With Christmas looming, are you realizing that you don’t have enough money for all the gifts you want to get? Don’t worry. Here at Deal Locker, we understand the importance of a budget and have some ideas

1. Food Gifts. Everybody loves Christmas cookies, Christmas pies, and Christmas breads. Shortbread cookies are a good bet, as is cranberry orange bread, mince pie, and pumpkin pie. Coupons for a home-cooked meal are always appreciated.
2. Do-it-yourself food. Cookies in a jar is a fun gift - take a Mason jar and add each dry ingredient in a layer. Screw the lid on the jar, and decorate it with fabric and ribbon. Attach the recipe. The layers make it a beautiful gift, and it will be easy for the recipient to make cookies! Another idea is to make bags of apple cider spices.
3. Use your talents. If you are a knitter or a crocheter, make scarves or hats. If you don’t have time, use the coupon idea again, and tell the recipient that he or she can pick out the yarn and style of what they want.
4. Recipes. Back on the food theme, collect family recipes - all of those ones on index cards that are lying around in your kitchen collecting dust - and type them up, making a family cookbook. Places like Office Max will “publish” them very nicely for a low price.
5. Create gift baskets. Some trial size lotions and a few pretty soaps can be put in a basket with some tissue paper or cellophane and tied with a ribbon. It is low cost, but the time and effort put into it makes it a beautiful gift.
6. Photographs. Take some of those boxes of family photos or print out some photos off the computer, and make them into an album or frame them.
7. Coupons. Not coupons for a store - these coupons are for your loved ones who could use time or help more than more stuff lying around. Create a book of homemade coupons. Some ideas: a coupon for a night of babysitting, foot massage, a coupon for a specific household chore, or a coupon for an afternoon walk. Sometimes actions are truly better than things.

Of course if you need the other kind of coupons, those to save money when you buy stuff, you can find online coupons codes here. However, these gift ides will cost you little or nothing, but make a big impact on your friends and loved ones!

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 16th, 2007 at 11:28 am and is filed under Money saving ideas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.