Reply #30: I'm worried about that too

[gollygee]

I was just thinking that I got a couple of gift cards for my birthday I haven't used yet. Usually I hold onto them until I need something, but that might not be a good idea this time. Maybe I'll use them to get Christmas presents, actually.

We're not sure how much we'll spend but we are scaling back. We talked to our daughter about her getting one more expensive present or two or three less expensive ones, and that's it. My husband and I never exchange gifts (or seldom anyway - if one of us has a good idea that isn't just an excuse to spend money we might get something but otherwise neither of us is into gift getting particularly.) And my extended family is planning on doing a gift grab-bag kind of thing where we each get one gift and each take one rather than each getting everyone a gift. I'll still get gifts for my niece and nephew - their parents got divorced recently so it's been a hard year for them.