How to Buy Great Gifts on a Shoe String Budget!

Lots of people are cutting their budgets this year, and retailers are taking notice. Stores large and small are slashing prices to garner more sales. Some people are even considering buying no presents this year which is a big no for me. Just because you're feeling a little pinched doesn't mean you need to be a scrooge. Here's some great budget friendly solutions to give you a great Christmas.

Start off by giving yourself a budget to stick to. How much do you want to spend on people? $10? $20? $30? Once you pick a number - don't budge from it. Straying off course a couple dollars could soon turn into a couple hudred dollars if you're not careful. Before you know it you've blown your whole Christmas piggy bank on two people.

Just because you can't buy them something overly expensive doesn't mean it can't be something they want. There's plenty of things I'd love to recieve for $5. For example my favorite t-shirt shop is having a massive Christmas sale, and they've marked down most of their inventory to $5, $10, and $15!

You could also consider making gifts for people if you're crafty, or even sending them craft kits. Don't think of do it yourself kits as being limited to just knitting, and scrap booking. There's plenty of other kits out there for the handy man, and electronic geek too!

Here's a list from Instructables with lots of cool homemade gift ideas that can all be made for very little money depending on what you have laying around the house. You can also venture over to the Make store, and pick up a wise assortment of DIY electronic kits. They have everything from beadwork to fully programable arduino kits for sale there.

Here's some ideas to get you started!

Make Your Own Gift Basket $5 and up

You can put pretty much anything you want in here. Depending on what kinds of things the recipient likes! Jewlery, wine, toys, food, candy, dvds, cds, ect. You could buy higher end things or pick up everything you need from the dollar store even! Here's some ideas for baskets.

Sweets - Chocolates or bake your own cookies, brownies, ect.

Dinner Basket - Bottle of wine, spagehtti, pasta sauce,and candles.

Movie Basket - Popcorn, DVDs, ect.

Beauty - Soaps, cologne, and lotions

Geeky - Comics, USB drives, software, and laptop accessories

Gaming - Playing cards, poker chips, and card games booklet.

Baking - Cookware, cookbooks, dry ingredients, and kitchen gadgets.

Create A Custom T-Shirt $11.00 and up

You can create a custom apparel item at Spreadshirt for your favorite person for cheaper than you might think! Be careful how many designs you add though as it can get expensive fast. Since they add each of those manually it adds to your costs. A single design is much cheaper, but can be just as good.

Pre-Paid Cards $10 and Up

If all else fails these are usually a good bet! You can get them for just about any service now a days, and they are almost always appreciated. Think about some of these types of cards!

Resturant cards

Pre-Paid phone cards

Starbucks coffee cards

itunes store cards

wii points cards

Online gaming subscription cards (Like World Of Warcraft, or XBOX Live)

There's plenty of other gifts you can buy on the cheap too. Just because you can't spend a fortune doesn't mean you can't buy your friends and family what they want for Christmas.