Spending and Saving

All They Want for Christmas

The Black Friday shopping rush may be over, but if you’re like millions of people you’re still struggling with what to get the most difficult friends and family members in your life—your hippie aunt, your banker brother, your unemployed best friend. Choosing the right gift can be tricky business.

As you enter the home stretch of holiday shopping, let the recession be your guide: Recession-themed gifts are cheap, timely (what better exemplifies 2009 than the recession?), and usually good for at least a chuckle—just so long as you have a little fun with it. Here, we’ve put together a roundup of our favorite cheap, chic, gift-giving strategies perfect for this holiday season.

Trim Costs: With an increasing number of people tending their own gardens as a way of saving money this year, there’s never been a better time to give out gardening tools as a holiday gift. From seeds to gloves and even hoes, the most popular gardening gifts don’t have to be pricey to be useful and appreciated.

Tighten Belts: Everyone’s been forced to tighten their belts this year, so why not have a little fun with it by picking up the “Recession Buckle” or the “Bailout Buckle,” both from Etsy.

Make it Your Damn Self: You don’t have to be a crafter to make homemade holiday gifts. Whether you’re baking bundt cake, knitting scarves, or just using your cut and paste skills to make a collage with old photos, creating gifts from scratch is usually a cheaper option than buying new. And if you’re one of the 10 percent (or so) of Americans who are unemployed this holiday season, you ought to have a little more free time on your hands to start making these gifts, too.

Help Save: Piggy banks come in all different colors, shapes, and sizes. And with Americans’ distrust of banks at record highs, it looks like more people may actually start using them, too.

Give Care: If you’re unemployed, offering to baby-sit for a friend who’s in need of a date night out with his or her spouse could be one of the best gifts you could give. Not only is it free, but it just might be fun for you, too.

Trade Memories: For anyone who doesn’t mind shelling out a bit more for their holiday Christmas gifts, recession collectibles are always a timely—albeit, slightly more expensive—option. We put together a roundup of our favorites, right here.

Tags: Christmas, family, gifts, holiday, saving money, spending money