The Zero Dollar Christmas Plan

Apparently, the average Canadian is expected to spend somewhere between $1500- $2300 on Christmas and the holiday season this year. Gifts, decorations, meals, etc.

I never approach $2000, but it's certainly still a more expensive time of year. Gifts are usually my biggest expense, though last year buying Christmas lights and a timer was $$ too!

My personal challenge for this year is to spend $0 extra.

Admittedly, the goal is to help me spend less, while I continue to save up for a big gift to me from me (a dishwasher) in the new year.

My plan is to use food and items I already own plus loyalty rewards money to make Christmas cost $0 to me this year.

My plans:
- No new decor (unless I make it)
- Using existing reusable gift bags, and other leftover wrapping.
- as usual, Christmas dinner will be as many veggies from my garden as possible, lots of butter, a roast, and a dessert - the roast and whipping cream can be easily covered by grocery store rewards.

Gift ideas:
- Gifts to 3 people on my list, bought using reward money
- A watercolour of someone's house using paper and paints I already own.
- Food gifts (homemade candy and homemade freezer desserts ) using ingredients I have on hand like the 10L of maple syrup from the spring, and the fruit I have frozen, plus likely buying some butter, nuts, and chocolate for candy making using grocery store rewards.
- Rehabbing an antique cast iron pan for a friend who wants one
- Homemade grapevine wreaths and/or more candy for a few family/friends I usually exchange little gifts with

Anyone else targetting a low/no spend Christmas? What are your strategies?

For the past 20+ years I have definitely averaged less than $20 a year extra for Christmas.  

John F Dean wrote:For the past 20+ years I have definitely averaged less than $20 a year extra for Christmas.  

What's your strategy? What do you spend your $20 on? A gift? A holiday meal? A charitable donation?

my Christmas budget is $400.00, same probably for a long time ... cash.

There is no strategy.  We drifted into a holiday routine where we don’t buy gifts.  While we have a couple of special holiday meals, we generally stay within our normal budget.

I think so much depends on ones situation. I'm a senior citizen, so there is very little than I *need* but I do appreciate people supporting my chocolate addiction, and we can't grow it in Canada... sigh...

In return, I am considered notorious for giving people practical, useful gifts. I am soooo.... done with dust collectors! But I know a person who seriously doesn't consider it a Christmas gift if it isn't fluff. Too bad. She's getting a heavy duty tomato cage because her garden needs it, and a bowl cozy so she can carry a bowl of soup to her table without the risk of spilling hot soup on her hands. The cage I spent good money on - but a really good design that will last as long as she needs it to. The cozy has step one and two done - the pattern is made, and the filling pieces cut out from a damaged towel. Step three - sewing the filling is started. I will then want to test it on her bowl before finding some pretty fabric to upcycle for the cover and liner.

Similar, I've already started sewing some other gifts - mostly upcycling again.

I do this not because I *need* to save money, but because I try to live lightly on the land. Too many gifts don't actually add to people's quality of life after the initial dopamine hit. I don't believe that the planet can handle that attitude any longer.

However, my DiL loves pretty things. I'm thinking of making her some garden art - again, mostly upcycled and natural material. I won't quibble about the small stuff, like a bit of glue or paint if it makes it look pretty.

I'm not aiming for zero, but there's simply *NO* way I'm spending $1500 on Christmas. Hubby's another matter. He did buy me that nice chipper/shredder for my tractor a few years back. So if I ask him if he's buying me a Christmas present, I suspect his answer will be, "What do you want chipped and shredded?"

Good points Jay.  My wife and I are currently sorting through a house (especially basement!) full of gifts and other junk.  Much of this junk was gifts…I can tell because many of the boxes are unopened.  The contents are items that would support us if we were maintaining the givers’ lifestyle …such as the George Foreman Grill.   I am sure someone was bothered when they saw me cooking on a cast iron stove top grill.

Catie writes,

Anyone else targeting a low/no spend Christmas? What are your strategies?

