How to Create a Christmas Gift Organizer Notebook

Every year, I begin buying Christmas gifts early to look for great deals.

I have the best intention to save money and stay organized, but I end up forgetting that I have bought someone a gift or forgetting where I hid some of the gifts and then finding them weeks after Christmas.

To get organized, I have begun to use a Christmas Gift Organizer Notebook.

They are easy to make and use and help me to avoid overspending on holiday gifts for family and friends. An organizer notebook is a great way to keep track of gifts.

To make a Christmas Gift Organizer Notebook, you do not need many supplies. You can make it as simple as or as festive as you would like.

The main supplies that you will need are a a notebook (with a green or red cover) and a pencil or paper.

You could buy a cheap notebook or notepad for around one dollar at most stores.

To make a simple Christmas Gift Organizer Notebook, simply buy a notebook and write 'Christmas Gift Organizer' across the front.

If you would like to make a more festive organizer, you could draw festive pictures, use festive stickers or tape or glue festive pictures the front of the notebook.

One of the reasons you will want to create a Christmas spending budget is to save money. By keeping track of the amount you spend on each person, you can curb your spending.

Make a budget and spread it across the family and friends you will be buying Christmas gifts for.

If you have a different limit on how much you spend on friends opposed to family, calculate that into your budget.

For our family, immediate family members get the highest budget per person. Extended family gets a moderate budget. Friends get a small budget.

The first page of your budget should show a breakdown of the amount you can spend on each family member and the total amount you can spend on holiday shopping.

This will be a convenient reference when you are starting to fill in your notebook.

Whether you are giving gifts to many or few people, use a separate page for each person you are giving gifts to. You will have plenty of room to write lengthier descriptions if need be.

Write the item and the price beside each other and keep a running total of the amount you have spent on each person. Once you have reached your budget for that person, stop buying gifts for them.

Sometimes, it can be easy to overbuy for people who are easy to shop for and under buy for those that are not so easy to shop for. With a Christmas gift organizer notebook, you will be able to keep your budget across everyone pretty even.

Your organizer notebook will only work if you write in it. Make sure you write things down each time you bring gifts home from holiday shopping. Write it down while you are emptying your shopping bags. If you do not write it down, it will be hard to remember and the organizer will be useless, so you need to make sure you write each gift down inside the organizer.

It is a good idea to save your receipts when you are buying Christmas gifts. If you find out that someone else has bought the same gift for the same person, you can return the gift easily with the receipt.

Also, if the recipient of the gift decides that they would like to return the gift to the store in exchange for another gift or a different size, the receipt will help them to figure which store to bring it back to and it will help when they bring it back to customer service.

To organize receipts, you can either staple them to the persons page in your organizer or place them in the organizer pockets. You could also glue or tape an envelope to the inside cover of the notebook and place the receipts inside the envelope. If you do put all of the receipts together, make sure you highlight the item on the receipt and write the recipients name on the receipt to make it easier to find them later.

An organizer only works well if you can find your gifts when it get close to Christmas. Find an out of the way closet with extra room in it. Use a different plastic bag for each person.

As you buy gifts, put them in that persons bag in the closet (or attic). Make sure you keep all the gifts close together.

If you do hide your gifts, you can keep track of them in your Christmas Gift Organizer Notebook. For instance, you can write the description of the gift, the price and where you hid it.

There are way too many things to remember to do around Christmas time, so this will take one of your worries away.