Gift Wrap Class 4: Don't Overspend

You don't have to spend a fortune to have fantastically wrapped gifts. Today's lesson is all about saving money. You saved your money to buy the gift, not to be overcharged for the wrapping supplies. Paying full price for expensive holiday seasonal wrapping supplies is a waste of money. Here are some of my favorite places and ways to save big money or gift wrapping supplies.

• Work the Craft Store Coupons: If you are the least bit crafty you should take advantage of Joann Craft and Fabric and Michael's Crafts fantastic coupons. You can sign on for mailers, emails or download the apps to get weekly coupons. Then use your coupons wisely. When making big purchases use the 40% or 50% off on one item coupons. Also around Thanskgiving or the first of December they often have 20% off entire purchase coupons. Think smart and work your savings using the right coupons for the right expenditures. Ornaments and little things you can use to wrap packages often go deeply on sale right at Halloween!

• Shop the stationery aisles at the big discount stores like Ross, Marshall's, TJMaxx and Home Goods. You can find some fantastic deals on holiday cards, gift tags, stationery papers, tissue paper and all sorts of goodies for your gift wrapping kit. The quality of these products is fantastic and the price is low, low, low.

• Take Advantage of IKEA's Christmas Specialty Items. Ikea's Christmas department is always full of great, high quality gift wrap papers and fun little ornament packs you can use to decorate the tops of boxes and bags. They also often have some fantastic paper ribbon and raffia for a very down-to-earth nature inspired look. They prices of course are fantastic for the quality of products you are getting.

• Shop The Dollar Stores. Quality can vary greatly but you can find some great chipboard word cutouts and all kinds of little trims to decorate packages with. I have a favorite dollar store nearby that have hundreds of little decorations that would work great on packages. The prices are good.

• Make your own gift tags. I whip up cute gift tags by layering scrapbook paper in pretty combinations of pattern and texture. One package of scrapbook paper can make hundreds of gift tags. Great savings and you can really personalize tags with stickers, hand-drawn art, etc.

• Shop the After Holiday sales. My mom always takes treats to her neighbors and like to have little treat boxes to put fudge in or decorated bags to send bread out in. Since she knows this is an annual tradition, she buys her packing supplies at the after Christmas sales and saves a TON of money by putting them in a drawer until next Christmas. Know your traditions and look for ways to cut costs by shopping the post-holiday clearance deals.

Those are a few of the ways I keep my gift wrapping supply kit filled with fun things with very little financial investment. Do you have any favorite gift-wrap cost-cutting ideas? I love hearing about all your smarts!