The strategy that works for me and many of my friends/family is to gift myself some kind of much needed tool then develop skills using the tool to make gifts. For example, one year I bought a set of wet stones (1000 and 3000 grit). I gave gift cards to sharpen kitchen knives. This was a big hit because (I knew from visiting) no one had cared for their knives. The next year, I bought a wet stone grinder. I had learned the previous year that many knives were chipped and needed preliminary preparation on the concrete sidewalk! The grinder really helped shape the worst knives. The third year, I bought some honing compound and rubbed it into an oak floor board. This gave the knives a razor sharp edge.
Each year, I expanded my tools for my own uses then practiced on terribly neglected knives. Everyone went away from the holidays happy.
Other examples over the years have been a jigsaw to cut wooden puzzles, a pressure canner to preserve jars of fruit, carving tools to make spoons, a band saw to make charcuterie boards, pottery making tools to make tea bowls and so on.
The holidays can be the time to buy the tool that has been on one's own wish list. By giving gifts to others created using a much needed gift-to-self (and supplies from the land/garden/homestead), the cost for gifts is effectively $0.

Amy Gardener wrote:Catie writes,

Anyone else targeting a low/no spend Christmas? What are your strategies?

The strategy that works for me and many of my friends/family is to gift myself some kind of much needed tool then develop skills using the tool to make gifts. For example, one year I bought a set of wet stones (1000 and 3000 grit). I gave gift cards to sharpen kitchen knives. This was a big hit because (I knew from visiting) no one had cared for their knives. The next year, I bought a wet stone grinder. I had learned the previous year that many knives were chipped and needed preliminary preparation on the concrete sidewalk! The grinder really helped shape the worst knives. The third year, I bought some honing compound and rubbed it into an oak floor board. This gave the knives a razor sharp edge.
Each year, I expanded my tools for my own uses then practiced on terribly neglected knives. Everyone went away from the holidays happy.
Other examples over the years have been a jigsaw to cut wooden puzzles, a pressure canner to preserve jars of fruit, carving tools to make spoons, a band saw to make charcuterie boards, pottery making tools to make tea bowls and so on.
The holidays can be the time to buy the tool that has been on one's own wish list. By giving gifts to others created using a much needed gift-to-self (and supplies from the land/garden/homestead), the cost for gifts is effectively $0.

I am very lucky that I have really practical friends/family, so I typically get one or two much wanted tools  at Christmas, and generally give tools too. My family/friend group are really frugal, so we tend to enjoy giving gifts that are quality tools we are too cheap to buy ourselves. That, and food.

I anticipate my gifts this year including high quality secateurs and maple syrup making equipment. Previous memorable gifts have included grow lights and a really nice spade and garden fork.

I really like your idea of thinking ahead to buy tools to let you make gifts!

A friend of mine really likes to see lots of presents under her Christmas tree - it brings her joy.

Soooo... the household rule is that anything that gets purchased in December for any reason that isn't *needed* until after Christmas, gets wrapped and goes under the tree. Anything from a package of paper clips to extra toilet paper is fair game! It works for her, and her family is happy to indulge her.

I will also post an idea from a fellow permie: she and her mom would wander around their house looking for things they liked, but that hadn't been getting much use for some time. These would quietly get put into a box and wrapped up. Christmas morning they had lots of gifts that were already theirs, that came off the "neglected" list for at least the Holiday Season. They both had a blast Christmas morning, and they didn't spend any money on the fun. There may be a thread about it somewhere, if people want to go looking for it.

I don't think I make a zero dollar chirstmas, but spend no where near $1000!

I like to make gifts for my sisters, maybe spending some on the materials, although this year I'm hoping to use up stuff I already have. I like to make something that will be useful as well as nice. Since 2 of my sisters live in Australia, I can't get around spending on postage at least (now there's a challenge!)

