Gift Ideas for Less

I'm a firm believer in saving money rather than working your tail off to keep making more and then spending more. It's a never ending cycle which isn't exactly Biblical. The idea isn't to work night and day so that you neglect your family. I know my readership is VERY family minded, so I'm probably speaking to nobody, but there you have it.

The Proverbs 31 woman is mindful of her family as well. She DOES work - I think it's probably a home business type thing, which is a great way to bring family together as you work on whittling off debt or work toward earning something you all want.

If you're on as strict a budget (how do you budget when your income changes drastically from month to month?) as we are, you might be interested in some ways to earn gifts rather than pay for them. Jonathon and I got together and started playing Chicktionary on Live Search Club (Microsoft.) The way it works is that you play word scramble games and earn points as you do it. When you amass enough points to earn one of their many prizes, you cash in the points.

One neat aspect of the games is that you can designate a percentage to go to the charity of your choice. We designated 10% to go to our church. Would you believe the church was listed already? Someone else must be doing the same thing.

Anyway, below is a picture of the wireless keyboard and mouse that Jonathon won by cashing in 5000 points. It came Fed Ex today, totally free.