Easter is just around the corner and is always a great time of year to spend with family and friends. Unfortunately like a lot of other celebratory days, Easter has become over commercialised. This can end up costing you more than you budgeted for. Here are 5 ways which may help you save some money through the Easter period.
- Size doesn’t matter
If your house is anything like mine, then the kids rarely eat all the chocolate given to them. The little kids count the biggest egg and the smallest egg equally, as one egg. Buy more inexpensive smaller eggs rather then a lot of larger more expensive ones.
- Go on a treasure hunt
Easter is a bit different to Christmas and birthdays in that you can’t really play with your Easter eggs. Once the kids get up and get their eggs, there is nothing left but to sit and eat. This is often where parents buy additional presents to fill the day. Why not draw a big map, and send the kids on a nice long treasure hunt instead. Make it longer, harder and more cryptic for the big kids. Not only will this take time and wear the little ones out a bit, it will also be a great family experience.
- Buy some staples as presents
Like a lot of people, we don’t buy our kids a lot of chocolate. For us, Easter is winter pyjama time. These need to be purchased anyway, so we make it a yearly tradition that the kids get to pick out some pyjama’s. That way we are transferring costs we would need to incur in a fun way which has become a tradition. There are probably hundreds of other items which you would already need to buy which you could transfer into the ‘present’ category.
- Develop some traditions
Try and find or develop some traditions which you and your loved ones can do for Easter every year. This should be something that you only do at Easter. It may be a picnic to the same spot every year, or perhaps a BBQ at the beach, or the day all the family gets together and has your annual thong throwing competition. These are all inexpensive, fun and take the focus off chocolate and presents. Make looking forward to Easter about the people, and not the material things.
- Set a budget and stick to it
The best way not to overspend is to set a budget that’s within you means and stick to it. Easter is not about what you spend, but how you spend it.
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