Reduce, Reuse, Recycle to Shrink Your Holiday Spending!

By Victoria Rolfe / Red Hook, N.Y.

Contrary to what Donald Trump keeps repeating to us endlessly, prices are up this year–on just about everything. Our budgets are being squeezed within an inch of their lives. And here come the holidays! A time of exuberance, overindulgence, and generous gift giving! Followed by a budgetary hangover in January. But I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t have to be that way.

As a frugalista, I live by the three R’s every day of my life and they can be applied to the holidays as well. Not only will they help to reduce your holiday spending, but also your stress level and enjoyment of the holidays.

Reduce: The number of gifts you buy. You can do this by paring down the list of recipients. Do you really need to exchange gifts with every friend and relative you have? Sometimes if you talk to these people in advance, they are perfectly happy to forgo this tradition (it makes their lives easier too). You can also reduce the number of gifts you give to each person.

This is especially true of children. I know it is fun and tempting to shower them with piles of gifts, but their happiness is not dependent on how many shiny packages they can open. In fact, they can become very overwhelmed and stressed with too much overindulgence.  They are actually more relaxed (and appreciative) of a few well thought-out gifts. This goes for adults too. It’s not the amount of money you spend on them, it is the thoughtfulness that you put into it. A beautiful handmade object may be far more meaningful than an expensive (fill in the blank).

Reuse: Here at Ye Old Rolfe Homestead, anything that can be reused is. And the holidays are no exception. I have carefully unwrapped gifts and reused the paper for many years. Gift bags are even better for making the rounds endlessly. Ditto for boxes, ribbons, and tags (which I make out of holiday cards sent to me). And there is certainly no need to buy décor each year. Just bring out your old precious ornaments and holiday trappings and adornments.

I didn’t even realize how very much this meant to my kids until, with them all grown up, I stopped putting the children’s Christmas books out on the hearth. It wasn’t clear until my daughter lamented why they were no longer there. The books made a comeback the following year. And now, with our 15-month-old grandson, we have an added reason to put them out and have also started giving him his own books to put under his family’s tree at home to start their own tradition.

Recycle: This is a fun one. You can take things that would have been thrown out and find a new purpose for them. Make snowmen out of old white socks filled with rice. Make snow globes out of baby food jars, stars and snowflakes out of scrap paper or old book pages. Make mittens and hats out of old sweaters. Through the magic of Google, you can find a project for whatever you might have lying around the house.

And one more “re” to add to the list at this time of the year…Regift. I know it is often frowned upon, but if you receive something that really isn’t “you” but know someone who would enjoy it there’s nothing wrong with passing it on. Just make doubly sure that you remember who gave it to you in the first place to avoid an embarrassing regifting disaster!

I have always tried to make Christmas less about commercial gift-giving and more about experiences. When the kids were growing up, we always had a special project in addition to our gift exchange. For instance, one year I gave them each six sheets of paper, each one representing a member of the family, to write on and decorate. Then I took them all back and bound the papers into books for each person to enjoy what others wrote (and drew) about them. Other years we made calendars. Each person chose two months from papers in a jar and made two calendar pages. Then I put them all together into our calendar for that year. Other years we picked names out of a jar and had to make our chosen person something, or create a mix tape for them, or fill a stocking for them. Each time the assignment was different.

We also enjoy certain holiday traditions. When the kids were little, I would always take them skating on Christmas Eve. To this day (even though they are all adults with homes of their own), we always gather together as a family to decorate our Christmas tree here and decorate cookies. We also gather here on December 25th for a big country Christmas breakfast. And we always have a stocking for each person on the hearth. Because (exhausted) Santa has asked for help with filling them, now everyone contributes to all of them.

Enjoying the holiday season is not about how much money you spend, and how lavish the gifts are. It is about spending time with each other. And that is priceless and does not come with a January credit card hangover!

From the Rolfe family to yours, wishing you all the joys of the season!

Having raised her four children to adulthood on a frugal shoestring budget, Victoria currently lives a modest, sustainable life with her husband John (and assorted chickens) on their Hudson Valley homestead. Together they enjoy growing many of their own vegetables for their primarily vegan diet. They choose this lifestyle not only for their own health, but also for the greater good of community and our planet. They believe we can save our homeland, one household and backyard at a time. We are the world! And it all begins right at home.

Victoria can be reached at brightfuture2budget4@gmail.com