Million Miles Mama's Tips for Stretching Your Holiday Dollars

I used to get paid the bucks (not necessarily the big bucks) to work miracles for my corporate employers. Most of these miracles involve putting together a big corporate-wide strategy for a campaign, get huge results, and work on a little to non-existent budget. Wow.

So, how do I go about creating miracles? Well...lots of prayers, indeed, my friends, it takes lots of prayers. But aside from the prayers and waiting for it to start raining buckets of much needed revenue to pull off any campaign, I had to call upon the help of...creativity. That's it.

Creativity. Thinking Out of the Box...you call it what it is.

I will not share details on what to make or how to go about making your holiday gifts, but I will give you some tips on how to get started. Think of this as an exercise in creativity...


First of all...

1) Make a list of people you are giving gifts to this year.

I want to encourage your holiday giving spirit, but in order to be efficient with gift-giving and to save on your energy and expenses, I have to say...enough is enough on giving gifts to those who never give you a gift back or gives you gifts that shows they just don't care. Which brings us to...

2) Make the Gifts Personal

With a tight budget, it really is about "it is the thought, that counts."

3) Make it Clever

What do you mean, you might be asking. I'm sure if you stretch your creativity a bit, you may come up with something clever. So...I'll drop you a Million Miles example:

How about personal baked cookies with a likeness of your friend's face on it! Better yet, Gingerbread cookies with your friend's face on it, accompanying it with a note saying something corny, but sweet like, "Our friendship gets sweeter with every bite."

Overall cost: $5 for ingredients. Packaging of 5 cookies: $2 Wow. Inexpensive, but it definitely shows you put a lot of thought and work into the gift.

4) Make a Show of Giving!

Ever wonder why one perfume costs more than the other or why one lotion is better than the other? It has a lot to do with marketing and packaging.

We can certainly use the same strategy corporate marketers like myself use in creating a luxury-feel to a gift. Be creative, use colors, use small to large packaging, use creative crafts to make your gift stand out.

Here's another Million Miles tip:

Put your gift in a reusable package - for instance, cookies - put your cookies in cellophane, nicely wrapped in brightly-colored chiffon neck scarves, tied with a bright rhinestone hairclip or brooch.

Then invite all your girlfriends out for hot chocolate or coffee holiday get together.


Wouldn't you like to get invited to a holiday get together like that? Now about those invitations...you can really have some fun with that, too....


In the meantime, happy holidays and happy creating....

Kailin