Christmas... Dave Ramsey style!

Its a Dave Ramsey Christmas... but this year we did decide to squeeze out a few gifts for the kids and for parents who lived in the area, no shipping this year. Our budget is a shocking $5 per person. I knew that this was crazy, cut somehow it was doable. Now I know what you are thinking... $5 why bother. The hardest part is getting past the idea that you are only spending $5 on a person, I mean mentally that is really, really hard, but doable. I think that even if they did find out that your budget is the size of a pea, that they don't really care, and if they found out you are trying to pay off your bills and be debt free they still wouldn't care. They would probably even be excited and or proud of your endeavors.

I decided that if I was going to work with this budget, I was going to have to really flex the creative muscle. First I put everyone's money in envelopes so I wouldn't go over at all. The hardest part was putting things back when I new even with taxes I wouldn't have it. Seperate envelopes would have been much easier because I was more tempted to over spend, using a seperate envelope would have helped me mentally, you know "self.... there is really on $5 in there so you have to choose between bath salts or candle to go with the bubbles and lotion"

Another key to this was to not just blanket shop. I knew that I didn't want to just pull out my printing block and make 30 prints of a christmas scene, or crochet a bunch of doilies. I wanted to let each person know that we were thinking of them individually, personalize it.

So my daughter and I headed out to shop. Now for the girls it was easy. For my mother-in-law who just moved into a new apartment I made a basket of bubbles, candles, pretty soap very easy, and at the good ole' dollar store, very cheap, but shockingly nice. I found a beautiful necklace at target on clearance, for my niece who is a teenager now and rolls her eyes alot... in fact I am sure that just now as I write this she just rolled her eyes and doesn't even know why. Michaels had 80 piece art kits on super sale $2 each and at this point the younger kids just know that their aunty loves art and that is just what they are going to get. I got a larger art kit for my nephew, it has some pastels in it. I decided that I was going to print some online lessons to include with it, and go to walmart and get a couple of packs of their cheapy copy paper, I use it for alot of practice drawing or trying out new techniques or supplies 500 sheets for $2 is great to add into their kits for practically nothing each.

I was lamenting over what to get for my father-in-law for christmas, the budget was only $8... normal budget was only $5 but I was under budget on some others (if you can believe that) and was able to increase here. Still it was hard. So it hit me on the way out the door when I was checking the time... he likes tools. A tool clock. So I went to micheals with my 50% coupon and paid only $3.50 for battery operated clock mechanics that comes with the arms and everything. Then I stopped at Harbor Freight and found the cheapest circular saw blade I could find right about $3. Then I picked up a little pack of washers, I was lucky to find a small container with mulitple sizes.. including very large, like a half dollar. I went home and started assembly. Fumbling through, ad-libing, and using washers to make hole smaller and a couple of smaller ones to fit inside the hole so it won't wiggle, (my husbands idea). And a sharpie to write in the numbers, they have number kits you can buy but I thought that a sharpie was just as good. And as it turns out there are a ton of instructions online for these... so google it!

Also another gift I made that is was perfect was for my other mother-in-law. Her kitchen decor is apples, so at Michael's my daughters mission was to find an apple stamp, and not only did she do that but she said look mom this one is only $1 so we can get this cute house too, its also $1! Love that kiddo... so we got that some ink, some felt, and went next door to Lowes and bought 4 tiles. We stamped them, glued little felt squares on the four corners, and I am going to use hairspray cause I forgot to buy spray fixative. Great gift, a project I found online also.

So this is how christmas went this year, I didn't list everything but I think you get the picture. Though I have not seen the results yet, I do believe it will go well.

Merry Christmas!