

Survivify: Occasions
- How to Survivify: The Holidays on a Budget
How can you economize around the holidays without turning into Scrooge or the Grinch? The holidays get more commercialized every year, and there is a lot of pressure to keep outdoing ourselves when it comes to gift-giving. When there are kids involved, it is even more difficult to cut back. Factor in a bad economy, and it just gets even more challenging. All parents want to be able to give their children gifts, but sometimes it is just not possible.
When the children are old enough to understand that the household finances are an issue, it's worth involving them in the process of setting spending limits. This helps to manage expectations, as well as minimize the stress they are probably already picking up on. For large families, have everyone pick names out of a hat and be responsible for buying a gift for that one person.
Share your own ideas here, and help others avoid a getting lump of coal in their Christmas stockings!
Look on the bright side:
- At least the holidays only come once a year.
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Tips from the trenches:
- Regifting is good. Just don't regift something to the person who gave it to you in the first place!
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Survival kit contents:
(replenish as often as needed)- Read
- Budget Celebrations: The Hostess Guide to Year-Round Ente...
- Life on a Budget
- Christmas on a Budget
- Hundred Dollar Holiday: The Case For A More Joyful Christmas
- Unplug the Christmas Machine: A Complete Guide to Putting...
- Celebrate Simply: Your Guide to Simpler, More Meaningful ...
- The Joy of Less, A Minimalist Living Guide: How to Declut...
- Simplify Your Christmas: 100 Ways to Reduce the Stress an...
- Simplify Your Holidays: A Christmas Planner to Use Year A...
- Debt Proof The Holidays
- Debt Proof Your Holidays
- A Homemade Christmas: Creative Ideas for an Earth-Friendl...
- How To Have A Successful Garage Sale
- See more
- Watch
- Scrooged (with Bill Murray)
- A Christmas Carol (with Patrick Stewart)
- Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas (with Jim Carrey)
- It's a Wonderful Life (60th Anniversary Edition DVD)
- Ten Dollar Dinners With Melissa D'Arabian
- See more
- Listen
- The Flying Lizards - Money - MP3
- Mariah Carey - All I Want For Christmas Is You - MP3
- Bruce Springsteen - Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town - MP3
- Dr. Elmo - Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer - MP3
- Dr. Demento Presents: Greatest Christmas Novelty CD
- See more
- Everything else
- Fruit Cake Boxed Three 1-lb. Dark Recipe Claxton Fruitcake
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