I, too, use Shutterfly, and have found that if you’re careful, you can use a coupon code for full price for the first book, and half-price for all the other books, which saves beau-coup dinero!

I’ve gotten photographic ceramic ornaments for 99 cents each from Artscow.com too, and they’re much appreciated!

However, I’m known for being generous. Mostly, I donate my time and effort–and people really appreciate it! Soup for a sick stay-at-home-mom friend is always welcome, for example.

I have, in the past, bought plane tickets for a needy friend to visit her ill father, paid tuition & fees for a last-minute required course for a poor college student friend, donated items to my daughter’s school, and picked up random items for friends. Those are few and far between.

Our family “GIFT” is: our son and us rent a small condo in Sedona for christmas time on VRBO and go hiking,cook meals in and enjoy ourselves.

I buy book store gift certificates at a LOCAL INDEPENDENT book store for $25 for our christmas gifts to our staff at work and for a couple of good girl friends.My husband and I usually give gifts of services, like kitchen clean up, housecleaning, massages for one another, and sometimes restaurant gift certificates. (locally owned.)

Perhaps this is a cultural thing though, as I’m from the Netherlands.

Christmas is not such a big thing here, we’ve got “Sinterklaas” (which is where Santa came from) which is mostly a kids things (whom I don’t have). And the adults draw names and make a very intricate giftwrap to hide the gift in (think fake books hiding pencils, icecream carts with some small gifts hidden in it. The normal budget for this is between 10 and 15 dollars. This is for an entire holiday season worth of gifts. But it does add the effort (and some money) to create the ‘surprise’-gift wrapping and the mandatory poem. (Santa has been thinking, what gift would be your inkling and so on)

As for birthdays we’ve agreed with friends and most family to skip birthday gifts as quite frequently you spent money on a gift the person doesn’t necessarily wants. It’s just such a waste of money. This only does not apply to kids (nephews and nieces), it’s hard to explain. Although as they get plenty of toys from grandparents I always give them money to save up for something they really like. (Which was funny with my 3 year old niece who asked, after I gave the money to her, why she didn’t get a present from me)

With 6 nephews and nieces that adds up to about 30 dollars +holiday budget is a grand total of under 50 dollars of gifts.

It reminds me of one of my uncles and his sister – they always gave each other a card and $5 for birthdays, and it got to be a running joke that it was the same $5 bill.

My side of the family, only little kids get gifts. Cheap, easy, stress-free.

But my partner’s side of the family has a huge set of gift expectations and they’re not at all negotiable – if he wanted to negotiate, he could maybe, but I have no standing and he thinks it’s fine. But I get saddled with all the work (or else I cover at home while he runs around at the last minute getting gifts) and it leaves no time for the rituals I actually enjoy. It’s a struggle every year and I hate Christmas more each year.

I save through the Christmas club at my credit union and my budget it $520. This pays for maybe 12-15 gifts plus treats to out-of-town relatives, the tree, cards, postage, any decor I buy, and two luncheons where I exchange gifts with friends.

Birthday gifts are usually in the $25 range. Wedding gifts $50-$100 depending on how well I know the couple.

I am not opposed to buying or receiving gift cards. I would much rather have a gift card–even if it shows little thought, than some other gift that shows little thought. Someone above mentioned mugs. I am single. I have 17 mugs. Get me the gift card . . . please!

I always give the kids gifts (or cash), because they’re kids. I always give my parents gifts because they do so much for us and special occasions are about the ONLY time they’ll accept gifts from us kids without making a big deal of it. These are my only gift-giving consistencies. We’re all adults, so if the money isn’t there for gifts one year or another, no one is making apologies and no one is having a fit over it. We all enjoy giving gifts though and try to be thoughtful with it – but again, no one is bothered if a gift is returned.

