If buying presents for friends and family stresses you out every year because you can’t afford Christmas, you are not alone. And if you are on a tight budget like me, it can make planning for the holidays extremely challenging.
You still have your regular December bills you have to pay but now you have to scrounge up even more money to afford Christmas presents. How are you going to do it all?
Over the years, the members of our family have gone through some rough times, so we have established some traditions that have helped us have a budget-friendly Christmas and even found ways to get free money for presents!
Here is how we don’t have to spend a penny on Christmas Gifts…
Get the whole family on board
Back in the 1950’s you didn’t have to worry about buying Playstations or robots.
We have a total extended family of 8 adults and 5 children. Your family might be smaller or larger, but these tips can be utilized for a family of any size as long as you can get everyone on the same page.
They might even appreciate your efforts as it will save everyone money in the long run.
Family Secret Santa
Rather than buy presents for everyone, we do a Secret Santa for the adults only. We pick one adult family member that we have to shop for. Just one.
A family Secret Santa gift exchange can help you save money!
There are several free online websites that you can use that will do the picking randomly for you and email your list to everyone in the pool.
Here are a few examples:
DrawNames.com: Send out invitations by entering their names and email addresses. Everyone responds to their email invitation and clicks the link in their email invitation to join the group. They may also complete their wish list at that time.
Then it’s time to draw names! The names will be drawn out of a virtual hat. Each member will receive another email directing them to their drawn name.
You can also send questions and receive the answers anonymously to help you choose the perfect gift. It will also save your group from previous years so you can use it over and over again.
SneakySanta.com: first just set up some rules for the name drawing, send anonymous messages to the person whose name you draw, or you can just use it as a place to share gift ideas. You can even dig out photos from Christmas past to share with the group if you want.
All you need to do is: Create or join a group. Enter gift ideas you are hoping for on your wishlist. Draw names, check out what everybody wants, and you’re good to go.
Assign a budget
We assign a budget of $35-40 for our Secret Santa gift. We believe that this budget is friendly enough so that you can still get something nice without breaking the bank!
On top of our secret Santa, we also do a white elephant gift exchange for the adults with a budget of $15. These gifts are completely anonymous.
You can learn more by reading my White Elephant Gift Exchange Guide.
In the end, every adult gets a total of 2 gifts and no one feels like they are getting the shaft.
The grown-ups get 2 gifts each and everyone is happy!
As for the children, everyone in the family buys them each a gift as a couple.
We set a budget of $40-50 per kid. So for our family, we spend around $250 on the kids and $50 on the adults for a total Christmas budget of $300.
The kids always score at Christmas!
And guess what? We don’t have to spend a penny of our own money! This is how we did it…
Don’t spend a penny on Christmas gifts!
We get all of our Christmas money from free Grocery Apps! Yes, you heard right.
We buy groceries and get free money and gift cards just for scanning our receipts. I save up my points all year and cash out at Thanksgiving.
Collect points from making purchases all year! Cash out on Black Friday.
Everybody has to buy groceries so why not get paid for them?
What is even cooler, if there is an item that you have a manufacturer’s coupon for, you can still get money back on that item. It’s like saving twice!
These are the ones I use and how much I cashed out for Christmas:
Fetch Rewards – This is one of my favorite grocery cash back apps. It’s so easy to get points that you can turn into gift cards. You get a minimum of 25 points for any grocery receipt.
Cashed out: $25
Coin out – Get a few cents per each receipt. And it can be ANY receipt. It takes a while to get a decent amount of money, but it adds up after a while.
Cashed out: $12
Receipt Hog – This is another app that requires you to take a photo of your receipt from your phone. It also has a bonus game where you can play slots for even more points. They pay you in the form of Paypal or an Amazon gift card.
Cashed out: $50
Checkout 51 – You just pick and choose grocery items from their featured list and then take a pic of your receipt. Once your account balance reaches $20, you can get that money, honey!
Cashed out: $25
Saving Star – You register your store card or you can save your receipt. You scan your items, then scan your receipt and get cashback.
Cashed out: $25
Ibotta – I love this app! You can also get cashback on staples like milk or produce. And if you sign up now through my link, you will get an instant $5 to get you started.
