Hubby and I keep a pretty tight budget. I handle the finances on a day to day basis but he looks over everything every month or so to make sure it is all going well still. It works great for our family. Right now, whenever extra money comes in, it usually goes straight to savings. With a toddler and another baby on the way, saving is extra important to us!
that being said, I LOVE getting my hubby special gifts! I like the planning and selecting the perfect thing. I just LOVE buying gifts in general, but especially for my man! I wrote about what I made him for our 3 year anniversary, you can read about that here.
For his birthday I wanted to get him something useful and fun! It took several months of planning but I was able to come up with the money to get him a kayak for his birthday! Now, like I said above, we are not a family that has lots of spare money lying around, and we aren’t planning on going into debt, so this took lots of time! His birthday is in March, but I started thinking about this and saving last year. Sometime last winter or fall of 2011 my hubby was reminiscing about kayaking with his friends when he was younger and how relaxing it was for him etc. Then said something along the lines of “but we will never have a kayak, because they cost like $1 million.” Obviously they don’t cost that much, but they are expensive and not really in our budget. But at that moment I started planning how I could get a kayak for my man.
What I did was this. Almost every time I went to the grocery store I would get $5 or $10 in cash. I tucked this money away in a special box and slowly let the money collect. This way I wasn’t making huge withdrawals of cash at one time that would make him wonder what I was up to! ;) and $5 is an easily manageable amount to get out almost every time I’m at the store!
Two weeks before his birthday I prepared a special meal for him and told him we were celebrating his birthday early. He was a bit confused, but went with it. Who wouldn’t want to celebrate their birthday early, right? In the middle of dinner I told him what I had been doing, and explained that even though it was a lot of money I wanted him to be able to have this gift so he could have something to do to unwind and relax on the weekends. With a 1 year old and another baby on the way, our house is not going to be a quiet place any time soon, so it was important to me that he have something he’s able to do to relax and be alone outside of the house. He was shocked, but super excited!!! He didn’t even think having a kayak was a possibility, and then I was able to just gave him the money for one! I told him he had a couple weeks to research which one he’d like to have so we could go get it on his actual birthday.
My hubby has to have time to research any big purchase, so I knew it was important to let him choose what he wanted AND give him time to do it!
All that to say, it is possible to buy big gifts for your spouse, even when your budget is tight. It may take a lot more planning and some discipline, but it is SO worth it!
What about you? what is the best/ most interesting gift you have ever given or received? I would LOVE to hear your stories!!!
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