I cut up last year's greetings cards and stick them onto blank folded card to make a new design for sending to friends and family with a printed christmas letter with our news from the year. I suppose one can do an online card, and many people have moved away from greetings cards, but I really like to see mine hanging around the kitchen, and you can't do that with a virtual card! They're part of the christmas decor for me.
DIY christmas cards thread

Jay Angler wrote:A friend of mine really likes to see lots of presents under her Christmas tree - it brings her joy.

Soooo... the household rule is that anything that gets purchased in December for any reason that isn't *needed* until after Christmas, gets wrapped and goes under the tree. Anything from a package of paper clips to extra toilet paper is fair game! It works for her, and her family is happy to indulge her. .

We do this too (albeit not with toilet paper). ! It's super fun to wrap things like a new set of work gloves, and label them as from the dog who ate the last set. Or address a new set of kitchen scissors as 'For she who opens the kibble bags'.  My dad would occasionally address gifts to himself as 'To: the Handsomest Man Alive.  From: (his name)'. If you wrap them early enough, even if it's a gift you wrap for yourself it ends up being a nice surprise. I have moved to a lot of reusable boxes/bags, so other than a label it's a fairly free thing to do.

Occasionally you end up rummaging under the tree on December 19th or something, when you really DO need the thing earlier!

I am somewhat suspicious of these very high spending figures. Are they designed to make people think they "should" spend more? Google tells me that the average UK household spent between 1600 and 1800 GBP on Christmas last year. But the Bank of England statistics show that overall, household spending only rose by 700 GBP above the monthly average last December. Both numbers surely can't be right!

I love the idea of making sure Christmas gifts are useful. Tools and books are the favourites in our household, and we do have a few days of indulging in more food than usual. In the past years, we've generally spent more on gift for our mothers than on each other. I would say our total Christmas spend is maybe 250 GBP.

Some lovely creative ideas here for a zero spend Christmas!

Challenge update:

My grapevine wreaths are made, and I will decorate the wreaths right before gifting with a bit of boxwood, dried hydrangea flowers, and thyme, all harvested from my yard. My test wreath looks great

I am just finishing up the 3rd round of seasoning on the antique cast iron pan I am giving a friend.

I have bought two gifts  (wool dryer balls, and a stainless steel frying pan), which I know will be appreciated, using reward points.

Grocery shopping tomorrow, then onto baking - first gift food I am making for gifts is frozen, reheatable hubarb crumble, made with my own rhubarb.

Money spent so far ? $0.


In slightly related musings, I heard someone on the radio advertising a local holiday market this weekend, that they claim is 'Perfect for last minute shopping '

To be clear, that's November 29th.

I think part of this personal challenge is proving Christmas can be joyful, include lots of great gifts people qppreciate, and NOT involve stressing that you are running out of time to prepare, in November, or spending buckets or money!

Senior citizen here, so it's not too hard to not spend extravagant amounts of $$$ on Christmas.
Since COVID, we hardly ever go out, so we usually try to have a really nice meal. Maybe a meal at a nice restaurant, maybe a couple of meals over the holiday season, like lobster... Just a little splurge, to make the occasion.
For my kids, both in their early 50s, they too won't spend much on their Christmas. The best strategy of them all is to actually ask what they want: they are well past the Christmas morning hopeful eyes under the tree, "wondering about what Santa brought them", and we all hate the 'dust collectors' mentioned before. Any "surprise gift" I give them is usually some canned products.
When they don't know what to get us, it's a chore for them, so I just let them know exactly what I want, ( plants, trees, seeds...) and I tell hubby to do the same.
He's a pain to shop for because when asked, he always says: I don't need anything. I tell him, Christmas presents are not supposed to be something you NEED, just something you *WANT*, for a change.
That leaves his grandkids. I don't have any, so that's easy.
He gives $400 to his children for them to spend any way they see fit on them.(7 grandkids) I put $50 in each of their bank account towards their graduation)
I'd say, eyeballing it, we/I don't spend more than $1,000.
But trust me, he best strategy (for your entire family and yourself) to save around Christmas is to let everyone know what you'd like. We have a pretty good idea how much a given person can spend on us, so the whole gift giving goes pretty smoothly. That will avoid a lot of wasted money, time and hurt feelings having to return gifts.
Things go so much smoother! You can concentrate on having a good time together, playing cards...sharing good memories...  extinguishing political strife...