I’ve never kept gift-giving to a budget since I focus more on buying what they actually want, and that fluctuates from year to year. DS wants a video-camcorder and I bought a used one for $200; since that’s the “big” present, he’s unlikely to get anything more from me. However, his dad (DH) will buy him some video games and books, and I know DS will be so thrilled with the camcorder that he won’t care that that’s all I gave him. DH is a collector, and our local comic book shop keeps a box for him and other regulars to hold desired items until they come in to pay, and DH asked me to just pick up whatever’s in his box that I’m willing to buy (lately this means pricey books on cult films and comics, so it’ll be about equal to DS’s gift).

When DS was in elementary school, I got $20 Amazon gift certificates for his teachers, and since this meant music/violin teachers and special-ed (he went to a rather unique school), this ran into serious $$$. Now that he’s in high school and has something like 8-10 teachers including SPED and after-school, I bake several sheet cakes and send them in with a heartfelt thank-you note to all of them; since my baking is decent and they’re predominantly in their 20′s and thin, this goes over well.

Finally, DH & I started a family tradition of the Dursley Gifts, born some years back when he complained that we were so broke that all he could afford to buy me was the kind of crap that Harry Potter got from the Dursleys. Each year, one gift has to be under $15, horrible, hilarious, but not (too) mean-spirited. Past Dursley gifts have included a 6-inch high statue of two pigs in bikinis kissing (I have no idea), a nose-hair trimmer (he used it), a Chinese import set of plastic superhero figurines with unfortunate Engrish labeling, a craft of a wax-head elf in an old slipper called “Sleepy Shoe-Elf” only the face looked like Munch’s “The Scream”, and a small lamp shaped like women’s breasts and the on-off switches were the nipples. The gift tags always read “To Vernon Dursley, from Petunia Dursley” or vice-versa, so we know what we’re in for. DS gets Dursley gifts too, “To Harry Potter from Vernon (or Petunia) Dursley” – usually underwear or something My Little Pony or equally cringe-worthy.

Fortunately for us, we have friends who always have a party on Christmas Night: a Yankee Yule Swap bring-your-worst-gift-to-regift event, so our Dursley gifts are usually rewrapped and taken along. We have a reputation for having the worst gifts at the Swap.

For Christmas this year I sewed barbie doll outfits for each granddaughter, made American girl mattresses and bedding sets and carved a dragon relief onto a pirate treasure box I found for $2for my grandson. They also get books from our local museum. For the grownups I send a book that suits their interests and one handmade item. My parents overdid the whole gift giving thing when their first grandchild (my daughter and their mother) was born. I keep it simple to be an example of enough is enough. I do wrap things up separately so it looks like more under their tree. I will spend about $200 this year all total on gifts and postage. I only have a partime job and intentionally live on a net of $950 per month. I do my shopping throughout the year or repurpose fabric and wood and buy my supplies and books when they are on clearance.

In any case, we spend about $300 yearly on all gifts. Birthday for my two nieces and my two kids, Christmas for my two nieces and my two kids. My husband and I do not exchange gifts. I do fill up Christmas stockings for us though, but with little treats like beef jerky or fancy soap or whatever I get for free with coupons. For the grandparents, they get a framed 8×10 of the family / kids. I shop clearance sales, yard sales, rummage sales, thrift stores and holiday clearance sales and I am very crafty and make a lot of gifts by hand.

This year for Christmas, my 5 year old is getting a huge tub of Legos- I bought about half from a garage sale this summer for $1. The other half is what my husband and I had when we were kids. She will also get two Melissa and Doug toys that I got free with gift cards from Swagbucks, and her stocking stuffers are Target clearance goodies. My 1 year old will get a play mat / rug that I made of felt. One side is a farm and the other is a road for racing his toy cars on. He will also get a Melissa and Doug toy I got free with giftcard and some bath toys I got on clearance after Christmas last year. My nieces will get backpacks filled with art/craft stuff that I got during the summer school supply sales and the back packs were free after rebate. I also filled up 6 boxes for Operation Christmas Child using these types of items. So my kids and family get nice gifts and we give to others on a very modest budget.

The $300 is about 0.7% of our income. Obviously this does not include charitable giving/tithe which is 10%.

I have to hold back though. I want a pile of presents FOR him because that’s what I wanted and it’s hard to resist the urge to go crazy. I just want to give him everything :/