Q on spending for BD, anniversary, etc

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-12-2004
Q on spending for BD, anniversary, etc
4
Thu, 12-29-2005 - 1:43pm
Hi, everyone. Heather and Danni, your ideas to buy early for holidays has me intrigued. I've never done it. I guess I'm a traditionalist--like to look at stores, sales, on-line bargains, etc. However, I do not want to get into the same mess next year. Oh, I got everything done in time with online shopping, but having to do it all at once really hit the wallet hard. Sooo--when do you do this shopping? Do you look at sales all year? Do you shop by season? For example, if winter coats are usually discounted in March, do you wait until then? Or, hit the linen sales in January? The problem I face is that extended family lives out-of-state, and I have absolutely no clue what to buy for them, so I usually get gift cards for different things--restaurants, movies, Kohl's, Target, etc. Do you set a spending limit for anniversary/BD giving? What if everything falls in the same month (January)? Thanks. Whiz.
Avatar for cl_phocid
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 12-29-2005 - 2:12pm

Hey Whiz - for me, I like both giving and receiving gift cards.

All my best,
Danni

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Thu, 12-29-2005 - 2:13pm

I can't imagine not buying ahead! I buy the children's holiday outfits for the next year right after the current holiday usually (my children have been cooperative and grown on schedule), I buy the kids books and things at garage sales and regular sales throughout the year. I do MyPoints which is an e-mail program that rewards with gift cards and that's what I did for some of the difficult relatives.

I have a $20 limit for birthdays. I buy for my parents, my youngest sister and then my immediate family. Sometimes I get something for my sister but that's just if I see something that seems "her"

I don't buy for anyone else's anniversary. For our own, we buy a joint something for the house or us as a couple so let's see-bikes, bookshelf, tent, etc. We've been married 11 years but those are the ones that stand out.

I budget $25 a month for Christmas/birthday shopping and then 1 paycheck right before Christmas.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Thu, 12-29-2005 - 2:45pm

I birthday shop all year long, too, although the only birthdays I buy for are my immediate family (dh and two littl'uns), and for birthday parties my kids get invited to (their own parties are strictly "no gifts please!" parties, and I wish more of their friends would do it that way).

A LOT of my shopping is done at yard sales. That may sound tacky to some people, but it allows me to buy a much nicer quality of gift than I could find at WalMart for the same price, and since I shop nearly every weekend, I'm able to pick up like-new items so that the recipient rarely knows it wasn't purchased new (a few of my dear friends also shop this way, and we don't even try to hide the fact from each other--a few other of my dear, dear friends and I actually make a rule of having our children give each other gifts out of their own playrooms, so no purchasing is required at all).

I also do the post-Christmas sales for bargains. My younger son just got a really nice quality, plush ride-on horse for his second birthday (coming up in February--he hasn't received the gift yet) for $20--it was the last one at the grocery store, and they had it on post-Christmas clearance--I've found grocery stores to be a great source of bargain toys and gifts, because they often carry non-grocery items like this and then heavily discount them when they move on to other things, because they can't afford to have the inventory sitting around.

I can't clearly plan for birthday parties we might be invited to during the year, so I pretty much just pick up any gender-neutral and gender-specific items as I see them at yard sales or heavy discounts--the only qualification is that they must be in like-new condition, and age-appropriate for my sons's friends. Then I keep them all in a central location and when we receive invitations, I pull out the "gift box" and select one or two appropriate items. My son usually supplements the selection with one or two things out of his playroom. His generousity is gently encouraged, but not enforced.

I also pick up candles, stuffed toys, ornaments, soaps, and miscellaneous other gift-worthy items over the course of the year, as well as baskets for packaging the goodies in.

Types of gifts we've given at birhday parties include board games (really nice quality ones like you can order out of catalogs like Rosie's Hippos), costumes (a fairy costume given at an October birthday party was the little girl's favorite gift of the day, and a far nicer quality than I would have been willing to purchase at "new" prices), Lego sets, wooden puzzles, stuffed toys, scarves and purses and wallets, dress-up accessories, etc.

I also puruse thrift and consignment shops for gifts, when I happen to already be there for other items (like dress clothes). But I don't go out of my way, because they tend to be more expensive than yard sales, and I can usually find everything I need over the course of a year's worth of yard saling.

So, I hope something in there is helpful. I wish I could say this planning ahead paid off this year but, as you can see in my "Ack!" post, we spent nearly $1200 on Christmas this year. But then, that $1200 covered a trip to see family, a karaoke machine and accessories, toys and gifts for my own children, the neighbors's children, my friends's children, my nieces and nephews, extended family, grandparents, great grandparents, about twenty families including neighbors and friends, a train set for one son and a rock tumbler, and eating out twice, gasoline, stocking stuffers, herbal remedies for the colds we had, gifts for the three people who work for dh, a white elephant exchange at dh's work, birthdays for both my boys (except they will each get a "trip" that has not yet been paid for), and so on and so forth. Dh got a GPS for Christmas (yard sale find for $20), kids got stockings full of art supplies and goodies. And I felt REALLY good about the gift baskets I was able to give to so many people for whom I would otherwise have been able to afford only (maybe) a card.

Without the planning, we would not have been able to gift so many people nearly so well, or we wouldn't have been able to spend so extravagantly on our own family (maybe not a bad thing, though), or we would have spent probably twice as much.

Sooooo... next year I just need to budget more carefully so that we don't end up getting so extravagant. Or perhaps I'll start right away setting aside money for things like the calendars we purchased for parents and grandparents (they were $15 apiece, and for 7 of them, that was over $100 by itself--but they couldn't be shopped for ahead of time, because we had to wait until we had a "picture of the month" of our boys for December).

Anyway, did I answer your question, in my long-winded way? I hope so. Now, to the pond for me and my boys.

Blessings,

Heather

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-10-2005
Fri, 12-30-2005 - 10:30am

Gosh you guys are much more organized than I am. Typically I pick up a few things here and there through the year for Christmas gifts but I do the bulk of my shopping during Nov and Dec. For birthdays, I usually go out shortly before those too however they don't cost me nearly as much. Myself and my family exchange big gifts on Christmas and everything else is pretty much token gifts around the $10-$20 range. I don't have any children or aniversaries yet as I am not married so I don't have to shop for those.

It's nice at the beginning of the year because right now I have five months before I have to buy anything as a gift, first birthday I have to buy for is in May so that helps get out of the Christmas spending pattern.