Here is my personal, grumpy-guts feeling about Christmas gifts.

If you know someone well enough to be giving them a Christmas gift, you should know them well enough to give them a gift that solves a problem they have, that they've told you about, without asking them what they want for Christmas. I tend to watch people and write down things months in advance of Christmas and seldom struggle to choose Christmas gifts, and my gifts tend to get used because they solve a problem people don't know they have (or are edible and tasty). My biggest issue is occasionally discovering the person I'm giving the gift to bought themselves the item a few weeks ago! Most people have little things they gripe about, if you listen to them, that are easily solvable with a bit of thought and a <$30 gift, even if it's something silly like an extra long USB cord or a big roll of cotton butcher twine (both gifts people in my life have been super excited about), or someone's favourite hard to find chocolate.

If you're truly stumped, it's okay to ask what someone wants, but it takes the joy out of Christmas gifts to ask, and then ask the person where to buy the thing, and task them to provide them a precise link to the thing they want, which puts the onus on the person receiving the gift to guess the giver's budget, do the research, choose a gift in that price range, and then find the best item available in that price range online, with workable shipping, etc. Ugh. That's the exhausting part of Christmas!  Just give cash at that point!

I'm personally a fan of 'spend this cash on something fun and tell me what you buy' gifts, too. I miss my grandmother's Christmas cheques, where she'd give me a cheque, and I'd call her in a month and say thank you for the really lovely shoes or coat she bought me! Money for education funds is also a great gift for kids in my opinion.

My $0 Christmas Challenge continues, with a few failures, and a lot of success.

- I spent far less than average in November, and am on track to do the same in December, which means I'm booking a plumber to install a dishwasher hookup for January. Success! Not quite sure I have enough to cover the cabinet I need to build, but I should by the end of January.

- A store selling Made in Canada clothing had their first sale since I started watching them over a year ago. I ordered something  for myself, and for my mom. I would have bought it even if it wasn't Christmas, and have already bought my mom's gift, but I'll count the $30 I spent on my mom's gift as my first 'real money' spent on Christmas since I'm wrapping it for her. Failure, but I'm still way under my yearly clothing budget even with this 'splurge'.

- I apparently don't have much wrapping paper/wrapping supplies saved from previous years (I think they are at my mom's ) and don't feel like making more reusable bags. Luckily I *do* have a ton of brown paper I save from online orders over the summer to use in my wood stove, which makes perfectly acceptable gift wrap!  Success!

- I found a few random tools in my house I need to return to my mom which I can wrap as "gifts" and make her laugh. Success!

- The wreaths have been a big hit with everyone I've given them to, and I ended up making and giving them to more people than planned. I decorated them using only stuff from my yard as a fun Christmas activity with my mom, and had a wonderful time. Huge Success!

- I was given a free bar of biodegradable, unscented soap with a bulk order of cleaning supplies that would normally go in my stash, because it might be useful some day... I wrapped it, and will give it to a friend who will actually use it. Success!

- I discovered more ingredients than I knew I had in the freezer/cupboards so haven't needed to use as much reward money as expected for making Christmas gifts. Theoretically I'll end up replacing them eventually, but I count this as a win. Success!

- I found a $5 item at a thrift store perfect for a friend who is buying a house. It's a housewarming gift, but since I'll likely give it at a Christmas, I'll include it. Failure?

- I decorated my orange tree with Christmas decorations as my 'Christmas Tree' and have cut branches from my yard for my dining table. Success!

- I used the infuriating 'free' Christmas cards sent out by a charity I donated to in the past, sent to guilt me into donating to them again, to send cards to far away friends. I normally toss them angrily while swearing to never donate to that charity again, but this year I avoided the waste and used them (while angrily vowing to never donate to them again)Success!

