Buying gifts in advance. - Page 2

[alliegad]

I do do this, and would have gotten those gifts that you got, too! Good buys for specific occasions will only be much more expensive when you really "need" them.

[sarasprings]

This is a big thing for me because it's one place were we save a significant amount of money. I'm pretty organized about it now -- separate boxes for families and friends, along with a spread sheet. I buy general things too -- mostly boy toys for my son to give to his friends. I figure, if it's a "good" toy for a great price, then if I don't find a person for it, I'd feel comfortable giving it to toys for tots. At this point, I'm able to give most gifts paying only 75%. We don't give to a lot of people and my son is only 3, so he's had only 4 birthday parties this year, but we really do save.

My husband is all for it, but I spent a ton of money on toys for tots for this year. In the future, I'm going to limit those toys to things we may be able to give as gifts. It's hard to pass a bargain, though.

We're trying to make more and more gifts, which will save more money in the future, but I get pretty lucky with store purchases, thus the full shelves in the basement. (I'm not going to tell how much space this stuff takes up -- only my husband knows!)

ETA: My mom did this, but she was indiscriminate and just bought things because they were inexpensive. She still has a lot of that cheap stuff around. Blah. It definitely taught me to be thoughtful about what I buy ahead.

[GruppieGirl]

Yes! I buy most of my gifts in advance. Especially now that my dd is on the "birthday party circut."

All of the gifts go in a large rubbermade in the basement.

You will laugh, but I still have gifts for my dd that I bought 4+ years ago in there. I am just waiting for her to be old enough to enjoy them.

My stash of gifts came in very handy this Christmas after dh last his job. I only had to buy 2 gifts for our family and kids. That's it! Everything else I had stored away from sales and when I saw the perfect something.



I totally reccomend finding a good birthday party gift and sticking with it. I have a bunch of letter stamp sets and clay tool sets stashed away. Tomrrow we have yet another party, so I will just pull one out.

[yaM yaM]

Well, actually, now that I've been a mama for ten years, I DO buy gifts in advance. The reason I'm mentioning the mama part is because this is mainly a thing I do in the area of children's gifts. I buy my own dc's gifts for holidays, birthdays, etc. whenever the opportunity arises for a good deal/rare find/ etc. This helps break up the cost of holidays so we're not spending a lot of $ all at one time.

Also, when it comes to the verymany children's birthday parties my dc have been invited to over the years, as well as the verymany they're still yet to be invited to in the future, I find this way of gift-buying really pays off. I used to go out and buy individual gifts for each birthday party we were invited to. But I found that, not only was I spending much more money doing it that way, but more time as well, because I had to make a trip to the store for just one gift on any given week.

So I'll be in a close-out type of store and see something very cool like sturdy metal cash boxes that come in different colors and with their own set of keys for just a few dollars each because they're 'overstock' from another store (or whatever) and I'll snatch up a few -- kids love these things as gifts. Just one example.

Really I think this way of doing things just takes the imagination/visualization necessary when you happen upon something -- you would need to be able to see it's potential. I've trained myself to do this, now. So when I'm out and about it's easier to quickly identify items that would be good to buy for this purpose.

[applejuice]

I did alot of that for my children when they were young.

The problem was I would see something in May that my DD simply loved and I would plan to give it to her for her birthday in October or for Hanukah; when these months came, five to seven months later, she was no longer interested in this.

It works better for adults, IMHO. I just found the last batch that I bought years ago, some Harry Potter things for my then second grader...he is now in seventh grade...I was caring for DH and my Father, both of whom have since died, so you cannot forget.

[LoveBeads]

I do this. But I'm so crazy I not only buy them, I wrap them and put a post-it note on it so I know what it is.

At the end of December, I go to Target : and buy lots of things that are on clearance. Then I wrap and tag.