In addition to sharing with my family whenever they needed any products, I made lots of gift baskets for Christmas! Sure, not everyone loves getting bath and body products, cosmetics, or cleaning supplies. But the way I see it? You're going to have to buy that stuff anyway. Why wouldn't you want to get the stuff you need on a daily basis given to you?
I love how my parents' gifts turned out. I got them each a couple of other things other than the baskets. Mom got some Pyrex, Rubbermaid, and hair trimmers, while Dad got a new jacket, socks, and rain suit. They also had small gift bags for their stockings filled with items I'd mostly bought by couponing, like Planters nuts, cozy socks, ceramic mug, pens, notebooks, etc.
The fun started when I got the idea for these "Stay ________" gift baskets. I'd been surfing Pinterest a lot lately. I don't think I found this exact idea on there, but I did get a lot of inspiration by searching for gift baskets. I decided to make 6 baskets filled with various types of goodies. Here's a picture of each. (All totals do not include tax.)
Stay Fueled
This basket was designed to keep them energized with drinks and snacks. I included 2 Welch's grape juice, Cheerios, 2 bags popcorn, Popchips, Pringles, 4 Rice Krispies treats, Nescafe Taster's Choice sticks, and Tetley tea. I also attached two $25 gift cards to Exxon and BP. I got those for free out of my credit card reward points.
Stay Fueled basket cost: $7.00 for $69.04 worth of products
Stay Sweet
This basket was designed to satisfy their cravings for anything sweet or chocolatey. I included a box of Turtles candies, 2 Peeps, bag of starlight mints, 4 Russell Stover holiday candies, Haribo gummi bears, Skittles, Snickers, 3 Musketeers, 4 Nestle holiday candies, 2 Snickers nutcrackers, Mrs. Field's cookies, Icebreakers mints, and 7 candy canes.
Stay Sweet basket cost: $4.85 for $17.30 worth of products
Stay Healthy
This basket was designed to keep them healthy and feeling well. I included Halls cough drops, Theraflu single packet, Thermacare heat wraps 3pk, Benefiber sticks, hand sanitizer, 2 packs Kleenex, Theraflu syrup, Theraflu caplets, Salanpas pain patch, Mission muscle rub, Cepacol throat lozenges, Visine eye drops, Excedrin 8ct, SAMe vitamins, Advil PM, St. Joseph's low dose aspirin 120ct, Naproxen Sodium caplets, and Bayer Advanced Aspirin.
Stay Healthy basket cost: -$4.77 for $56.82 worth of products
That means I made money off this stuff!
Stay Clean
This basket was designed to help keep their home smelling clean and fresh! I originally wanted to include a lot more cleaning supplies, but my basket was too small so I'm saving them for another time. I did include Febreze fabric refresher spray, Tuf paper towels, Airwick iMotion automatic spray kit, Airwick iMotion automatic refill, Febreze set and refresh, Febreze air effects spray, Glade air freshener spray, Gain dish detergent, and Dawn dish detergent.
Stay Clean basket cost: $6.88 for $24.57 worth of products
Stay Beautiful
This basket was designed to help keep my mom pampered and beautiful. I included Tresemme hair spray, Tresemme shampoo, Pantene mousse, Pantene hair spray, Reach toothbrush, first aid kit, CVS brand body wash, Venus razor, Venus 4ct cartridges, Revlon nail clippers, Schick Quattro for Women disposable razors, Skintimate cream shave, Secret deodorant, Cover Girl blush, Maybelline Great Lash mascara, Softlips vanilla lip balm, Crest toothpaste, and a Cover Girl eyeshadow single.
Stay Beautiful basket cost: $15.83 for $74.51 worth of products
Stay Handsome
This basket was designed to help keep my dad handsome and well-groomed. I included Pert Plus shampoo, Gillette shave gel, Schick Hydro shave gel, Crest toothpaste, Ivory body wash, Reach toothbrush, Schick Quattro for Men razor with 4 bonus cartridges, first aid kit, 2 Sure deodorants, Oral B dental floss, Blistex lip balm, Revlon toenail clippers, Schick Xtreme3 disposable razors, Softsoap shea butter hand soap, and Carmex ultra healing ointment.
Stay Handsome basket cost: $1.76 for $50.21 worth of products
The baskets were $1 at Dollar Tree. I printed the signs on pieces of Post-It photo paper I'd had laying around for a few years. I made the tags on the computer by using Microsoft Word. Various ribbons were used--some leftover from Halloween, some off a gift given to me, and some Hello Kitty ribbon I'd gotten from Target's $1 spot a few years ago. This was because I ran out of the plain green ribbon after making my other gift baskets.
So my grand total spent on these 104 items in the gift baskets? $31.55 plus tax for $292.45 worth of products. That was with sale prices, too! Regular retail was probably close to $500. If you divide $31.55 by 104 items, that comes out to around $0.30 per item. Wowza! My actual out-of-pocket may have been a little less because I often pay for my purchases with rewards from previous weeks.
Though my parents' gift was my big project, I did a few other gift baskets for other relatives. Here are 8 of them.
The stuffed animals were a gift for my nieces--less than $2.50 for all three of them! I printed the name tags and attached them to the ribbon. Super cute!
I'm not going to list individual prices, but for all the products included inside the baskets, the retail value was $174.56. This was the sale price--regular retail would've been much more. Not including tax or supplies for the baskets, I paid $18.84. Not bad for 8 presents!
Couponing helped me be able to give a lot of gifts for minimal money this year. As someone who is now unemployed AGAIN, every penny counts. I feel very blessed that I've learned how to do this and will continue to be able to get the products my family needs and wants for pennies on the dollar.
I hope that 2012 brings me even better deals!
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