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Your family may be feeling the pinch of the recession even during this holiday season. If that’s the case it could be time to cut back on gift giving. You don’t have to give up the fun of the holidays, however. There are ways to have fun without spending too much.

Here are a few alternatives to gift giving this year:

Gift games - Playing a game with the family can be more memorable than exchanging a new sweater or some socks. Here’s how it works: everyone brings a gift that they would enjoy receiving, wraps it up, and places it in the center of the room. Each participant draws a number which becomes the order for choosing gifts. Player number 1 opens a gift then player number 2 decides whether they would like to open a new gift or ‘steal’ the already opened gift. Each gift can be stolen up to 3 times. After the third steal, the player with the gift gets to keep it. It’s a fun way to enjoy time with friends and family, spend less money, and do some gift giving on a smaller scale.

Exchange only homemade gifts - A few ideas include: a recipe book with all of your favorites, baked goods, Christmas ornaments, calendar with family pictures, or a memory box full of memorable experiences.

Cookie swap: Instead of exchanging gifts with friends, offer a cookie swap as a way to get everyone together and enjoy the holidays. Everyone brings a batch of their favorite cookies to trade and everyone goes home happy with new treats to try!

There are so many ways to simplify this season – let us know what you’re doing this year!

Thanksgiving is an exciting time of year to gather with friends and family, but can be overwhelming when giving the task to cook for all of said friends and family. These are a few ideas to keep the holiday stress free and budget friendly:

Potluck – Sharing the cooking burden with others makes for less preparation and you also get to share the cost of the meal. Thanksgiving is the perfect time to let others help with the meal – let people choose their favorite side or dessert and you can provide the turkey and the table. Easy as pie!

Off brand turkey – You can save up to $10 per pound when you buy a store brand turkey rather than a popular brand name.

Sides that are in season - Picking out veggies for side dishes can be fun when you’re trying out new recipes, but not when they’re more expensive. Buying foods that are in season will help keep costs down. Stick with turnips, winter squash, potatoes, and other items that come during the winter months. Same with fruit dishes. Apples, oranges, and pears are in season this time of year and will be more reasonably priced.

Cook from scratch - Most of the time buying items that are already made or almost made will be more expensive than cooking those same items from scratch. Make your own pie and pie crust, cranberry sauce, or even bread. Watch out that you’re not spending too much time in the kitchen, but made-from-scratch items will usually taste better and cost less. Can’t beat that!

Christmas Club is one of our most popular accounts and for good reason. It’s really just a helpful budgeting tool.

It starts each year on November 1 and runs through October 31 of the following year. That means if you set your account up now, you can save money each month until next October and have plenty of money for Christmas shopping!

Some people use it for other types of expenses that come up during this time of the year – either way it’s a great way to save!

You can set up your account to automatically put money into Christmas Club each time your direct deposit comes in or you can choose to add money whenever the time is right.

I love that I never have to think about saving for Christmas – we just set up our account to pay directly into our Christmas Club account and wait for November 1 to start shopping!