12 Frugal Days of Christmas ~ Part Two
The following is the second in a three part series written by Rachel who blogs at Keep it Simple. We are excited to have Rachel joining our team of contributing bloggers in 2009.
12 Frugal Days of Christmas!
On the fifth Frugal Day of Christmas, start thinking about shipping. Use your own boxes if you can, raid a recycling bin if you don’t have any. The earlier you ship the better! If you can, use your Mypoints giftcards to send as you won’t be required to pay shipping for those—Just postage! Know anyone travelling the way you are sending things? Ask them if they’d be willing to play Santa and deliver!
On the sixth Frugal Day of Christmas, trim that tree for less! Do you buy a real tree? If so, call around to all the tree farms and tree lots to ask about rates. Find out if any of them offer any sorts of discounts. I know of a tree lot that offers discounts to clergy!
Consider also buying an artificial tree once the after Christmas sales hit. They will save you money and so much mess!
If you don’t have a whole lot of decorations, please don’t rush out and buy some! Make a pop corn chain! Hang up what you do have and try to add just one ornament per year. My husband and I have been doing this, and it brings back memories as we hang them up! Set a limit on the amount of time you’ll have the lights plugged in for. Those energy bills do add up!
On the seventh Frugal Day of Christmas, start thinking about meals. Once it gets closer and closer to Christmas, there are more and more events and things to do! Start making a little something extra now to stick in the freezer to prevent yourself from grabbing take out later! Spaghetti, lasagna, soup, taco meat, all these things can be easily multiplied when you make them and then frozen.
On the eighth Frugal Day of Christmas, make a plan of attack for holiday traditions and the things you do for your family to make the holidays special. If there is a tradition on your list that is particularly expensive, like all going out to a movie together, cut it out this year and replace it with something more affordable. Here are some ways we make the holidays special with no or little money:
- Christmas caroling! I loved doing this, especially the hot cocoa and cookies that followed!
- Sledding! Both my sister and I remember sledding with daddy as little girls. He took us out on Christmas Eve in the day so mom could wrap presents! We used whatever we had to sled with, garbage sacks, plastic, sometimes a sled, but we never bought anything to make this happen.
- Christmas Light Night! Bundle up and take the kids out to check out the Christmas light displays! My mom gave each of us a Christmas cookie of our choice, usually our handprint sugar cookie!
- Make sugar cookies together and decorate them! We still do this as adults and love it!
- Watch a Christmas movie at home! We watch It’s a Wonderful Life every Christmas Eve!
- Sleep out under the tree! I know a family who does this together. I can’t remember if it’s the first day the tree is up or Christmas Eve, but it’s a cute tradition!
- Watch for free community events! Parades, live nativity, free Christmas programs, holiday bazaars, Santa visits, you name it!
Stop by Rocks In My Dryer for more WFMW.
Check back tomorrow for part three of the 12 Frugal Days of Christmas. If you are interested in guest blogging for Happy to be at Home’s Frugal and Fabulous Christmas email the 3 moms at 3moms@happytobeathome.net.
AUTHOR | Toni
Toni, one of the original 3 Moms, is a military wife and stay-at-home(schooling) mom of six, soon to be seven great kids. On her personal blog, The Happy Housewife, she writes about saving money, healthy eating, recycling, homeschooling, life as a mom, and crafting.
Great ideas. The one about having extra food around really resonates with me. I was just thinking that December is the month when we end up eating out the MOST.
I am trying to stick to a meal plan as much as we can. I know we have so many things to attend though. We are doing some CHRISTmas caroling next week with our church. It is so much fun!
Great ideas! Love these!!
My favorite inexpensive way to decorate the tree and the house is to take Christmas cards received, keep them, and re-use them as ornaments or decorations around the house, putting them in frames, hanging them from a chain. Sometimes we can cut them up into shapes and such. I also love to reuse tins if we were given cookies, and use them to hold things around the house (like Boy Scout popcorn tins are always festive).
Construction paper cut into chains are nice too. Or you can take construction paper and make these crafts which I plan to do again that we did last year. Really simple and fancy looking when clustered!
http://www.crazyadventuresinparenting.com/2007/12/easy-holiday-crafts-for-your-kids-and.html
We didn’t have many kid ornaments this year (I normally have a fancy tree) so we took old happy meal toys & attached fishing line. The tree looks great & the kids got to help!