This is the second installment in our Take Back the Holidays Series. The holiday season can be a stressful time, so start planning now to reduce that stress. This year, get the most from your holidays without adding financial stress.

It’s easy to go overboard when the holidays come around. There’s parties to drop in at, gifts to purchase, fun events to attend, the list goes on and on. Before you know it, you’ve spent way more than you planned. If you want to change that up this year, whether you’re trying to develop better spending habits or your budget just won’t allow it, these tips can help you stay on track.

How to Spend Less This Holiday Season

Use coupon and cash back extensions when shopping

When you’re shopping online, be sure to use money-saving extensions such as Rakuten and Honey. They help you find coupons and coupon codes, and some purchases will even earn you cash back. Cash back percentages vary from store to store and even month to month. Download the app and you can also use Rakuten in stores when you shop in person.

If you’re looking for clothing or gear for outdoor activities, use Active Junky. It’s not a browser extension, so you start at the Active Junky site, then click through to the site you want to make a purchase from. They have a smaller selection of stores to shop from, but I’ve found that the cash back percentages are usually a bit higher when I use Active Junky, though of course, they vary as well.

If you’ve never used these sites, you can save even more by using the links I’ve included. (I will receive a small commission as well, but there’s no additional charge for you.)

Use this link to sign up for Rakuten and you’ll get $10 when you spend at least $25. Use this link to sign up for Honey and you’ll get 500 Honey gold, which can be redeemed for a variety of gift cards. And use this link to sign up at Active Junky and you’ll get $10 off your first order of $25 or more.

Don’t forget to comparison shop; prices are not equal across different sites. This is especially true of Amazon during the holiday season. High demand items (the must-have toys and such) will often sell for much more than you’d pay in the store. That’s if you could find them in the store, which you can’t, so you’re willing to pay extra. In recent months we’ve also seen this with toilet paper, masks, and hand sanitizer. The Honey extension is particularly helpful in finding the best prices on Amazon, as well as for receiving price drop alerts.

Take a break from holiday travels

We all want to spend time with our family and friends, but if they live any distance away, travel expenses add up fast. If you’re trying to reduce your expenses, this might be a good way to do it. It’s a difficult decision to make, especially if holiday travel is a tradition, but sometimes you have to do the hard things.

If you think about it, this is the year to make changes to traditions. So many people are wary of travel and get togethers that they’re likely to be more understanding than they might have been in the past.

Instead of an in-person gathering, plan a family video chat, sing along, movie night, or game night. At this point, we’re all becoming experts in how to make technology help us have a sense of normalcy. It can help with family togetherness as well.

Share meal prep

If you’re comfortable hosting a get-together this year, decrease the expense by planning a potluck-style meal. Either assign various dishes to those attending, or use a site such as signup genius for attendees to sign up for what they want to bring. You can even specify the types of dishes and how many of each, so everyone won’t bring chips and sodas and no actual food.

Cut down on gift giving

This can be a hard one. Over the years we’ve cut down on the gifts we give. Before that, there were years when we gave a lot more, and it hurt our budget. We couldn’t keep doing it, so we made some changes. (I’ll share more about our family gift giving in the third installment of this series.)

While many of us are hesitant to talk about money (or the lack thereof), there is nothing wrong with explaining to family and friends that you won’t be giving gifts this year, or that they’ll only be small or handmade. You could mention that you’re saving for xxx (fill in the blank with what you’re saving for), or really focusing on getting out of debt this year, or things have been tight this year with the negative effect that Covid has had on the economy/your job/your SO’s job.

It may be a difficult or uncomfortable conversation to start, but I’m betting that if you start it, they will be understanding. We have this taboo against talking about finances, but honestly, so many people are in a similar situation right now. They’ll thank you for bringing it up so they don’t have to.

Consider how you handle gift giving for friends, neighbors, and teachers

Like I just suggested above, we’ve pared down the list of people we give to each year. It wasn’t easy, but in recent years we’ve figured out what works for us.

We don’t have many neighbors (perks of living in a semi-rural area) and we only give gifts to our closest friends. We’ve drawn our line and are comfortable with where it is. To keep costs down, we give $5 cookie samplers from Trader Joe’s to those neighbors and friends who are on our list. Since being diagnosed with celiac disease I don’t bake much, so the cookie samplers are a good alternative to a cookie tray.

We homeschool the kiddos, so we don’t usually have classroom gifts for teachers to worry about. However, we’ve given a cookie sampler to the boys’ preschool teacher in past years. We also give one to our long-time music teacher. If your kids attend public or private school, gift cards are always a good option. These could be a smaller value just from you or a larger value collected from the families in the class.

If possible, make gifts

This may bring to mind the stack of crocheted dish cloths you get every year, but it doesn’t have to. Think about your hobbies and skills and try to put them to use.

If there’s a certain cookie or cake that everyone raves about, make a few batches of cookies or cupcakes and deliver those to the lucky people on your gift list. If you have the time and materials, and woodworking or ceramics are more your thing, spend some time making custom gifts. A handmade wooden spoon, a custom bowl, candles, bath scrubs, personalized stationary, the list is endless.

If you’re not that handy, think about giving the gift of service. Give gift cards good for you mowing the recipient’s lawn or washing their car, or some other task they would appreciate not having to do.

There’s many more money saving ideas out there; these are just to get you thinking about your options.

What will you do to spend less this holiday season? Have you done other things to reduce holiday expenses? Was it more stressful, or did it make the holidays a better experience?

• Next in our Take Back the Holidays Series: How to manage family gift giving.
• Previously in our Take Back the Holidays Series: How to earn extra money for the holidays.