Gift Giving 2011: Storing Your Gifts

The biggest challenge of shopping year-round is storing all the gifts you buy!

My mom taught me the art of shopping year-round, and my Dad built her a huge storage closet in our basement when I was growing up. It was just for gifts and had a padlock on it. 🙂 

Matthew and I live in a small condo, with limited space, so storage can be a challenge. I store all gifts in rubbermaid containers in our outside locked shed. I have each container labeled by family. Since I record all gifts that I purchase during the year in my Google Docs, I know what is in each bin, without having to go into it.

Throughout the year, I send gifts for my parents and in-laws to store (since they both have a lot more room!). Sometimes, if I am ordering something online, I will have it shipped right to their house to keep for the holidays. This reduces the amount of gifts that I have to store and that we have to travel with, which is a cost-savings, especially with baggage fees nowadays.

How do you store gifts you stock up on?

Tomorrow we will wrap up this series talking about ways to be generous with your gift-giving.