Thoughtful Christmas Gifts under $1

A few years ago, I saw a Martha Stewart gift idea in the Chicago Tribune: holiday CDs with style. She gets full credit, but right now I’m going completely off memory. It’s an easy, inexpensive way to give thoughtfully to a large amount of people: think teachers, hosts, co-workers, etc.

The following directions will create 80 CD gifts, with 20 CD-Rs/labels leftover for your own use. Enjoy!

Supplies:
100 CDs (you’ll have 20 left over for yourself) 2 packs of 50 Blank CD-Rs: $24.00
80 CD labels 2 packs of 40 CD Labels: $26.00
100 CD sleeves (you’ll have 20 left over for yourself) 100 CD envelopes: $2.45
Your own holiday mix of songs (price varies based on what you purchase): est. $15
Your own Christmas pictures (think scenes. I used a B & W of downtown Chicago, a clip art of snowflakes and something else): free
Paper (preferably card stock): if you’re like me, you already have some
A computer printer with ink: again, check.

Approximate Total cost: $67.45 ($0.84 each)

Directions:
1. Following the CD label directions, print 80 labels with the Christmas photos you’ve chosen. The CDs will look awesome–and it’s so easy!
2. Compile a list of Christmas tunes via your favorite music player (iTunes for me).
3. Burn the list onto your CDs.
4. Create a printable mix list that fits into the envelopes.
5. Slide the CDs and mix lists into envelopes.
6. Seal, and you’re good to go!

Hint: You may also want to affix a holiday sticker on the back for extra style. I stuck these in with Christmas cards two years ago, and it was a big hit!

Baking Christmas

My grandma was a master baker.

Every year, she stacked dozens of aluminum tins on the stairs to her attic. There were round ones and square ones and big ones and little ones; red ones and green ones and scenic ones with horsemen and Christmas pictures. Then, for the weeks leading up to December 25th, she hunkered down and baked: fudge, sugar cookies, snowballs, chocolate chip cookies, kolachkys, bars, peanut butter cookies. If she found out what you liked, you’d get it every year. If you were a relative, a friend, maybe even the girl who cut her hair or an acquaintance from a club, you’d get something.

When I remember my grandma, I remember her food. It’s funny, looking back, that I don’t remember anything I bought with the yearly $100 she also gave at every birthday to me, her only granddaughter. I don’t remember ever opening a wrapped gift from her–that wasn’t really her style.

But what I do remember are delicious, homecooked meals on glass plates while we watched I Love Lucy. I do remember homemade spaghetti sauce and garlic bread. I remember cookies; oh, I remember the cookies. Not only did she bake for me, she baked with me.

Grandma gave me my first cookie lesson, and from the first time I licked the bowl and sampled chocolate chips, I was hooked. She taught me to enjoy food and to give other people that enjoyment. She taught me to savor, to embrace, to love.

She gave me something that I could keep even after she died. She gave me a way to feel connected to her, even now, almost a decade after she left me.

I’m baking Christmas this year, the way she did, the way I always will.

Co-Worker Christmas Gifts

Tell me: what are you getting your co-workers for Christmas? Anything? Something small?

I manage a department with (5) mainly part-time workers, and I’ve been wanting to get them something for Christmas. One girl doesn’t eat really (another topic in itself; how to respond to that?), so a food gift was out, and that makes things harder. I had decided on Starbucks gift cards, boring but practical; someone recommended $10 would be much more professional than $5. So $50 was my department budget for Christmas gifts, and that was set.

Then Friday night I went to a Crate & Barrel outlet and found these super cool coffee cups in red and green colors. $1.95 each. I bought five–three green and two red. $10.41 total.

Now I’m planning to give each employee a mug with a $5 card, meaning I’ll spend a total of $35 for the department. Not bad at all.

I’m still trying to figure out how to handle everyone else. My boss? Other departments that I interact with? Pretty soon I’ll really just need to get something for everyone, so I’m wondering if I should bake cookies and put them in little packages.

