Have you heard about the 3 Christmas gift rules? Your kids only get three gifts chosen from three different categories. Here are the 3 categories that we use in our home. One of the toughest struggle as a parent is to give children a joy-filled Christmas. To many, that somehow translates to giving them the gifts that they want in hopes that parents will make them happy. With the rocketing prices of products every year and the massive marketing initiatives that are bombarding children at every turn, the struggle to not bankrupt the family finances on Christmas presents is real. Once you set a Christmas budget and stick to it, you’ll be able to sleep soundly that two goals have been met. You’ll have made selective, smart decisions for happy children and happy checkbook. Here are some strategies, tips, and tricks to consider for establishing a Christmas budget for your child.
Below Are 3 Christmas Gift Rules
Equality Approach: When It’s Important that Everything is Equal As Gift Rules
For many families, it makes sense to give each child an equal value in their gifts. This develops a sense of equality to the presents. The number of children and your financial situation will dictate what your figure is, but with some planning and make even a few cash per child stretch quite a bit. Here are the basics: Determine how much money you want spend on all the kids combined. Divide it equally by the number of kids you’re buying for.
Have the Kids Do the Shopping Teaching Thoughtfulness to Older Kids
As one of the Christmas gift rules, this is one of my favourite spin on the equality approach. You still set a budget and you assign an equal amount to go to each child. The difference is that you have the children do the shopping for each other. So you set a budget per child. Then you give each child that amount to spend on their siblings. My favourite part is when the part is when the kids find the perfect gift for one of their siblings and pool their money to purchase it. They’re always more generous and thoughtful than what you expect. This strategy has added bonus of teaching about budgeting, giving, and combining efforts for a greater impact.
Sliding Scale Spending: Age Matters ( Gift Rules)
As one of the gift rules, gift ideas for older children are definitely going up in price and are shifting up to accommodate a more tech-savvy generation. With that in mind, understand that you might be spending more for one tech gift for an older child than you will on a bag full of fun toys for a younger sibling.
