I’ve found that one of the biggest opportunities for saving in my own budget has been to plan ahead for birthdays and events like Christmas and Mother’s Day. By buying things on sale and in advance, I am able to get great deals on gifts that are useful and personal. I’ve found that I can get just as nice as gifts, if not nicer, at a fraction of the price by shopping before the week of. I’ve also been able to take advantage of the myriad of free personalized card offers (in fact we just a free Cardstore card offer last week) by keeping track of what dates I need cards for.
If you saw my budget template, you’ve realized that I’m pretty utilitarian when it comes to keeping track of things. My “gift list” isn’t very different. Its basically just a three column spreadsheet with date names--February Lily’s Birthday, a card column, and a gift column, each of which get x’s when I have them. In this way I am able to easily check which event I might need a card for next, or see if there is anyone who might need something that I have found a great deal on. You can get my gift planning spreadsheet here, even though it’s probably just as easy to make your own (note: I've deleted most of it--its just to give you an idea).
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