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David Mulonas

Personal Finance Tip #2 - Collect Holiday Gift Bags to Save Money and the Environment

Updated: Mar 3, 2022

This week's topic has to do with all of the gift bags, tissue paper, boxes, bows and anything else used in packaging gifts for people.


So things brings up the question . . . for all of the holiday shopping that people have done, how many gifts do you open each season?


That is a tough question to answer; however, many online bloggers subscribe to the three-gift rule which says that your kids only get three gifts chosen from three different categories while others follow the seven and 10 rule.



Now thinking about this a little further, one is that we're talking about children and if you have an extended family which most people do, that means all of many people will exchange gifts from siblings, aunts and uncles and grandparents and friends and so on.

So this means that you may receive several gifts each year which means you're going to buy gift bags and wrapping paper and all of the essentials to make things look nice for your “gift receivers.”


And this is where the hidden cost of gift-giving crimps the budget and people often overlook it.


So here's a great way to save some money, and that is to save the boxes, bags and bows and so on, rather than throwing them away.


Relatively speaking there's no reason to toss them as most of them are in really good shape meaning they don't have a crease or wrinkle and boxes are very durable.

In fact a few years ago we started doing this and now we have two full containers of these items and we just reuse them when gifting people.

The best part is that no one knows the difference and you should be able to save on your budget by our estimation, 80% on the cost that you would normally spend to package gifts.


On to top that off there’s no need to go to a store or order them online, and the other great benefit is that you're not throwing paper back into the environment.


So this is a win-win situation for everyone.

So here’s a couple point of note:

1) Take stock of how many gifts that you actually receive this year as well as how many that purchase for others in your network of family and friends.


2) Save the bags, boxes and accoutrement and you'll find that you will have plenty of stock on hand; not just for the holidays but also other gift-giving occasions throughout the year. This also will also keep a few more bucks in your budget each year.



Episode Link:

Collect Holiday Gift Bags and Boxes to Save Money

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