‘Tis the season to be holly jolly with bows and gift bags galore. There’s nothing quite like waking up to presents under the tree, illuminated by the soft glow of the twinkling lights. But there’s nothing quite like the hangover of blowing the holiday budget out of the water either. To help you stay merry and bright without cursing your credit card like it’s the Grinch that stole Christmas, we cover over favorite thrifty Christmas gifts (or frugal holiday gifts if you don’t celebrate Christmas) below that your friends and family won’t return to sender.
Top 10 Ideas for Thrifty Christmas Gifts
Give the gift of memories with a photo album or collage
This thrifty Christmas gift is tried and true in the grandparent realm. Take a family photo together, and then find a cheap but cute frame that says “I <3 My Grandma” or Grandpa or Meewmaw or Peepaw, whatever endearment runs in your family. Regardless of what you call them, gift them the memory of time with the grandkid(s). That frame will be on the wall or shelf forever, and will spark happy memories each time.
This can work for friends and spouses as well. Make a collage of your favorite times together so they can call those memories to mind every time they glance over. If you’re into DIY and artistic by nature, you can even design the collage frame or style yourself. If you aren’t as crafty (AKA me), grab a cheap photo album from Walmart and add some 4”x6” prints. CVS photo always has coupons going for discounts on prints.
Bonus points: add a twist to a traditional photo collage and turn it into a custom photo calendar for a full year of enjoyment! If they like to travel, fill it with their favorite vacation destinations for all seasons. If they have young kids, fill it with family photos for them. I always love visiting my brother’s and seeing which photo of my nephews is featured for the month.
Make a coupon book for nights off from household chores
I know, I know, it sounds cheesy, but hear me out.
After working 9 to 5 all day (what a way to make a living), it sucks to come home to a second full-time job of cleaning and cooking and chauffeuring and laundry. And, and, and… the list goes on forever.
Some nights, you might not be up to adulting. Wouldn’t it be nice after an exhausting day of dealing with Lumbergh and the Bobs to skip cooking dinner and doing dishes and head straight to a bubble bath instead with your favorite Colleen Hoover read? Cash in that coupon, baby! (And see the note below regarding bath bombs too.)
We are DINKWADs (dual income, no kids, with a dog). Since we both work, we split chores, and that certainly helps combat burnout at the end of the day, but there are still days when I don’t want to deal with cooking dinner while my husband does the dishes, or I don’t want to match and fold the million socks and undershirts in the dryer while my husband vacuums.
Just know your audience here. I would love a coupon book for Christmas, but my husband actually enjoys his weekly grocery store runs, which are an excuse to get more exercise since he rides the bike. He also enjoys doing the dishes, since it provides him time to zone out and listen to his podcasts without me interrupting him with a million questions or random thoughts. This frugal gift is a much better idea for me than it would be for him.
Also, if you’re gonna do it, do it right. Don’t be stingy and be throwing in BOGOs or only one free pass per chore. I wanna see at least one per month for a year (that’s twelve for those of you counting). With no terms or conditions for redemption. These aren’t hotel rewards points. This is a Christmas present to celebrate.
This can work for non-spouses too. You can offer a free night of babysitting, a day of yard work for your neighbor, a free guitar lesson for a friend. Get creative! Just think of all the things they bartered for in Raising Hope with Burt Bucks. (It’s NOT a pyramid scheme!)
Make a recipe book with family favorites
My brother isn’t exactly a picky eater, but he isn’t exactly not a picky eater either. So one year for Christmas, I put together a recipe book for him after polling the audience (AKA him and his wife) of what foods he liked and which he would feed under the dining room table to his dog.
I scoured the internet and found a bunch of recipes for meals that weren’t too fancy and didn’t take too long to make. It’s been a hot minute, but I’m pretty sure I organized them by type too (i.e. vegetarian, poultry, seafood, pork, beef, etc.).
It was a fun project for me, and I bookmarked a lot of the recipes I found for us to try as well. Not only did it provide me with fringe benefits, but it’s something they seem to have gotten a lot of use out of it.
If you’re crafty, do it scrapbook style. Make it all nice and fancy and give it a true personal touch. If you aren’t, do what I did and buy a simple ½” or 1” three-ring binder and some page protector sleeves.