So far I'm at $35 in real money, a few stamps, plus $70 in rewards points for Christmas gifts (and a housewarming gift) for 9 people, and I could argue the $35 is really not 'Christmas' spending at all.

And... I'm done Christmas shopping, wrapping, and decorating for the season!  I would say I've successfully prepared for Christmas on an (almost) zero dollar budget, without feeling like I've missed out on any of my favourite traditions, 'the Christmas spirit' or giving fewer or 'worse' gifts than normal.

I am planning on going to a Christmas downtown event with a friend, and likely will spend some money there on the charitable donation for the wagon rides, etc. It's a Christmas event, but I'll argue it's part of my normal socializing budget, since EVERYTHING is a Christmas event in mid-December!

John F Dean wrote: We drifted into a holiday routine where we don’t buy gifts.  While we have a couple of special holiday meals, we generally stay within our normal budget.

This is us as well. Since my daughter was about 10 we buy gifts for each other when they're needed, but not for holidays. Yesterday we went out to look at fabric (she has a few projects for her summer vacation), and we're going to buy her her own sewing machine, now that she's outpaced my talents....
We will host a few meals here over Christmas (probably Christmas lunch), as some extended family is coming into town, so we'll spend some money on food we don't usually eat (barbecue, certainly).
We'll travel to visit other family members at New Year's, and I'll spend a bit of cash kenneling the dog during this time, which is really the only big difference in terms of what we'll spend, but I think it's worth it in terms of avoiding vet bills since he inevitably gets sick/unhappy if I leave him here when I travel with just someone to come and feed and without his usual routine.

I will make some food gifts for my sisters in law, I've gotten them used to expecting homemade jam and such every time we visit. I also like to make some sort of fancy long-keeping bread at the holidays, one for each family (4 sisters in law), I'll do that too.

My last Christmas gifts of the season will be delivered tomorrow, weather gods willing (right now they look pretty unwilling!)

Did I succeed in a Zero Dollar Christmas?  Not quite, but close enough I am happy.

In addition to previous purchases, I spent another $3 to buy a Christmas tin for a food-gift when I ran out of containers.  I suppose I also went over budget on food supplies, though those are hard to count, since I had them on hand, and just handwavingly used reward points at the grocery store to 'pay' myself back for them, and besides, how do you value 2L of homemade maple syrup?- but I had atrocious luck with candy this year, for a long list of reasons.

I suppose theoretically I could count the gas I spent to drive to visit for Christmas, but I visit about once a month anyways, so I'm not counting it!

All in all about $38 of real money spent on "Christmas", $35 of which I would have spent even without the holiday, (and about $80-100 spent of reward points, which I normally hoard and never use), with Christmas still being it's usual busy self, with token gifts for about a dozen people, and "good" gifts for 3. Could I have given fewer token gifts? Probably, but Christmas gifts are culturally/socially expected, and fairly important for relationship maintenance, so I am happy I managed to still do it. Plus, I enjoy it! I'd have felt awful NOT having return gifts for people who gave me small gifts.

I ended up going to a buy nothing event, where I got rid of some things I no longer needed, and found myself some sparkly gold glass Christmas tree ornaments and a few other things I needed.  I was also given a strand of Christmas lights for my indoor houseplant Christmas tree, which I admit made the tree much more festive.

I ended Christmas still feeling like I got to enjoy all my favourite parts of the season after a very difficult year and despite a very tight budget, and I didn't end up feeling like I was being 'cheap'.

I would have ended up spending far less in total than my usual month, and did, in most categories , from groceries, up to and including my hydro bill, saving enough for the dishwasher AND the cabinet - except for 3 unforeseeable  major emergencies in December which thoroughly destroyed my budget for the foreseeable future.  Oh well. I'll get the hookup installed, and will keep my eyes open for cheap used dishwashers and used laminate countertops, and finish the project whenever time and money allows. Perhaps not what I had hoped to build, or quite as soon as I'd promised myself, but I will get it done. And find a used fridge, while I'm at it since mine is actively dying... In the spring, when I can get my trailer out. Sigh.

