A Frugal, Flexible & Creative Gift Registry: Community Group Offers Free Alternatives for Gifts

Wedding guests spend about $19 billion annually on gifts selected from bridal registries, according to The Knot, a wedding planning resource.

There are ways to get the gifts you want, be it for a bridal shower or baby shower, and let the givers be frugal and green.

Hardware stores and specialty stores are two options for unusual gift registries. Another is the Alternative Gift Registry from the consumer group Center for a New American Dream.

Registration is free and users can request merchandise from any retailer such as an energy-efficient toaster from Target, organic-cotton sheets from Bloomingdales or a handmade vase from a small gallery.

But whether you sign up for the Alternative Gift Registry at http://www.newdream.org/ or generate your own wish list to e-mail to your friends, the site provides a wealth of gift ideas.

For weddings, consider:
• Recipe cards: Engaged couples request recipes for easy-to-prepare meals that can be cooked in a crock pot or in simple steps.
• Green appliances: Couples can direct wedding guests to the federal Energy Star website, (http://www.energystar.gov/) for a list of energy-efficient appliances, their names and model numbers. Use search engines to locate places where they're sold.

For baby gifts, consider:
• Used clothes: New Dream's registry lets parents request gently used clothing for infants and toddlers.
• Baby-sitting services: Use the registry to line up friends and relatives to help out for date nights and other outings. Specify an amount of hours and the registry will let browsers know when the time quota has been filled.
• Meals: With a new baby, who has time to cook? The registry provides space for home cooks to sign up to provide new parents one or more free meals.

This is from my latest column in the home & design section of the Miami Herald.

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DIY Invitations: Bar Mitzvahs, Weddings & Other Formal Parties

I just saved about $250 to $550 by making 200 formal invitations & reply cards for my son's upcoming Bar Mitzvah celebration. We spent about $150 in supplies. In contrast, I know people who have paid $400 to $700 for comparable invitations. The same logic applies to wedding invitations, sweet sixteen parties or other coming of age events.

Bottom Line: Elegant invitations can be created for about $1 and under per invitation. DIY prices are at least 200 percent cheaper than professional printing costs. For example, online I found a company that will print 25 invitations for $58 or $2.32 per invitation. And note: their sample was not nearly as pretty or as elegant as the invitation that we produced using a laptop, an HP printer and (a lot of) time.



Here are my tips & warnings about formal DIY invitations:

• Get a kit: There are so many kits for DIY invitations. These how-to boxed sets are available at craft stores, at office supply stores and from online vendors. Our kit came from Office Depot and we paid about $33 (with a discount) for a set of 50 invitations with an elegant border made by Gartner Studios. (Full price is about $36). The kit included: 50 invitations (80-lb card stock), with envelopes, response cards/response envelopes, test sheets, instructions, sample wordings and elegant embossed seals for the outer envelopes. Per invitation cost: 66 cents, excluding the cost of our time and printing ink.

• Shop the sales: All stores have periodic sales and most weddings, formal parties and coming-of-age parties are planned well in advance. Use the extra time to look for sales, promotions and discounts. We knew the date of the Bar Mitzvah for a long, long time. I'm annoyed that we waited until the last minute to get the invitation kits. We could have saved more at one of the seasonal sales. But still we used a special discount to shave a few dollars off the cost of each kit.

• Remember mailing costs and buy more than you need: Get just a little extra--because you will make mistakes: The printer will jam and coffee will spill on invitations that are left on the dining room table. Also pick an invitation size that will require standard postage. Over-sized cards and envelopes will cost a fortune to mail. (I read that tip in Bottom Line Personal Finance)


• Use your word processing program: If you can type an email or a report, you can type up the invitation. Play with fonts. We chose a the "Fine Hand Script," which created elegant, but easy-to-read letters. Experiment with spacing and centering. But don't get too fancy. Keep it simple. Also follow the directions on the box about setting up page margins to accommodate the invitation.

• Test and Proofread: Mistakes -- grammar, spelling, spacing, etc. -- will happen. That's part of the process. Use spellcheck. Double check the spelling of your last name and the location. Use the test sheets. Walk away, chill out and then return to the scene. Proofread again and then hit the print button.

• Plan your time: It took us four days to finish designing, printing, stuffing and addressing about 200 cards and envelopes. To get the most out of my work day and to avoid cutting into my income-producing hours, I did my share of the work on Saturday night, Sunday and during a few week-day nights. Note: the time commitment is one of the major drawbacks of DIY invitations.

• Caution: Watch out for dirty hands, messy surfaces, short tempers, frustration and impatience. It's a process. Be patient. Be mindful. Printing and stuffing envelopes can be a meditative exercise or a mind-numbing drill. I've learned to just bliss out and save money.

• Have Fun: We used a deep blue navy ink, which really made the invitations look better than the plain black ink version. Also at the top of the invitation we created a monogram by arranging my son's initials in a much larger font #22-#36-#22. The letters were centered at the top of the invitation and also on the reply card: GRE

This site offers a few helpful hints about DIY invitations. I have not used the vendor, but the online instructions seemed helpful. My sisters have made pretty shower invitations with ribbons and double layers. There are so many creative kits. I have used products (purchased from Office Depot) from Gartner Studios and have been pleased with the final product.
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Previous Posts:

What is Luxury? Town & Country: Luxe is a Moving Target

Reformed Spenders Provide 10 Ways to Save in 2008

Barking Dogs, Stinking Turtles and Sick Hamsters Taught Me About Money

Cheap Travel Guide: Month-by-Month, City-by-City Hotel Savings Rates

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Sharon Harvey Rosenberg is the author of The Frugal Duchess of South Beach: How to Live Well and Save Money... Anywhere!, which will be published in the Spring of 2008 by DPL Press.