Any thoughts?

Christmas Gifts under $5

I thought this recent post at Wise Bread was one of the most practical ones I’ve read about Christmas gifts. It lists 25 different ideas for quality, useful items–each one at under $5. So inspiring!

And really: wouldn’t you rather get a brand-new Pyrex measuring cup than another bottle of Bath & Body Works lotion or another sweater you’ll never wear?

Just another example of how thoughtfulness more than compensates for cost.

Christmas Shopping

For as long as I can remember, I’ve gone shopping on the day after Thanksgiving. Traditionally, we’d go downtown and it was more about the experience than the spending: seeing the holiday lights, checking out the Marshall Field’s (now Macy’s) windows, eating out, feeling festive.

Then three years ago, a friend got married that day at 10 AM. This inspired my brother and me to hit the mall at 7 AM, shop and come home before attending. I still remember going to H & M and buying three or four sweaters (that I still wear) in a luxuriously uncrowded mall. We got Panera, enjoyed the whole spirit of the day and still finished before the wedding.

This year, I’m working. I’ve contemplated my options: taking the day off, shopping before work, shopping after work, neglecting the day altogether. And I’ve decided to opt for the last. I will be leaving a little early to pick up flowers for a co-worker’s birthday (the company reimburses me, believe it or not), but that’ll do.

As far as my holiday spending, I’ve managed to knock out one or two items, have been completely inspired for others and am still toying around with ideas for more. If you have any tricks for saving money on Christmas gifts, I’d love to hear them.

Happy Black Friday!

things

During the same week that we broke up, just a day or two after actually, my ex gave me a bracelet from Tiffany’s. He wrote me a nice note about how he wanted me to have it, and when I thanked him he said he was glad he gave it to me. I looked online; it cost over $300.

I was wearing it today, thinking again how while the idea behind his gift was very sweet, the gift itself was so far from who I am, it makes sense we broke up.

He was all into price: our first Christmas, we’d been dating just a month or so, and he bought me an enormous (three trays full!) box of Godiva chocolate.  He reasoned that price = level of relationship. If you sort of liked someone, buy them dinner. If you’re in a relationship, buy them $150 worth of chocolate. And when you break up but agree to stay friends even though you know you won’t, send the robin’s egg blue box.

Like I said, it was sweet, and his heart was in the right place, I think.

But if he knew me, he’d know I’d much rather have a four-piece $12 box of chocolate than a giant one. I’d much rather sit and talk than receive an extravagant gift. This isn’t so much an I’m-so-unmaterialistic thing. I like presents. But I like presents that show thought more than expense. I’d rather get a $20 bottle of shampoo I want but never buy for myself (because it shows you know what I wish for) than a corral of designer perfumes worth hundreds. Anyone can buy the chocolate, the flowers, the Tiffany’s.

With Christmas coming, gift-giving is on everyone’s mind, it seems. I’m wondering what to get my parents, who have everything, or my brother, who likes nothing. Should I get my employees something? What am I giving my Sunday school kids?

And in the rushing, hurrying, planning, I forget what I’m gifting for: to show I care about them specifically. I think the holidays could use a few more heartfelt letters and a few less generic boxes.

How are you combating the commercialism of the holiday? Do you have any strategies for gifting to share?

Biblical finance 5.1: specific ways to help the poor

A while ago, I wrote about the Biblical principle about helping the poor.

Today, a new friend gave me a large list of organizations to look into:

WorldVision
US Aid
Samaritan’s Purse
EQUIP
TearFund
CharityWater
AfriCare

on getting

I fear I have a tendency to get over-philosophical on this blog. My personality comes through even when I write anonymously. But for me at least, financial issues are often necessarily philosophical. So much of what I think and learn about money ties to things I think and learn about life.

