I love giving gifts to people. I love letting them know that they were in my thoughts and are important to me. I am not, however, known for getting cards and gifts to people on time. I have good intentions, but I also have two very busy (and expensive) kiddos and between the lack of time and/or money when a gift-giving occasion pops up…sometimes I’m just not prepared for it. I have been doing a lot spring cleaning and organizing this year though and decided this needed to change.
Kids come with a lot of gift-giving moments. You find yourself suddenly needing gifts for friends’ birthday parties, teachers, family members, teammates, coaches, etc. I needed to find a way to be ready when one of these moments popped up. One day I grabbed one of those free local parenting magazines on my way out of the grocery store to read while sitting in the school car line (ughhh…the car line!). I was excited to see there was an article about this very topic! I was already in the process of turning over a new leaf in the gift-giving department and was looking forward to finding some more tips. Unfortunately, I was not impressed with the recommendations in the article which included going to garage sales for gifts and just using your Christmas gift bags no matter what the occasion was. I will touch on these suggestions later but the point is that this article made me realize I already had better ideas and should share them. So here ya go:

1) Be Prepared.
Don’t wait for an occasion to come up and THEN hope you have the time and/or money to get a gift for it. See a great sale on little items or something perfect for someone (even if you won’t have a reason to give them a gift for a while)?? Go ahead and take advantage of it and tuck it away for later! Holiday times, seasonal sales, annual events are all great times to find great deals on things that might make the perfect gift for someone later on in a pinch! One of my favorite ways to do this is by taking advantage of Bath and Body works coupons that come in the mail regularly.
They always include one coupon for a free item (which is small bottle of lotion) so don’t let those go to waste! Stash those little suckers away and add them to a gift card or box of candy for a great gift! OR, if you see the PERFECT gift for someone but don’t have a reason to give them a gift for a while, get it anyway! I am so guilty of seeing things and thinking “Sally would LOVE that” but not buying it because I didn’t ned a gift for her at the time. Not anymore. I recently saw a shop going out of business and saw they had something a friend of mine would love on clearance so I grabbed it up and stashed it away for later.

2) Be Organized
One gift-giving tip EVERYONE I know takes advantage of is re-using gift bags. Although if all I have on hand is Christmas bags, I will go out and buy new ones contrary to the advice that was given in the article I read. I love saving money but don’t love LOOKING cheap. Our biggest problem with the gift bags (as well as tissue paper, wrapping paper, boxes, etc.) is that we stored it all in the basement and it wasn’t super convenient to go dig around, find what we needed, come upstairs for the tape and scissors, and THEN possibly have to haul everything to another room to hide and wrap (if the gift is for another member of the household). I remember reading a book by Tori Spelling years ago and her talking about her mom’s “gift wrapping” room. I thought it seemed a little extreme and silly at the time but guess what I have now?


This is a little “sitting room” off of our master bedroom that we have never really had a perfect use for. Instead of trying to make it one specific room it has become the room for everything that doesn’t already happen in another room of the house. The steamer is in there for the laundry that sits in the basket too long waiting to be folded (always), a desk for my husband to store his crap… ahem I mean stuff, our luggage is stored in there so it is close to the closets and NOW there is a corner designated for gift wrapping!!! If you don’t have an “everything room” in your own home, a small corner of a closet, craft room, storage room or office would be fine too. You can find a lot of organizing ideas for wrapping supplies on Pinterest too including ideas for inside cabinet or closet doors if you don’t even have a spare corner. For our wrapping area I picked up this free cabinet that I found on a Facebook Swap Page, painted it up and put shelf paper inside. I use it to store scissors, tape, boxes AND gifts that I have purchased for people in advance. For the tubes of wrapping paper I use an old wicker hamper but a plastic one from the dollar store would do the trick too! I did buy the metal shelving and some “S” hooks to hang the tissue paper and gift bags, but they weren’t too expensive. I LOVE having this space to go to when it’s gift time and especially love that if my kids have gifts to give they love going in and picking everything out and wrapping them on their own! Some things I might still add: A large calendar above the cabinet to keep track of birthdays and other gift-giving or card-sending occasions coming up (and check them off as I find gifts for them). Also a small box with divider tabs to store greeting cards for all occasions .

3) Be Frugal
Notice I said frugal instead of cheap. Technically they mean the same thing I suppose, but I think of frugal as meaning “not spending money you don’t have to spend” and cheap as “not being willing to spend what it might take to get something good”. For example when I read the article about using Christmas gift bags for every occasion and getting gifts for your kids’ friends at garage sales, I thought “cheap”. Don’t get me wrong…I love a good garage sale find and if you know a kid that collects Pokemon cards and come across a sale where someone is selling their collection…PERFECT! But the article seemed to suggest that you just head to the closest garage sale and grab something and that kids don’t mind if it’s used, as long as it’s useful which is sweet in theory, but maybe not always 100% true.
So what are my “frugal” tips? First of all DO NOT spend $5 on a greeting card that the recipient will quickly glance at and then throw away (and if they are kids, maybe not even glance at). Cards have gotten so expensive and I don’t know about you, but I would rather put that money towards a gift. I completely refused to buy greeting cards for my kids’ friends for a while and we would just make a little “to and from” to put on their gift bag or I would have my kids make them a homemade card instead. But sometimes you do NEED a card and thank goodness I found the best secret ever! The Dollar Tree! They have a great selection of cards and as you would guess they are almost all $1! And guess what? The ones that AREN’T $1 are 50 cents!! I didn’t even know the Dollar Tree had anything that wasn’t a dollar, let alone LESS! And they are nice cards too! Lots of Hallmark cards and they always have a display with cards for the upcoming holiday that are those fancy, scrapbooky, 3D type cards.
I stop in the Dollar Tree once or twice a month and stock up on certain things and always grab some cards. Check out this deal I got one trip.

While you are there, grab some tape, gift bags and tissue paper to keep your gift-wrapping room well stocked and take a few minutes to browse in case there are any good small gift ideas! It’s a great place to get gifts for teachers…dry erase markers and erasers, flash cards, highlighters, glue sticks and other supplies they are always in need of. Grab a pack of Ferrero Rocher chocolates while you are there and then a free Bath and Body lotion from your gift station at home and you can create a great gift basket for a few dollars!
No matter how prepared or organized you are though there is always going to be that invitation that your kids forget to show you until the day before the party and you are low on cash. I have solutions for these moments too. The first one I like to call “keep the change”. I don’t pay for things with cash often, but when I do I don’t ever give exact change…always all bills. When my billfold gets full I dump the change into a little bowl at home. If something comes up (like a sudden gift that is needed), I take the change to the nearby coinstar at the grocery store and get bills for it to use as spending money. It’s surprising how much a small bowl of change usually adds up to and it’s a way to save money in small amounts over time without even realizing you are doing it. The coinstar machines usually charge between 9-10% although I know some of them offer gift cards instead of cash and if you go that route I don’t think there is a fee. Of course you could always go to your bank as well.
Another way to save up for emergencies is to use apps such as ibotta, shopkicks, etc. Earn money and then save it up to use when needed!

And Lastly…
4) Shop SMALL! This is one you will hear from me time and time again because it’s important to me. Anytime you can shop from a small business do it. When you shop small, not only are you helping an individual or family but you are almost ALWAYS going to be purchasing a product that was made with love, is more personal and unique than what you can find in the chain stores, and is sometimes a better deal and often better quality.