For people like me who aren’t raking in thousands of pounds each month, it can be incredibly difficult when you want to show someone you care about them when you don’t have the money to spare. I treat my mum, dad and boyfriend on their birthdays and spoil them as much as I physically can without being unreasonable but for the rest of the year, I simply can’t afford to buy things for people on a whim or book tickets to see a show as a surprise or anything like that. It’s a shame but obviously that’s reality for a lot of people – unless you’re Zoella and have all the money in the world to spend on others without being in financial difficulties yourself (no hate towards Zoella here, I admire her greatly as an entrepreneur).
I was thinking about this the other evening which led me to think about doing this post. Showing someone you care about them absolutely doesn’t have to mean lavish gifts, fancy meals or swanky holidays. If it does for you, that’s great. But if it doesn’t, it’s nothing to be ashamed about. We’re all different and have different financial circumstances. If you’re like me and have to focus on “the little things” then I hope you’ll find some inspiration from this post for cheap, easy or even free ways to show someone you care about them!
- Make them a cup of tea
- Write them a note / email
- Make a list of all the things you love about them
- Or create a jar where you write things you love about them and let them open it and read them at the end of the year
- Do something helpful for them: hoover, laundry, ironing etc.
- Get some books out from the library that a book lover in your life might like
- Make them dinner but just out of stuff you already have in the house
- Add some movies to their Netflix list you think they might like
- Give them a massage (probably only appropriate for your partner!)
- Make them a scrapbook (perfect cheap Christmas present idea!)
- Give them a “day of nice” (I do this for my boyfriend when he’s off work sometimes by writing a list of nice things I’ll do for him on his day off which includes lots of those mentioned here!)
- Breakfast in bed
- Offer to do something for them they don’t have time for: food shop, tidying the house, mowing the lawn etc
- Create them a cute package of items under £1 from eBay (I recently did a stationery box swap and found lots of cute bits for really cheap on eBay!)
- Let them choose the movie / TV show / restaurant that evening
- A surprise phone call
- Buy them a small treat: a bunch of flowers, their favourite chocolate bar or a new book
- Just tell them that you’re there for them
I also took the question to Twitter and asked what my followers personally do which is cheap, easy or free to show someone they care about them and here’s some of my favourite answers!
“Setting a reminder in their calendar saying they’re wonderful” – @MikeHarrod89
“Finding cute/funny photos online and sending them when they’re sad or having a bad day” – @soph_cb
“Taking the effort to reply to tweets and retweeting blog posts and shop links too” – @fromfiona_
“Make them origami things; sometimes out of junk mail and catalogues but sometimes out of fancy paper” – @Saffy
“I love baking for people I love” – @tishylou
“I send my sister postcards with cute designs and a lil pick me up message written on the back” – @stephhartley4