Cashed out: $125
Inbox Dollars This site has lots of ways to earn a little green. You can do surveys, games, and read paid emails for more ways to make money. But these days I use it only for the coupons. They are the same coupons featured on all of the major coupon sites, but they actually pay you 10 cents each when you use them! Once you earn $30 in your account you are eligible to receive a payout.
Cashed out: $30
Rakutan (formerly Ebates) I use this every time I shop online. They offer cash back from all the popular stores. Just install the app on your pc or phone, click on the Rakutan button, find your store, and start shopping! If you sign up now with my link you will get an instant $10 on your first order over $25!
Cashed out: $28
This year I got back around $320 total. Crazy right?
I even have enough left over for wrapping paper.
Free Christmas money with no effort
As you can see we earned a very nice amount of extra money for Christmas just by snapping pictures of our receipts and shopping for products we would buy anyway.
So if you can’t afford Christmas, get off your lazy ass and just do it!
Christmas photo from 2014. Jaxon was feeling a little camera shy…
*To see even more ways to earn free cash please visit my page How to get Free Cash for more awesome apps and ideas.
What about expensive purchases?
Now I know that this budget doesn’t cover that $400 PS4 your kids are screaming for or that Versace purse you have been eyeing.
But when you are working on a limited budget like us, we just put big money purchases off for a few months.
Expensive purchases can wait until tax refund time.
For example, if there is a very expensive purchase that my family wants or needs, we make a list and use our Income Tax refund to pay for it.
So if you can’t afford Christmas, it’s never too late to start a new budget-friendly family tradition!
This is a great post with a lot of great tips. Not everyone can afford to spend a ton of money on Christmas, yet, they want to get their family something special.
There are those parents who really want to provide a good Christmas for their family. These tips are excellent for them.
These are great tips! I’m impressed with how much money you got back through all those apps. Way to go, saver! The Secret Santa idea for large families is really a great idea!
These are great tips. I will share them with many people that I know are struggling.
These are great tips. Christmas doesn’t have to be about spending a lot of money.
We do buy gifts for everyone in the family but we don’t get really expensive items. For my cousins, we are happy to exchange food items, because all of us love cooking (and eating!). Christmas is for the kids, so they get the most number of gifts too.
I like your ideas. Not to be expensive but yet celebrate wonderfully. Celebrations do not always mean you have to spend excessive amount of money. It is about being together and enjoy.
Christmas can be so expensive, thanks for sharing these ideas. I like the concept of setting a budget – my family did this last year and it was great. We spent way less and instead got each other creative, small gifts.
What a lovely and useful post! It is amazing what you can do if you do research and set your mind to it. You have found ways to have a wonderful inexpensive Christmas that eveyrone would enjoy! Thank you!
those are great tips. we have done budgets before and secret santas.
these are really great tips for budgeting!! I feel like nowadays people always think they have to spend a lot of money on gifts.
It is smart to set the budget. It is even smarter to use the apps for cash.
Wow I love money hacks advice and I’am sure this are really effective to save money this coming Christmas!
Very important to stick to the budget on Christmas season. It’s very easy to overspend during these days, there are so many good things that are tempting.
The holiday season can be expensive and overwhelming. Thanks for sharing this inspirational post. I love everything.
These are some very practical ideas to implement and save. Buying gifts doesn’t seem such taxing now. Thanks for the great suggestions.
I am all about MAKING gifts or legit just being with family members during the holidays. I dont need anything special. As long as we can all be together. My husband LOVES gifts though, which is annoying – LOL!
I always have to make a budget for Christmas and stick with it. It can be so easy to overspend when you really shouldnt.
Wait you aren’t spending your own money for gifts? That’s genius to use these grocery apps to make extra cash didn’t even think of that.
I think so, yeah. Besides, I have never tried out any of them before.
These are great tips! I always assign a specific budget so you don’t overspend for Christmas shopping.
I’m usually too lazy to use all those coupons and points and stuff, but reading your experience made me think over 😉
These are great budgeting tips. I love your hack because I too am looking for ideas on how I can save on gift giving.
Great topic..! I usually read about gift ideas, but even at the lowest price tips. It would still be a bit pricey if you a have a long list of people to give to. Thanks for the tips. It’s so useful.
These are cool tips! Christmas doesn’t need to spend extravagant, as long as you guys are happy.
Every festivity brings the family closer. That’s the sole aim. What’s in a festival without the loved ones? Appreciation and love are the greatest gifts