Frugal Honeymoon for Tony Parker & Eva Longoria?

How do you top off a lavish wedding in a 17th century French castle? After spending a small fortune on a luxe wedding, Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria and Tony Parker (San Antonio Spurs basketball player) apparently spent far less on their low-key honeymoon, according to People magazine.

Ping-pong, rounds of Yahtzee and simple candle-lit dinners filled their post-wedding agenda, according to news reports.

Here's my list of frugal vacation activities:

1) Picnics

2) Enjoy free entertainment offered in the resort

3) Use the complimentary spa and pool area.

4) Find the resort's lending library for free books, magazines and board games.

5) Go to a local supermarket. In Saint Maarten, my husband and I got a local taste of the Caribbean by going to a down-home market where area residents shopped. In this un-glitzy location, we sampled another culture.

6) Find local museums.


This site has some great ideas for a frugal honeymoons and I also liked the ideas listed here.

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How a Real Duchess Recycles a Royal Wedding Dress

Why spend a fortune on a dress that you'll only wear once? Apparently that idea recently ran through the mind of the Duchess of Cornwall --Camilla--who was recently photographed wearing her wedding dress. The British newspapers are calling her the: "Royal Recycler."

"...the Duchess of Cornwall obviously couldn't bear to confine her beautiful wedding outfit to the back of the wardrobe. The royal recycler wore the ivory-hued Robinson Valentine ensemble again this week as she attended the opening of the National Assembly of Wales with her husband."
--source: Hello magazine

The Duchess recycled her dress with new accessories, including a different hat and pearls.

There are other ways to recycle a wedding dress:

1. Donate it to charity. This article from an ABC station has some tips about donating a wedding dress to charity.

2. Create a wedding dress bank. In my community, various women maintain a stock of wedding dresses. It's like a borrowing library and it's filled with gowns for brides, mothers of the bride, and bridesmaids. This free dress lending service really cuts down on wedding costs and creates a real sense of community. And each dress looks different on every girl or woman. I've gone to lots of local weddings and I've never spotted a familiar-looking dress.

3. Give it to your sister, cousin or daughter. For my Central Park Wedding in 1992, I wore a hand-me-down gown from one of my younger sisters. It was an expensive dress, but I only spent about $150 on alterations and cleaning. Beyond my immediate family, no one -- at least until now -- realized that my gown was a repeat performer.

4. Sell it on eBay, a consignment store or through a standard newspaper classified ad.

5. Alter it and wear it again. Wear your wedding dress--done over--to a black-tie event.





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The Frugal Duchess Booktique
The Frugal Duchess of Beauty Store

Book Shop of Fear
The Poetry & Drama Queen
Frugal Jazz & Blues
Frugal Comic Book Connection
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Lifting the Veil on Green, Frugal Weddings.

A great wedding does not have to cost a large fortune. For our wedding, my husband and I took many frugal and green shortcuts in order to save time and money. Our wedding was featured in wedding pages of the New York Times. Here's the clip from the New York Times. More recently, the New York Times featured a frugal and green wedding.

"It’s well worth it to start your life together in a way that’s in line with your values and beliefs,” said Ms. Harrison, 28, a graduate student at Yale, who is to marry in October. “You don’t want this event that is supposed to start your life together to come at the expense of the environment or workers in another country.” Source: New York Times

Harrison's strategies:
1. Organic menu for the wedding meal.
2. Wild flowers for the bouquet
3. Vintage (used) gown
4. Pre-wedding hiking parties

My own green & frugal wedding plans:

1. I wore a used gown (my sister's dress)
2. My bouquet and the flowers from the wedding were picked from a friend's upstate NY home.
3. My husband and I took a horse and carriage to and from the wedding. (No gas, no limo.)
4. The guests walked from the service in Central Park to the reception near the park.

We still spent a lot to have an elegant wedding in Manhattan. But our expenses were far less than the tab of most New York weddings.

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The Frugal Duchess of Beauty Store
Book Shop of Fear
The Poetry & Drama Queen
Frugal Jazz & Blues

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Posts I Liked Last Week

Frugal Weddings, DIY holiday baskets and financial role models are on the lineup today as I look at some of my favorite posts from other bloggers. I could spend hours reading, because there's a lot of great info out there.

Get Rich Slowly offers this excellent primer and behind the scenes look at the nuts and bots of blogging. He spends about 40 hours a week on his blogging habit. I enjoyed this piece very much. I've just bookmarked it.


Blueprint for Financial Prosperity has a fun piece about why he hates paper checks. He taps into some strong arguments for doing away with old school checks: stamps are expensive, your account number is on the check. It's a great read.

Single Ma offers an insightful piece that addresses this question: "Are personal finance bloggers role models?" I appreciate her honesty. We're on the same page:

I have a limited income.
I like to shop.
I have debt.
I have made bad financial decisions.
I do not possess any special skills or abilities.
I am not an expert.
Most importantly (gotta CYA), I am NOT a licensed financial adviser.---Single Ma

Binary Dollar provides wonderful tips about
planning weddings and saving money. Lots of good frugal options: don't wed on Saturdays or in June; get married in the morning and skip the over-the-top dress. I was married in June, but we picked a Sunday service at noon and I wore my sister's dress, with a few modifications.

I'd love to chat with the author for a future print column.

No Limits Ladies has a cute, fun piece about DIY holiday gift baskets. She reads upscale catalogues and then duplicates the idea with items from the supermarket. Really, really fun piece.


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