Bonus points: if they’re frugal too, focus on budget-friendly recipes. My favorite site to explore is BudgetBytes.com.
The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, so bake him some sweets
Man, woman, doesn’t really matter. Around the holidays, everyone loves some sweets. You don’t have to be Ratatouille to rock this Christmas present. Make some peppermint fudge or some brownies from a box. Or cookies! You can’t go wrong with cookies. Roll them out of a plastic sleeve, set a timer, and pray you set the oven to the right temperature.
One of my husband’s favorite Christmas traditions growing up was the tin of holiday cookies his grandmother made him every year. Our neighbors grew up with a similar tradition and picked up the cookie gifting torch. Last year, they brought him his Christmas sugar cookies when we went for a walk, and he finished the entire batch before we got home.
Explore recipes for some of our favorite holiday treats:
- White chocolate peppermint fudge
- Strawberry cheesecake (I always requested this from my hubby when we were dating)
- Christmas sugar cookies
- Chocolate covered pretzels
- Cheesecake stuffed red velvet cookies
- Gluten free pumpkin chocolate chip muffins
Pro tip: Keep an eye out on sales and coupons for ingredients in the local ads to elevate your thrift game.
Try your hand at homemade candles or bath bombs
I went through a phase of bath bombs and loved every minute of it until I discovered I was allergic to ecupalyptus. Nothing was nicer after a long day sweating in an aircraft hangar in the Florida summer than coming home to soak in some lavender goodness. What I didn’t love was the price, especially at high end places like Basin. I tried the Walmart ones, which were more budget friendly, but the dye coloring made me nervous we were going to stain the tub, and I was worried the chemicals wouldn’t be so great to absorb into every pore of my body.
Then I found out how cheap it was to DIY them at home. I already had essential oils for my diffuser, so I bought a cheap mold set off Amazon, a few simple and budget friendly ingredients, and went to work.
Everyone got bath bombs that year, unless they didn’t have a bathtub. I found a recipe for shower fizzies and gifted those to my friends, too.
Articles to help you get started:
- DIY aromatherapy shower fizzies
- DIY relaxing lavender bath bombs
- DIY bath salts make great holiday gifts too if you don’t want to buy molds
I like anything with citrus.
If your friends and family are Bath & Body Works (or Yankee) candle freaks like me, but you can’t justify the price tag to replenish their stock, try your hand at making candles instead. My sister-in-law did this, and my mother loved it. I haven’t tried this myself yet as I seem to be allergic to everything I inhale these days with my immune system, but I have a few bookmarked to try:
Mix a customized playlist (or CD if you’re old school like us)
Music is my love language. I used to blare Linkin Park with the windows down on my commute into work. A coworker once stopped me in the parking lot to ask if I really needed the music that loud.
The answer was yes, yes I did.
One of my most treasured gifts I got from my husband back in ye old days when we were dating was a mixed CD he made for me of electronic music. (He was quite the little DJ.) I still have it to this day, and am making a mental note to put it in the car for my next stint of errands, since it’s been a hot minute since I’ve listened to it.
I’ve gotten mixed CDs from friends for Christmas, and we’ve given them as well. It’s better to give and receive, because who doesn’t need a little more music in their life?
If you haven’t had a computer with a CD burner in the past decade, fear not. You don’t have to be a dinosaur to make this gift work. Build a custom Spotify playlist especially for your friend or family member and include a QR code to it with a special note on your musical selections in their card.
Bonus points: Save the $5 of a store-bought card and gift them a homemade card to compliment their custom playlist.
If you know, for instance, they’re a Breaking Benjamin fan (which is what I’m currently listening to while writing this), you could do a playlist mixing new and old jams including:
- Starset
- 30 Seconds to Mars
- Within Temptation
- Smash Into Pieces
Okay, I’m basically building myself a playlist, so I’ll save you the scrolling. You get the point. This custom gift not only shows you pay attention to their interests, but that you appreciate them enough to browse the million songs streaming for the ones you think they’ll like the most. That’s BFFs right there.
Just don’t reduce, reuse, recycle this gift from one girlfriend to the next. Do you hear that, Chandler Bings of the world? No one wants a surprise Janice voiceover on their Christmas present.
