ABCs of Frugality: Don’t Go Broke This Christmas Part 1

We are now in the holiday mode from now until the end of the year. Retailers are pushing their wares on use much faster this year than ever before to try to make up for lost sales from the rest of this year. Now is the time to heed some warnings about saving money during the holidays so you don’t get yourself into money problems later after the holidays.

I met Nadia Crum from ABC Frugality and she has a series of articles that I think will help everyone save money during the holidays and also be smart shoppers. Stay tuned every Wednesday as Nadia shares a new part of her series with us.

This is Part 1 of the “101 Ways to Save Money During the Holidays and Start the New Year Ahead of The Game” series written By Nadia Crum from A-B-C Frugality

Visit A-B-C Frugality to discover hundreds more ways to save this holiday season!

1. Watch your waistline – and your wallet. With so many parties and events, you’re sure to be overindulging in goodies and rich food this month. Now’s the time to experiment with some frugal dinner recipes like fiber and protein rich Beans-and-Rice and inexpensive sides such as in-season produce.

2. When they offer, you will take them. When you are offered leftovers at holiday gatherings, take them! You can save a ton of money by taking home a plate of dinner leftovers,
which can often feed your family for another night or two and save you two dinner’s worth of grocery costs.

3. Booze frugally. If you are hosting a holiday party this year, don’t feel the need to stock your liquor cabinet with 10 different kinds of expensive hard liquor. Create a signature drink for the evening: Mojitos, vodka-cranberry, rum-spiked eggnog, for example. List your signature drink on the invite and inform guests that they are free to BYOB if the signature drink doesn’t interest them. Serve your signature drink with 2 or 3 different types of appetizers and call it good.

4. Watch your cell phone minutes. Often in December we spend hours catching up with those we haven’t spoken to in quite a while,and cell phone minutes can run out very quickly. Take advantage of those free nights and weekends to catch up with loved ones.

5. Warm your heart, not your home. This time of the year also naturally inclines us to turn
up the heat to make our home nice and cozy. We are trying to avoid the January headache of receiving increased bills due to our delightful December, so keep your thermostat down and snuggle up under a blanket with your husband or wife, and put the kids in those cute Christmas-themed footsie pajamas. Don’t underestimate the power of a fireplace to warm your home. No fireplace? Try some strategically placed candles. Even in an area as small as an apartment, candles have the ability to create an atmosphere of warmth and glowing joy.

6. Don’t light up the sky. Don’t overdo it on the Christmas lights. Two or three strands are really all that are necessary for festivity and fun. Watch the type, too: icicle lights have many more bulbs than a single strand, so they’re going to cost more to run. Pay attention to how long you have your lights on each day. Again, follow the 2-3 rule. Three hours (6:30-9:30pm, for example) is a good amount of time to have your lights on to signify your participation in yuletide festivities without immensely impacting your electric bill.

7. Share the love with a gifting arrangement. If you’ll be going to gatherings where gifts for all is the general rule, try some sort of a gifting arrangement. Our extended family (Aunts, Uncles, Cousins) gathers at Thanksgiving and we draw names out of a hat so that each person receives one gift, and no one is left empty handed. Our wallets aren’t left empty either. It’s always a good idea to set a monetary cap on gift arrangements – we say a gift valued at no more than $30 is appropriate, but tailor that to your family’s needs.

8. Don’t buy expensive trash. Wrapping paper is exactly that – it serves its purpose for a week or two and then becomes trash.Buy the cheapest wrapping paper you can find, or better yet, get creative with wrapping paper alternatives. Gift baskets need no wrapping paper, many gifts can be quaintly wrapped in fabric quarters or cute kitchen towels, or try newspaper (have the kids decorate the newspaper with paints and markers).

9. Spending a fortune on seasonal decorations makes no sense. You’ll have the decorations out for 4-6 weeks maximum, so don’t spend more than a few dollars on décor. The local dollar store most likely has all the candles, fake poinsettia and window clings you’ll need to deck your halls for under $10. Save your decorations from year to year; I’ve been buying dollar store decorations for four years now and have a bevy of décor for our home.

10. Let Mother Nature decorate your home. A beautiful decoration for your Christmas tree or porch railing is the old fashioned popcorn string (which also makes a great craft for Mom or Dad & the kids): Take some stale popped popcorn, string it onto some cheap thread, and if you like string some cranberries on for variation and color (the frozen ones are cheapest).It’s a beautiful decoration and it’s good for the birds.

About Nadia
Nadia is a young Army wife and mother of two small children who enjoys shopping for the hottest deals and researching ways to save her readers $1000s of dollars each and every month. Her family lives a fun frugal lifestyle and she is pursuing her degree in Education while her husband bravely serves our country. To find out more about a frugal and fun lifestyle of abundance, visit her blog at A-B-C Frugality