31 days of money saving and stuff - day nine

A present box

This is a specified place to put things away to be given as gifts.
Generally people use it in one of two ways (or both)

For specific people presents - it's the January sales and I see something that would be perfect for my sister at a reduced price (sales!) or it's a one off that I'm unlikely to see again.  I buy the present, put it in the box. When it comes to the birthday, I pull out the present and deliver it. Job done.

Just in case presents - A box of potential presents, for a money saver these may be bought reduced or on a bulk offer. I use our present box like this. If I see age appropriate items at reduced prices or on a good offer, I stock up, then when Sophia is given a birthday party invite from someone at school, say, our first port of call is the present box, to see if there's anything suitable to give to the birthday child.  This allows me to take advantage of good deals (we recently gave a friend a whole collection of joke-present bits and pieces which I'd bought when it was on end of range prices. Sophie and JJ could give him a whole collection of fun joke things (like stick on moustaches, fake sick, pretend bugs..) and it didn't cost more than our budget could afford. Of course, you don't have to nly buy reduced things, but I'm mentioning those because that's one of our ways to save money on unexpected expenses - you can't always plan when the next party invite will arrive!