Put together a DIY hygge/personal care/spa kit
If you have someone in your inner circle who is stressed and needs a Relaxi Taxi, consider helping them pamper themselves this holiday season. You don’t have to break the bank with an expensive gift card for Hand and Stone. Instead, build them their own self care kit to relax and unwind at home.
Consider including:
- Your favorite essential oil (there are far cheaper brands than Doterra. Try Plant Therapy on Amazon for instance)
- A homemade candle or a batch of your DIY bath bombs
- A pair of fuzzy socks
- A QR code for a spa playlist you made them on Spotify
- A cheap but cute journal (journaling is therapeutic for the soul)
Gift a book and a reading list
Books can get expensive, so proceed with caution here, especially if you’re a bibliophile like I am. It’s easy to get carried away and blow the budget with one stop at Barnes and Noble.
Instead, head to a local independent bookstore that has gently used secondhand books that look brand new. (Do not be out here gifting books with creased spines or my ghost of Christmas past will haunt you until New Years.) You can also keep an eye out for book sales online. Or opt for chains like Books-a-Million that have a huge selection of bargain books to shop from.
Along with gifting them a single book, give them the gift of additional possibilities as well. Include with the book a curated list of recommended reads especially for them that align with their literary tastes.
Bonus points: If your friend is frugal like you, cross reference your recommended reading list to what’s available at their local library for them.
Make homemade ornaments
This one we haven’t done yet, but it’s on my want to do list since we saw homemade ornaments that were too cute for words dangling from our neighbor’s Christmas tree.
There are dozens of different ideas on ornament styles that range in complexity depending on your artistic skill level. A quick Google search took me to Gingersnap Crafts, which had a wealth of examples you could use for inspiration. This thrifty Christmas gifting idea was born to live on Pinterest, and I’m sure there are multiple rabbit holes you can wander down there until you find one your family member or friend will really appreciate.
Shop early to snag something non-DIY
We’ve all seen the Christmas trees overrunning the stores in October. Forget about the turkeys, even Jack Skellington can’t get a word in holiday wise anymore. Black Friday is known as the mecca of holiday sales, but that doesn’t mean that’s the best time to snag a good deal.
Start scouring the store ads early. Like Santa, make your gifting list and check it twice. (Don’t forget to keep a running total of the estimated damage to compare to your budget.) Then cross check your list every week to the ads to see when prices drop. If you’re an Amazon fan, put price drop alerts on camelcamelcamel for your gifting list. Many stores have extended return windows during the holiday season, so if prices drop again, you can always return them and grab them at the cheaper price. Just make sure you actually do the return.
You can also shop post-Christmas clearance sales, when stores are trying to clear the shelves on December 26th. This is actually one of my favorite times to buy our one annual new ornament for our little Charlie Brown Christmas tree. It can be good for gifting too, but proceed with caution.
Buying presents an entire year early is a good way to forget what you’ve purchased and let it get lost somewhere in storage. It’s also a potential way to justify buying without an actual intentional gifting plan. Buying something 60% off is only a good deal if it’s actually a practical present to give someone that will bring them joy. If it’s something that you end up throwing into someone’s gift bag the following year because you want an excuse to get rid of it, you could have saved the 40% you spent and just opted out to begin with.
The final word
When shopping sales, be intentional and have a list. Make sure each purchase has an end goal. Not everyone and their mailman needs a Christmas present, especially not from you when you’re on a mission to keep the budget from bursting.
BTW, the same holds true for all of the DIY options above as well. Don’t just buy a bunch of bath bomb supplies and then end up bathing in citric acid for the next two months because you can’t actually think of anyone who might enjoy bath bombs as a gift.
That said, you can’t go wrong with DIY that you put thought and heart into. Giving someone a homemade gift, whether it’s a recipe book or cookies or something else, shows that you value them enough to not just spend your money on them but your time. And that is something most people cherish even more than the gift itself. As they say, it’s the thought that counts.
Just don’t be that guy that says you thought about baking them cookies, but didn’t have time. Follow through counts too, bro!
Have a wonderful holiday season everyone! If you have a tradition of homemade presents or if you’ve gifted a thrifty present that was a smashing success, share it in the comments below. We’re always looking for more ideas.