Example: Sunday night, a group of acquaintances threw me a surprise graduation party. We were planning to get together, as a matter of routine, and I had no idea they were planning a cake and kind words and thick envelopes. The gesture itself was amazing, because, honestly, it’s just not the kind of thing that happens to me. When I’d finished school a few weeks ago, my parents took me out to dinner and some friends congratulated me, but since I hadn’t walked at commencement and I hadn’t had a party, the whole thing went by quietly. And that was fine with me, really. I was so concerned about finding a job and moving on that I wasn’t much up for celebrations.

Now, though, a few weeks into my new position and realizing I no longer drive to the city, no longer sit in a classroom, no longer have projects to chew on,  now I admit I feel much more like there’s a reason to… well… eat cake.

Sunday night, these friends made that happen. They served me first, let me get food from the fabulous buffet first, asked me all about the nows of my life. Then they told me it was time for gifts and I opened card after card. It was overwhelming. I didn’t cry or make a speech. I just felt so thankful.

People who I don’t even know all that well (ashamedly) gave me gift cards. These people are not wealthy. They don’t have money to blow. They, out of the generosity of their hearts, wanted to give to me.

So here comes the philosophizing: I know I’ve talked about giving here–about why it’s so valuable and worthwhile. I was speaking then as a giver, and that’s important. But now, as a receiver, I feel the weight of another aspect. I realize how much you can encourage and bless someone else with a $5 Starbucks card or a $20 bill or a few words written in an envelope.

I wish, with all my heart, to do that for other people.

philosophy of giving

Tuesday, I mailed these to my friends R & J, whose little one was expected to arrive July 17. The booties weren’t perfect—in fact, they didn’t really match—but I spent a ton of time on them. They were my first intermediate-level project, full of undoing and redoing. Several times, I almost gave up and just went to their registry, but I really wanted to make something special, so I kept trying.

After a couple weeks of work, I wrapped the booties up and made a gift tag, attached a card, and dropped the package in the mail. I knew they’d love them, imperfections and all; that’s just how R & J are.

Wednesday, I got a horrible message from R—probably the most horrible message you can imagine: their beautiful, turns-out-curly-haired, 8-month-along baby died.

She said it’s been surreal.  The memorial service and burial will be Monday, and they’re grieving in an unimaginable-to-me sort of way. Cringing, I warned her about the booties—horrible timing, I said. Maybe it’d be easier not to open them.

And yet I’m glad I sent them. I’m glad that weeks or months from now, when R and J are remembering, they’ll have them. I’m glad that even if no one ever wears the poor unmatched pair, my friends know I love them and was thinking about them.

I think that’s the point of gifting—communicating love through some physical object. In the midst of all my financial planning and seeking-to-save-ing, I can sometimes forget this. I want to be able to give to my friends because I love them; I want to be able to use money—that’s why it’s worth it to save and to plan. That’s the point.

the month of June

It’s that time of year again: wedding season. I received an invitation Saturday, from a college friend I haven’t heard from in three years. We were very close once–during my sophomore and junior years–but truthfully we lost touch during my last semesters, and we didn’t keep up with writing/e-mailing after graduation. I’ve never even met her fiance and only know how they met, now, after having visited their wedding webpage.

But I miss her sometimes, as she was a good friend for that period of time, and I am really happy for her. The wedding will take place in North Carolina (i.e., I won’t be attending), so I’m left with one main decision: what to send?

I’ve written about budget gift-giving before, but one point is worth repeating: homemade gifts, if you can manage them, often cost less and mean more.

In this case, it involves a little research into the couple, since I don’t know what they like/want. They registered at both Target and Bed, Bath & Beyond, so I discovered their kitchen colors: green and cream. Handy, since I happen to have knitted two dishtowels in just those colors.

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For their gift, I attached a little gift tag to the towels, bought a pretty handsoap from Bath & Body Works ($5), and used a wedding card I already had. The total cost, including yarn, comes out to around $13, if that, and the gift is personal and took effort.

If I knew the couple better, I might make a full-on basket out of the idea: add some more soaps or other green/white accessories from their registry.