We’ve all been there.  Life is happening, you are on top of everything, your days are organized, everyone is getting where they need to be, with all the crap they need and you are a superhero!  Enter in a harmless Tuesday, you check the calendar and it is your nephew’s birthday. You totally forgot and have nothing for him, no card and no idea how to tactfully ask his mother this late in the game without everyone knowing you forgot.  Superhero status revoked.

After having this happen one too many times, I developed a system to ensure this is no longer the case.  If you are looking for a super simple way to budget and plan for birthday gifts, look no further!

How to Budget and Plan for Birthday Gifts With Almost No Effort!

1.  Plan a gift budget for the year.

This is going to look different for your family than it does for mine, but here is exactly what we do.  My husband and I sat down and decided how much money we would set aside for nieces, nephews, children, children’s friends, other relatives, etc. for their birthday.  You may have different dollar amounts for different people (that’s totally okay!).

Pro-tip:  To keep your life very simple, you can always send cards with money.  Most everyone loves money to purchase what they want and it keeps it very simple for you.  It also will keep you on budget instead of hunting for something that fits within your budget.

Sit down with a year calendar.  Write down everyone’s birthday on the appropriate day and write their dollar amount next to their name (and their age….this is helpful when you need to write in the card).  Writing the dollar amount is important so you remember exactly how much you decided to spend.  Otherwise, you may be tempted to do more than you had originally planned.

Think about all the people you could possibly have to buy birthday gifts for.  If you have older children, find out if they are wanting to get gifts for their friends, which ones and when their birthdays are.

Once you have everyone written on your calendar, add up the total dollar amount for each month, needed for birthdays.  

Pro-tip:  Keep a paper that has all of these dollar amounts written on it because you will use this when you go to fill out your monthly budget.

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2.  Get the cash for the birthdays.

There are two ways to go about having the money on hand for gifts.

The first is to just put that number from your paper with the monthly totals into your budget every month.  This would allow you to deal with the coming month’s gifts one month at a time.

A second way to do this is to dip into your sinking funds/”gifts” budget.  In our family, we set aside $100 every month for our gift savings. This includes birthdays, weddings, showers, Christmas, etc.  So, let’s say you added up you will need $100 for birthdays for the entire year. This means you could take $100 immediately from your gift fund that first month and not worry about budgeting for birthday gifts for the rest of the year.

The second way is not going to be a good option for you if you have a hard time having cash lying around.  If you dread going to the bank and just want the money ready, this is a great option for you.

Once a year, go to the bank and get out all the money needed for birthday gifts.  You can be picky and get all the bills in whatever denominations you need.

Whether you take the cash out at the beginning of the month or take out the whole year of birthday cash, be sure to keep it in its own envelope so it doesn’t get used on something else.

3.  Purchase cards for all the birthdays.

The goal is to keep this inexpensive and simple.  My favorite thing is to go to Target’s $1 section and get their cards that look handmade.  You could also make your own cards if you were feeling ambitious.

Pro-tip:  To make sure you have the right cards, make a list of how many girls, boys and if you need any specific child’s cards or not.  That way you are buying appropriate cards for everyone.

Buy all the cards you will need for the whole year and keep them with the envelope of birthday money to be used as birthdays come up.

4.  Become a superhero again!

All that is left to do for the rest of the year is watch the calendar, pull out a card, put the money inside (or go buy a gift if you want to do that instead) and send it off.

As long as you are watching the calendar, you will have no reason to ever be late on a birthday gift, ever again.  Everything you need will be in your home. It takes all the stress off and even if you send something last minute, you won’t have to figure out how much to spend or go out to get the card and cash.

This is my favorite system to stay on top of birthday gifts and completely eliminate the stress of remembering!  

It’s as easy as filling out your calendar, getting the cash from the bank, buying some cards and paying attention to your calendar.  If you are wanting a simple and effective way to make sure you are never late on birthday gifts again, this is it.

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Do you have any tricks for remembering birthdays and staying on budget?

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