We don't spend zero but do spend very little extra even with four young children and lots of presents under the tree. This year total on presents for my children and husband I spent $22.50. Here is how:

- We plan ahead and look for deals on ingredients we need for special foods.

- We have set up gift expectations for our children so that they know they will get one main gift from us which will be some kind of "experience" usually something we do as a family together. We also always give them a nice new Christmas button down shirt or a dress which we make for them from material sourced for free somehow(salvaged from a larger discarded garment, offcuts or material someone never got around to using and have away--actually quite common). They love these things!

- We also give them a very full stocking stuffed with gifts that I have made in the lead up or found looking on sites where people give things away for free, such as:
- homemade: cookies, candies, flavoured popcorn, etc.
- books
- little toys (people are ALWAYS getting rid of these last two, you just have to be thinking in advance for Christmas!)
- handmade: doll clothes, embroidered kerchiefs, pouches, bookmarks, hair bows, mini notebooks, crayons, crochet little animals, Christmas tree ornaments, lip balm, craft kits, garden seed kits, etc.

- We also do a little advent gift each day in the lead up and it is very tiny, maybe a little sweet or a figurine, something with their initial on it, etc.

With children in my experience it just needs to FEEL special, and be presented well. I mean, how different really is a new little box of LEGO from the Legos that they already have? But if it is packaged nicely, new to them and they can look forward to something that they can build with it that they might not have thought of building before--it's exciting!

So, if I make little cookies gift wrapped just for them to eat whenever they want and sew a mini notebook together and label it "Secret Invention Ideas" and wrap it up, suddenly the paper that was there in the study all along becomes "cool". And those things that we source from what others are discarding just need to be new to them and gift wrapped.

It does take more planning, creativity and work in the lead up but I enjoy it and also like the investment in what we are, hopefully, modelling for our children.

This holiday, my family, including my grandson, wrote "love letters" to each other. We were pretty much broke due to circumstances. But it gave us the gift of being creative for gifts. We all decided to write letters. My grandson wrote six letters for all of us, he HATES writing. But he also got six letters in return telling him how wonderful he is and why he is so loved. It was one of our most memorable years as far as gifts. And much more appreciated. He got a few wrapped gifts from more distant relatives, but he kept saying how much he loved the letters.  Next year, more home/handmade gifts. Practical, useful and meaningful.  

What a great idea Tess! and I bet those letters will be treasured long after much more (financially) valuable gifts are discarded and forgotten.

Some wonderful ideas here!

I used to save all the colored newspaper comics throughout the year and use them for wrapping paper -- alas no more.  

I spent about $40 on a 2lb bag of sundried mango slices for my son, and we snacked on them while watching a paid movie online, plus we went to see Avatar 3, since we have always watched them together and he was down from Nunavut for Christmas!

I also ordered him a used hardback copy of Chilton small engine repair 1983, for his birthday (comes right after Xmas) because he intends to learn boat motor repair. He can have it when he comes back in late February and he is really looking forward to seeing it.

That's all, plus I made a huge bread pudding with 2 dozen eggs, for myself and some hungry temporary neighbors staying indoors over the winter! (Quebec)

"The strategy that works for me and many of my friends/family is to gift myself some kind of much needed tool then develop skills using the tool to make gifts. For example, one year I bought a set of wet stones (1000 and 3000 grit). I gave gift cards to sharpen kitchen knives. This was a big hit because (I knew from visiting) no one had cared for their knives. The next year, I bought a wet stone grinder. I had learned the previous year that many knives were chipped and needed preliminary preparation on the concrete sidewalk! The grinder really helped shape the worst knives. The third year, I bought some honing compound and rubbed it into an oak floor board. This gave the knives a razor sharp edge.
Each year, I expanded my tools for my own uses then practiced on terribly neglected knives. Everyone went away from the holidays happy."

This is a great idea. I would love to have someone competent sharpen my knives as a gift!