Zero-Budget Christmas: The Almost Entirely True Story of Our Quest to Do Our Christmas Shopping Without Spending Any Money by Jason Anderson has been a real fun and easy read. To me, it read like an extended well-written blog post about different methods to keep your budget in check during the holiday season. It rehashes a…
My research over the past month led me to a really wide variety of things and I often fell down the internet rabbit hole which led me to two pretty distinctive areas – DIY/thrifty holiday ideas in general (not necessarily fitting into the themes I was writing about at the time) and just really cool…
I’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon in which the older my brother gets, the more difficult he is to buy for (maybe some social scientist could map age of males vs. how difficult they are to find a gift for). When he was little, it was a piece of cake – I could literally make him…
On to one of the easiest class of people to keep Christmas under $5 – the ladies in your life. As I really got into researching this, I realized that I bit off way more than I could chew. Sisters and daughters is such a wide topic that can be broken down so many ways,…
In the realm of holiday gift giving, grandparents are another stumbling block. I don’t know about you, but just like my dad, I’ve always felt my grandma has everything she needs… so I mostly just got her bubble bath. For years and years, she just got a different scent of bubble bath until one year…
Guys, I feel like you’ve actually got it pretty easy when selecting a gift for your wife or girlfriend. We’re pretty easy to buy for pretty inexpensively – not that I don’t love shiny things (I am part raccoon, after all), it’s just that I’m just as happy to receive something that doesn’t cost a…
Is it just me or are dad’s notoriously difficult to buy for? I mean, how many golf balls and ties can you get a guy? And does he really want those things anyway? My dad is definitely a tough one – there’s the cheaper end of the spectrum: the golf balls, ties and bags of…