With Chinese New Year just around the corner, many people are already in the midst of shopping and preparing for the Chinese New Year. Every year, most families spend a lot of money buying Chinese New Year goodies. These goodies include food stuff, clothes, decorations for the home, prayer materials and maybe even some feng shui items to welcome good chi into the home and family.
Not only do people buy enough goodies for themselves, they also need to buy some extras as gifts to bring to family and friends’ homes when they go visiting during the 15 days of Chinese New Year. It’s no wonder that each family end up spending so much whenever the new year approaches.
In this time of economic uncertainty, most people are hoping to cut down on expenses wherever they can. Here are some ideas on how you can spend a little less, and save some money this Chinese New Year.
Most people spend the most on Chinese New Year food stuff. We buy jars and jars of cookies and cakes, arrow roots chips, love letters, sweets and condiments, mandarin oranges, etc. To start with, you may want to cut down on the variety of food stuff and just get the absolute favourites in your family. You might also want to reduce the quantity of each food item to avoid wastage. Remember that you will also be given some of these goodies when you go about visiting or when others visit you. So you will have plenty of goodies from others as well.
As for gift items that you bring along when visiting family and friends, you need not bring an entire jar of cookies or a whole box of expensive chocolates. What you can do is to purchase some nice but inexpensive jars or containers in smaller sizes. Distribute some of the gift goodies into these smaller jars and you would be surprised that a bottle or jar of food stuff can be made into many gift sets this way.
You may add finishing touches to these jars of goodies with a ribbon or a personalised sticker or note to wish your recipients a good year ahead. They are different and it definitely shows that they come from the heart, even if the portion may seem smaller than what you have been giving out in previous years. But what matters more is the gesture and the spirit of giving during the festive season. I personally don’t think this will cheapen the Chinese New Year gift at all.
As for other items like home decorations and clothes and shoes, these are very subjective in how you can save. You can either buy them on sales, buy cheaper brands or buy less. So I’ll leave all that to your creative imagination on how you can cut back. You will be surprised how a little savings here and there can add up to lots of savings at the end of the day.
I hope you find the above ideas acceptable and practical. Do you have any ideas to share on how you can save on Chinese New Year shopping?
Finally, let’s welcome in the Year of the Ox with lots of cheers all around!
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for the tips! I’m already cutting down on the cookies and whatever food I’m buying for CNY. But arrow root chips is a must – no cutting down for that! Not shopping for any clothes as I’ve already bought them during the sales last year : )
Another one who cannot do away with the arrow roots chips!
I never buy the specific zodiac animal house decoration but instead opted for patterns like fish, flowers or wordings decorations. So, I can just packed it back every year and re-use it again & again.
Rae, that’s clever, no need to spend so much not to mention stacking up more clutter with each new year’s decorations.