Today I am going to be sharing low waste gift ideas as a part of my low waste gift guide series. I will be posting a series of blog posts up until Christmas with ideas to help you find the right gift during the holiday season.
I don’t have a set budget because I don’t buy presents for that many people. Being intentional about who and what you are gifting to people is my top tip for saving money during the holidays.
A few other tips to save money include
- Keep a running list of gift ideas for family, friends, or whoever you buy presents for. Then you’re not rushing to buy gifts last minute because you didn’t know what to get them.
- Gift closet: I keep a bin that I store gifts for people throughout the year for birthdays and holidays. When I see something that I think someone on my gift list will like I buy it and store it for later if it’s a good deal. For example, I bought the Dropps pods in mid-November because they were having a 30% off sitewide sale.
- Set a budget: I know that I just said that I don’t have a set budget but it’s useful to keep your spending on track. I budget per person and I usually have the mindset that I’m going to spend no more than X amount on this person.
If you are something that is getting a present from me please stop reading this blog post.
Family
Mom
For my mom since she is hard to shop for I choose to buy her consumable or practical gifts that I know she will use.
Dropps Pods: Dropps are plastic-free, non-toxic, and biodegradable pods that arrive in cardboard packaging and ship carbon neutral. I heard about Dropps from @shelbizlee on Youtube. I bought my mom the dishwasher pods 120 ct when they went on sale. Cost $30
Puzzle: I got her a 12 in 1 Jigsaw puzzle series Jigsaw a month puzzle set from Home Sense. I bought her puzzles because I know that she enjoys doing puzzles. But if you don’t know if your giftee enjoys puzzles please don’t buy them one. Cost $22
Sister
Travel Mug: My sister asked for a travel mug to replace her broken one. I chose a stainless steel travel mug that looked durable and had good reviews. Cost $15
Sprout Pencils: They contain seed capsules inside to be planted at the end of the pencil’s life. Since I know that she enjoys gardening and pencils are always useful. Cost $18
If you are one of my friends that I give presents to please scroll past the next section
Friends
I handle friend gifts by doing a gift swap and exchanging gifts with a few close friends.
Secret Santa Gift swap: I usually do a secret Santa gift swap every year with friends but we are not doing one because of covid this year. When I did a gift swap we would draw names out of a hat and set a price of $20. Then we created a document with everyone’s interests and then got together to exchange gifts. Secret Santa works for me and my friends because it saves us time and money to only buy one present.
Reddit Secret Santa
This is my first time doing Reddit Secret Santa and I am really excited. Every year a group of people organizes a gift exchange for the Reddit Community /r/secretsanta. I purchased something off of Etsy for my giftee because it’s a certified b corporation and the company offsets carbon emissions. I can’t tell you what I bought because that’s against the rules to post gift spoilers.
Work Secret Santa:
The job that I work at decided to do secret santa this year last minute with a $15 budget. I bought my secret santa a variety of chocolate candy and a big container of hand sanitizer. Since they said that they like practical gifts and I knew that the hand sanitizer would be useful.
Close friends: For friends, I try to be intentional and think about if they will use or enjoy the gift. In the past, I have given one friend a cameo and took another friend to lunch for their birthdays.
Friend 1: handmade cat toys made out of my scrap fabric.
Friend 2: I symbolically adopted a bearded dragon from an animal sanctuary in their name. I asked if she was okay with me making a donation to charity in her name first. I also sent them a tin of homemade sugar cookies.
That’s all of the gifts that I am getting people for this holiday season. If you enjoyed reading this blog post make sure to check out the other blog posts in my low waste gift guide series.