Holidays

Holiday Surviving Guide

If you are a member of a large family, have a holiday grab bag or draw names out of a hat so everyone only has to buy one gift. These strategies will help you spend less, save more, and still have a joyful holiday.

Give Cash Instead Of Buying Gifts
It is appropriate to give cash to children, but remember when they get older you will have to up the ante a little. In certain situations it might also be okay to give senior citizens cash. Gift certificates to drug stores, garden shops or grocery stores are great ideas as well. class="content">

Giving Tipping - rules of thumb to follow:

A tip is still a gift so wrap nicely and give with a smile.

• Babysitters and Cleaning People: One Week's Salary plus a small gift if you're so inclined.
• Hairdressers: Cost of one session.
• Apartment Building doorman: $30-$100 (depending on how luxurious your building is)
• Newspaper Carrier: $15-$25.
• Garbage Collector: $15-$20

First list the people who you are planning to buy gifts for under the "Receiver's Name" column. Then in the next column write down your gift ideas for each person. If you do not have anything in particular in mind, still fill in the Amount You Want to Spend column, that way you'll at least have an idea of how much money you will need for all of your gift giving.

Before you go shopping check your list and be prepared to only spend the amount of money you allocated.

As you do your shopping write in the amount you spent on each person and figure out the difference of the actual gift and what you budgeted. If you spend less on one person, you may allocate that money towards another gift, but if you exceed the amount you wanted to spend, you should then lessen the amount you are going to spend on another individual.