Ok so it’s not feeling like Christmas unless you celebrate Christmas on the sun.  But Christmas 5 short months away so I say lets think about.  One of the keys to staying debt free is to not overspend on gifts in order to do that you need to plan.  Start shopping now look down the clearance aisles and make a list of people you’d like to buy a gift for this year.  Keep it tucked in your purse and cross off the people as you find gifts.  Even if you are paying full price at least you are spreading that spending out over 5 months and not charging it all come December.  But you’re not here to talk about paying full price for gifts so lets see if we can come up with some frugal ideas:

• One of my favorite gifts growing up was what my mom called the creative gift.  Every year I got some sort of art/craft gift and they were always my favorite.  Now is the perfect time to do this for any of the kids on your list.  Next week Staples is supposed to have the free bag (backpack or shoulder bag) after rewards again so you could pick up a backpack to fill or wait a few weeks and find a backpack on sale.  Start shopping all the back to school sales now by the end of the summer you’ll have accumulated a mountain of crayons, paper, glue sticks, scissors, markers, etc.  Once you’ve got lots of goodies stuff them all in the backpack or a rubbermaid container and put a bow on it.  I guarantee it’ll be a hit with the kids on your gift list.
• Consider making gifts for friends and family.  You can really save quite a bit of money on homemade gifts and they are always appreciated.  Almost everyone has a child, grandchild, or pet in their lives so you could make them a photo gift (either by hand or online) and it’ll be a hit.  Keep your eyes peeled as you will see companies like Shutterfly, CVS, Walgreens, and many more will start putting photo gifts on sale pretty cheap.
• Since you are thinking about homemade gifts think about your cooking skills.  Do you make fantastic cookies or great freezer meals depending on the people on your list making an extra casserole when you cook dinner and giving that to your friends/family for Christmas might be greatly appreciated.  Or if you are like me and don’t have much family local and no one that would appreciate dinner with no work then test out a few cookie recipes.  I’ve made cookies, chocolates, covered potato chips, chex mix and mini rum cakes for my neighbors, hubby’s coworkers and mailed some to family and they are always appreciated.

I’m going to do my best to showcase one homemade gift each week between now and sometime before Christmas LOL.  I make no promises but I’m going to try and get one posted a week to help you complete your Christmas gift list on the cheap.  If you have any suggestions or would like to share something you do I’m open to guest posts or would be happy to share your ideas in my next post.