So I'll admit that my husband and I tend to over-spend on Christmas presents for each other every year. We have no kids or close family members, so we've always seen it as the perfect opportunity to spoil each other one time a year. But this year has been rough. We were living on my husband's income when he lost his job earlier this year. Thankfully he found a new job a few months later, but in the process we drained the savings account and charged up the debt on our credit cards. Ugh. So this year we decided to limit our budget to $300 each. It's been difficult, but it was do-able!
I used Mechanical Turk for about an hour or two a week and earned $50 to put towards gifts I purchased on Amazon.
I used coupons to get freebies or close-to-freebies to fill his stocking.
I used various survey apps to do in my downtime which helped score some great gift cards that I either gifted him or used to purchase gifts for him.
I used the Shop Your Way app to score a ton of points that I converted to freebies at Sears and Kmart. Boxers, undershirts, socks, a new water bottle, and (what feels like) an unlimited supply of body wash- ALL FREE. I even earned enough points to redeem for a few gifts for his secret santa exchange at work.
I sold some of my unused items around our house on ebay. I also scored some amazing deals on brand new items from ebay that were up to 90% off!
Lastly, every year I do a sweet, creative gift for him. Last year it was a "date of the month subscription" where I pre-paid and pre-planned dates for us for this year. This year I did something similar but they were cheap/free dates instead. :)
Happy frugal holiday everyone! :)
December 04, 2017 at 12:00PM
