4 Ways You Can Still Spoil Your Loved Ones This Holiday Season

With the economy struggling the way it is, this is going to be a tough holiday season for a lot of us. This year hasn’t exactly been gumdrops and sugar plum fairies, after all.

COVID is still a huge problem, so the weather out there is frightful.

Are you worried you can’t afford to spoil your loved ones the way they deserve? Don’t despair. Instead, pour yourself a cup of hot cocoa and check out our four tips for saving the holidays:

1. Get Creative

Can’t afford to buy gifts? Tap into your creative side; think about what your loved ones might like and make your own holiday gifts. You don’t have to be Martha Stewart, either. It’s more about the gesture than making some kind of perfectly crafted artisanal present.

Here are just a few ideas.

• Framed pictures: Look through your digital photos of family and friends. Scope out affordable picture frames at thrift stores or dollar stores. Once you know what size frames you have, get the highest-resolution copies of your chosen photos and have them printed to size at CVS, Walgreens or Walmart. Each print usually costs less than $1.
• Family cookbook: Ask relatives to share their recipes. Maybe grandma has a box of handwritten ones you can convert. Create an accessible digital version online or assemble your own hard copy. Free and low-cost templates and software are available if you want to do it yourself. With a little effort on your part, this could be a treasured gift for generations to come.

Knitted and crocheted goods are truly one-of-a-kind gifts, too, and baked goods are always welcome. Yum.

2. Cancel Your Car Insurance

Here’s the thing: your current car insurance company is probably overcharging you. But don’t waste your time hopping around to different insurance companies looking for a better deal. 

Use a website called EverQuote to see all your options at once. 

EverQuote is the largest online marketplace for insurance in the US, so you’ll get the top options from more than 175 different carriers handed right to you. 

Take a couple of minutes to answer some questions about yourself and your driving record. With this information, EverQuote will be able to give you the top recommendations for car insurance. In just a few minutes, you could save up to $610 a year.

3. Save a Little Each Week

Start now and set aside a little bit of money every week.

Whatever you can afford. Everyone’s situation is a little different. But if you commit right now to saving a certain amount of money each week, you can scrape together a nice little fund to buy holiday gifts, especially if you take our next tip to heart…

4. Think Outside the Big Box Store

An increasing number of gift shoppers are staying out of the big box stores and turning to online marketplaces like Etsy, eBay and the Amazon Marketplace. This holiday season, consumers are expected to purchase heavily from these websites, according to various forecasts and surveys.

It’s not just because of COVID-19, either. Online-savvy shoppers can find some pretty sweet deals this way.

You can find handmade or vintage items on Etsy. You can find unique or obscure items on eBay. You can find just about anything on Amazon’s Marketplace. And if something goes wrong with the transaction, each of these marketplaces has ways to protect you.

It’s also worth seeing what you can find locally. Keep tabs on Facebook Marketplace and Offerup to see if your neighbors are selling anything for a good deal. Sometimes you can find almost-new items available for a lot less!

To sum up: Even if the Grinch has stolen your bank balance this year, you can still celebrate with style and show your loved ones you care.

All it takes is some willpower, some forethought and a dash of holiday magic.

And maybe a little eggnog.