10 Weeks to an Organized Christmas-Week 2

Alright.  Hopefully by now you've completed your first challenge (see last week's post HERE).  Last weeks challenge was to 1. Establish a Christmas budget  and 2. Write down a list of every person that you want/intend to "gift" in some fashion.

How did it go for you?  Were you surprised at the amount of people you plan to give "gifts" to?  Was your "plan to spend" budget within the budget that you feasibly have?  Or do you need to find some extra money over the next two months?  Did you come up with some ideas of how to do that?  I'd love to hear your stories!

This week we will be expanding our people list to include gift ideas, and breaking down our budget among people.  Gasp.  We can totally do it.

1.  Write Down Gift Ideas

You may already know exactly what you want to get someone.  If that's the case, go ahead and write that down!  For others, you may just know that you want to get them a gift card or a toy, or that you want to bake or sew or hand-make something.  Maybe you even want to gift someone a service (free babysitting, house cleaning, lawn mowing).  That's okay.  Just write your general idea down.  For instance, if I want to hand make something for my mom, I will just write "hand-made gift" next to her name.  As we get closer to Christmas and we start looking into different homemade gifts, you can narrow down exactly what that "hand-made gift" will be.  Last year I made my homemade chai mix for many people on my list.  It was fun, frugal, and a really fun gift to give!

2.  Break Down Your Budget Among People

Now that you've established your budget and have a general idea of what you'd like to get each person on your list, start playing with the numbers and assign a specific amount to each person.  Maybe this looks very detailed and person specific to you (i.e. Husband-$50), or maybe it is a bit more generic (Son's classmates-$20 total).  However you begin to break it down, just make sure that your funds will cover your intended gifts.  Avoid that credit card!  A debt free Christmas is so much more fun and freeing!  Remember, there are always small things you can do to earn a little money if you come up short (check out some ideas from the first post in this series HERE).

Finish these two things throughout the week and we'll move ahead next week in the "10 Weeks to an Organized Christmas" series.

Leave your thoughts, progress, and stories about getting organized for Christmas in the comments below!