When you’re young, Mother’s Day is pretty simple: Just put together a handmade card, make Mom a quick breakfast and spend the day with her doing activities that are fun for both of you.
As you grow older, though, it gets a little trickier. There’s a strong desire to show your love on Mother’s Day, but a nice gift is often expensive and can add to your own financial worries.
Good news: There is an abundance of Mother’s Day gift ideas that are inexpensive, enabling you to show your mother that you love her without overspending and making your own financial life more challenging.
Here are five great Mother’s Day gifts that won’t break the bank.
— Spend time with her.
— Make a homemade gift.
— Assemble a recipe box.
— Make a memory jar.
— Make a hobby basket.
Read on for more information about these inexpensive Mother’s Day gift ideas.
[See: 10 Expenses Destroying Your Budget.]
Spend Time With Her
Rather than buying your mom a physical item for Mother’s Day, choose to spend the day in service of your mother, helping her out with tasks she needs done or engaging in an interest she has.
For example, you might spend Mother’s Day helping Mom with a bunch of chores around her house, then making a dinner for you to enjoy together. Or maybe you can spend the day with her doing whatever her favorite hobby happens to be. Perhaps you could carefully detail her car, then drive her to a nice park for a picnic afterward.
Make a Homemade Gift
If you are skilled at crafting or cooking, put that to use and make your mother something beautiful, delicious or thoughtful for Mother’s Day. If you have culinary talent, make her a bunch of food items or prepare a meal for her. If you have artistic talent, make a painting for her. Consider painting a location or scene that has meaning for both of you. If you have writing talent, write her a thoughtful letter describing how much she means to you. If you’re good at Photoshop, take a bunch of her old photos and clean them, so she can have them in digital form. Maybe even turn her computer’s screen saver into a slideshow of those pictures.
Even if you’re not particularly crafty, you can make simple handmade items that she’ll love. For example, making some handmade melt-and-pour soaps is quite easy. Just melt a large block of soap, pour it into a form and let it dry. The supplies are inexpensive and available at most craft stores.
[See: 10 Big Ways to Boost Your Budget — Without Skimping on Your Daily Latte.]
Assemble a Recipe Box
One great gift idea that can be thoughtful and helpful is a recipe box containing handwritten or printed recipes that serve as a collection of your favorite simpler meals. Simply make a list of a bunch of simple meals that you make for yourself and your family, write out or print out recipes for them and put them in a recipe box. Adding a brief personal note to each one will really make this personal and special.
Make a Memory Jar
Dig out a quart-sized (or larger) Mason jar with a lid and several small pieces of paper. On each one, write down a memory that you share with your mother — a good moment from your childhood, a time when she inspired you or a moment when she did something great for you — and write it down on one of those pieces of paper. When you’re done with that memory, fold it up and toss it in the jar. Give it to your mother and tell her to open one up whenever she needs a bright moment.
[See: 8 Big Budgeting Blunders — and How to Fix Them.]
Make a Hobby Basket
This is a particularly good frugal idea if you share a hobby with your mother, but it can be pretty inexpensive even if you don’t. All you have to do is identify a hobby that your mother enjoys and look for several low-cost items related to that hobby to fill up the basket. If you happen to share that hobby, you can look through your own supplies to make the basket inexpensive. Often, it’s the little, thoughtful things that end up being the most meaningful, so if you address a passion she has with a handful of small items, the gift can be inexpensive and meaningful.
You don’t have to shell out a lot of money to give your mom a Mother’s Day gift that will really make her heart warm with joy.
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5 Best Frugal Mother’s Day Gifts originally appeared on usnews.com
