The Gift Closet: Spend Now To Save Later

The premise is a simple one: it will always cost you more money to run out and buy a gift on short notice than it costs to stock up on "giftables" when you find them on sale. The rub, for folks who aren't used to conducting themselves this way, is that they fear they're spending money on things they don't need or opening up the door to hoarding behavior. Don't worry, those fears are unfounded. A well-maintained gift closet is the key to spending less money, saving yourself time, and maximizing your charitable donations.

Step 1: Determine what you need. In my case, I mostly accumulate potential birthday party gifts for my kids' classmates (going to the closet beats a last-minute run to Target!), and teacher gifts, with the occasional generic hostess gift thrown in for good measure.

Step 2: Determine your space. I always refer to this as a gift closet, because I have a spare closet where I store these things, but if you're tight on space, don't feel like you need an entire closet. Your gift closet can go in a corner of the basement or a box under your bed; do whatever works for you. It is imperative, however, that you designate a space. Otherwise, you end up with items all over the house and you lose track of things.

Step 3: Stock up, on sale. That new board game your kids love is on special sale? Buy a few, put them in the closet. End-of-season glove-and-scarf sets on clearance? Buy a few, put them in the closet. Happen on a great book buy? Into the closet they go. For the most part you'll want to stick to non-perishables, of course, but if you do a lot of holiday gifting you may find things like gourmet cocoa mix and such will be on clearance in January and still not expired the following year--and those are perfect for December gifting to almost anyone.

Step 4: To the closet! When your kid gets a birthday party invitation or it's time to organize teacher gifts, hit the closet to survey your options. If you've been diligently adding throughout the year, you shouldn't need to do any additional shopping. And you got everything for dirt cheap, right? No last-minute paying full price for you!

Step 5: Yearly inventory/donations. I like to do this in early December, for two reasons: First, December is the perfect time to donate the remaining toys/books/school supplies the kids have outgrown or you've already given to all of their friends. You'll have no trouble finding worthy causes to which to donate during the holidays. Second, the crazy sales start in December and continue through January; once the closet is cleaned out, you're ready to restock it with your new finds.

Once you start your own gift closet, I guarantee you'll wonder how you ever got along without one.

Image courtesy of stock.xchng.