4-Week Holiday Savings Plan
Use these week-by-week ideas to minimize the damage to your bank account.
Two Weeks to Go: Make Gifts
A homemade gift doesn’t have to be a strain on your time, patience, or bank account. A few ideas:
Vanilla sugar: A simple hostess gift that requires nothing more than combining a vanilla bean and one pound of granulated sugar in an airtight
container and letting it sit for a week or two. The cost? About $6.
Beauty scrub: Blend a cup each of oats and almonds and a tablespoon of baking soda in a food processor, suggests Nava Lubelski, author
of The Starving Artist’s Way: Easy Projects for Low-Budget Living (Three Rivers Press, $14, amazon.com). “I add a note that says to mix with water for a great facial,” she says.
A journal: Start one for her, with favorite quotations or an entry about a shared memory.
See 9 Easy Recipes for Edible Holiday Gifts.
Related Content
In these lean times, your only limit to what you can trade (computer help for birthday cakes? artwork for dental work?) is your imagination.
