An Easy Hack For Doing "25 books of Christmas" on a budget

If you're like me, you've been wanting to give your kids a book a night leading up to Christmas but just can't afford that many books. I have two kids that are on completely different reading levels (and wouldn't share even if they weren't) so that means I need 50 books. But books can be REALLY expensive and I just don't any money to spare at this time of the year. I've been wanting to do this with my kids for a few years now but I run into this same problem every year.

I bought these two personalized bags through Groupon for only $8.95!

Every year I tell myself that I'm going to start buying books throughout the year and saving them so I won't be spending a lot all at once. But every year November comes and I realize that I never bought any books. This year I was bummed that I forgot once again but then (as I was cleaning my son's bookshelf) I had a great idea! We already have a whole stack of Christmas books that we read every year so I thought why not wrap those!? Even though they're "old books", it's going to be WAY more exciting to unwrap a book and be surprised every night then to just pick a book off the shelf like they do every other day of the year.

While I was taking all of their Christmas books off the shelves, I found several other books that they either never read, or haven't read in a long time so I wrapped some of those too. So in the end, they're each going to be getting eight new books. I bought all of the new books at Ollies Warehouse and through Scholastic Book Club so I ended up getting all 16 books for approximately $30! This is definitely a much more affordable option than buying 50 new books!

If your kids don't already have quite so many books on their bookshelves, I have a few other ideas for you:

*As I mentioned above, Ollies Warehouse and Scholastic Books Club both have tons of books for under $5 with a lot for only $1.

*Salvation Army or other thrift shops are definitely a great place to get cheap books.

*Your Facebook Marketplace or Rummage Sale sites are places you can often buy boxes of books for very little money.

*If you're looking for specific books or series, you can often find them on Ebay for a fraction of the cost.

*As long as you explain to your kids that they can't actually keep the books, you can borrow books from your local library and wrap them. Your kids will still get to experience the excitement of opening a new book every night and this is a completely FREE option for you!