12 Inexpensive Or Almost Free Gift Ideas For This Holiday Season

A thoughtful gift can be way more impactful than an expensive gift! Sounds cheesy, but it's the thought that counts. You can also count on GEICO to help save you money! 15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance.

1. Offer your pet- or house-sitting services.

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All it costs is your time! The best part about offering to house- or pet-sit? You get to enjoy the benefits of staying in someone's home and cuddling a cute animal. Sounds mutually beneficial to us!

2. Send your face as a sticker. (Or anybody's face TBH.)

mystickerface.com

Let's face it (haha): Your BFF probably misses seeing you IRL. Why not send your beautiful mug on a customized set of stickers? You can send a 3-pack of stickers with your face, your dog's face, or really almost any face!

Get a 3-pack from My Sticker Face for $24.

3. Make a photo album of all your favorite memories.

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Swiping through photos on your phone just isn't the same as paging through a physical photo album. A physical photo album gift can be as DIY you want it to be. You can opt to print out individual photos and paste them in a scrapbook, or there are even many places that create custom printed photo books at affordable prices: get one from Artifact Uprising starting at $20.

4. Create a personalized music video set to their favorite song or a funny song!

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This is the kind of gift that works great for close friends or family members with a big sense of humor. Don't feel intimidated if you don't know anything about video editing. There are so many user-friendly apps that make mobile video editing simple and fun. If your little cousin can make a dance TikTok, you can edit a short and silly music video!

5. Dig deep into your history, and make a cookbook of all your family recipes.

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If you can't eat your family's cooking this year, what's the next best thing? A family cookbook that documents all the "secret" family recipes! This gift idea is high on the thoughtful meter and pretty low on the expense meter. Plus, you'll get to have fun conversations with all your family getting the juiciest recipes (and gossip)!

6. Turn up the nostalgia and gift a personalized reel viewer.

uncommongoods.com

You can gift the perfect nostalgic throwback toy. And the best part is that you can customize the images in the reel viewer. Your elementary school self would be so jealous!

Get it at Uncommon Goods for $29.95.

7. Volunteer your time for a cause they really care about.

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Do they care about saving the turtles? You could volunteer to pick up trash at the beach in their name. Volunteering your time is a super-thoughtful way of gifting the sentiment of "I understand you, and I want to help you with the things you're passionate about!"

8. Give the gift of a plant.

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Ever heard of plant propagation? It's essentially making new "baby plants" from an already existing plant. So that means if you have a nice, healthy plant at home, you can propagate new, little plants to give as gifts. Super eco-friendly and wallet-friendly!

9. Make a personalized board game.

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This could be as simple as upcycling an existing board game. For example, if you were thinking about recreating a certain board game about buying real estate, you could replace the locations with neighborhoods that the gift receiver would recognize. There are also templates you can look at to get inspiration for creating your own game.

10. Surprise them with a video from a celeb.

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Is your little sibling obsessed with a popular social media personality? Or maybe your best friend is really into reality TV? Chances are that TikTok influencer or reality TV star is on Cameo, an app through which you can request celebrities to record messages for you. It's kind of like a celebrity telegraph! Famous A-listers can get pretty pricey; but if you sort your search from "low to high," you can find Cameos for under $30. And the reaction from your BFF when they get their video? Priceless!

Visit Cameo and request a video for as low as $5.

11. Mail a potato...because why not?

mailaspud.com

You can send a potato with a message on it in the mail. Yes, seriously! Very random and very funny!

Mail a potato from Mail a Spud for $13.

12. Turn a silly quote of theirs into wall art.

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Turn a funny inside joke into beautiful wall art that they can stare and laugh at all day long. If you've been wanting to practice your new calligraphy skills, this is a great time to flex those muscles. Or if you want to skip the DIY, look on Etsy for custom quote art that's framed!

Get similar custom quote art from PrintsByHayleyCo on Etsy starting at $11.20.

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