I figured after a month sorting out our budgets, it’s worth pointing out that we’re going into the worst time of year for trying to keep them – with tons of holiday spending looming, I’ve been scouring the web and nearby stores for inexpensive (but NOT cheap) gift ideas. I’m a little crafty, but a lot of the DIY’s I find are either beyond me or require a $50 investment in crafting supplies to turn that Dollar Store Find into an Anthropologie masterpiece.

Also, I love Honey Boo Boo. I’m seriously a little too obsessed with that kid and her family. Hence the title of the series.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iod4goCORM 

I’ve been doing the Christmas shopping for my whole family since I got my drivers license at 17 and I love it! I’m not even a crazy, compulsive shopper most times (except with freaking ModCloth – my budget and I put a pox on your weekly e-mail updates, ModCloth! A pox that I refuse to unsubscribe to), but I love finding just the right things for people at reasonable prices. And by whole family, I mean my immediate family (the 4 of us), my mom’s side (about 5 more gifts) and then my dad’s side (about 85 people – seriously). My mom hands over her credit card for about two weeks and I become a personal shopper.

So over the next few weeks we’re going to look at things you can buy or make with a $5 budget per person.

A few general tips for an awesome holiday shopping experience:

1.) Start early. Honestly, November is much later than this rule was intended. Personally, I keep an eye out all year for great finds.

2.) Remember that the holidays, whichever you celebrate, even if it’s Festivus, is about togetherness (and psychotic competition – you Festivites). Gifts are just a reflection of love and appreciation, they’re not a competition. At least, they shouldn’t be.

3.) Coupons are your friends. So are rebate sites. Need to stuff a stocking? If you’re cool with a lot of it being candy, you should be able to get it dirt cheap by stalking a few online coupon sites for a few weeks. From bags of your generic Hershey brand candies to 2 for 1 higher class chocolate bars, they are regularly a steal. If you find a few talented coupon bloggers, you can do even better because they will tell you which store to take that coupon to for even better savings.

4.) Rethink your wrapping paper techniques. The best way to pick up holiday wrapping paper is to stock up the year before right after the holiday. Since that option isn’t available to you this year, other great ideas are repurposing other papers into wrapping paper (comics, newspaper, old maps, etc.) or a large roll of butcher paper will get you pretty far. Especially if you go splurge $10 at a craft store and just pick up some stamps – you or your kids could go wild on the piece of butcher paper and now have, in the long run, much cheaper wrapping paper. In my family, we also reuse all sorts of gift bags (they never get thrown out – we definitely reuse those suckers), even if they’re not Christmas themed. They may be red with hearts on them from Valentine’s Day, but a little green tissue paper (the Dollar Store is a great place to pick that stuff up) transforms it. If you have other reams of wrapping paper lying around, just flip it to the white side and use the stamps on that.

I also realize that a $5 budget is not that likely to work with the main people you give gifts, such as your children. I’ve come across this concept several times on the internet, so I couldn’t tell you where it stems from, but especially if you’re just starting out with kids and this isn’t going to shake them up and make them wonder where their Christmas gifts have gone, I think this 4 gift concept is awesome: something you want, something you need, something to wear and something to read. Let grandma and grandpa spend a mint spoiling them instead. Or if you are grandma or grandpa trying to set up your budget, perhaps you could adopt that mindset as well.

And I’ve got a book raffle tied to this series as well. So until Honey Boo Boo writes her Redneck Christmas guide, we’ll focus on Jason Anderson’s Zero-Budget Christmas: The Almost Entirely True Story of Our Quest to Do Our Christmas Shopping Without Spending Any Money. It’s a short, little book with big ideas. You can enter that contest until November 30^th.

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