea. I know my kids are still pretty young but I want to teach them about giving to other people at a young age so that it hopefully sticks with them. We will see how it goes…
I’ve saved nothing this year so far for Christmas. My kids always get gifts from others and money for their education accounts. Last year I only bought a few gifts each as I was very broke. This year will be similar. My oldest knows enough to understand now. The little ones like to have lots of gifts to open, but you’re right, they don’t play with any of it.
My girls like to have lots of presents to open as well. But 95% of them don’t get played with. I am hoping that in these coming months I can began to teach them presents aren’t everything. I have been giving them a lot more of my attention lately and I have already noticed they stop asking for me to bring them a “surprise” (usually a sucker) when I pick them up from the babysitter, instead they have been asking me to read or play with them. It will be hard but I really do want to unspoil them.
I have a holiday club account at my bank. I started it late last year, but managed to save enough for all my family. Between my husband and I, we have 13 people to buy for! We were pretty frugal last year, and bought a bunch of presents on sale. I also took advantage of Amazon’s free shipping, and found a lot of presents for my siblings online. I save a set amount per week for Christmas, which is going to give us almost $400 over our planned budget for Christmas. This money is going to be used to buy birthday presents for 2014.
The presents I love best are the home made ones. My mom made me and my husband matching aprons one year, and sewed me a skirt the next year. Those are so meaningful, because I know how much hard work went into the creation of those items! Unfortunately, my creative skills are limited to sewing basic hats or slippers, or making very basic earrings. 🙁
Don’t feel bad. I have very little to no creative skills when it comes to crafty things. I still like to try though! Wow 13 is a lot of people! Last year I asked most people in my family not to buy me anything and I think they were relieved! Which was good for me because it also took the pressure off of me. I still have a few nieces and nephews to buy for and my girls.
I start saving (and buying) early as well. I am totally guilty of buying my kids nice things at garage sales in the summer and acting like Santa brought them at Christmas.
Amen! Those darn kids really do get way too much every year! 🙂
I personally max out my credit card rewards all throughout the year. Usually by the time Christmas rolls around I’ve got almost $1000 saved up for either cash or gift cards.
Last year during the Summer we found two $70 Lego sets that were marked down to $35. I bought one for my son and the other for my nephew. It was pretty bad ass seeing them get so excited to open such a large set that was purchased on a budget.
I love that you plan to adopt a family. That is really kind of you. We actually sponsor my old grandma for Christmas who is on a very tight income.
Great post!
I learned my lesson when it comes to showering my children with Christmas gift. We gave them more, they play less. So last year we got smarter and bought them one thing each. My 2 year old son loved the box much more than the toy itself. LOL. The box!