If you can believe it, we’ve got just over 2 weeks until Christmas is here! The holiday really feels like it snuck up on me this year (but, let’s be real, I say that every year). I’ve been wanting to write about my yoga hack for awhile now, because I love it so gosh-darn much, and when I was thinking about how I would write this post one morning in the shower (where I do some of my best thinking), I realized with it being close to the holidays that it could also make for a great holiday gift. That led me to thinking about all the other ways I hack around the holidays (that has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?), and thus this post was born. I hope you enjoy it, especially you frugal, last-minute shoppers!
Quick side note: I was in no way, shape, or form paid for writing about any of the recommendations I am about to make. None of the link to goods and services in this post are affiliate links, so you can rest assured that they are all things that I’ve used myself and highly recommend based on my own personal experience. I wouldn’t take the time to recommend anything on this blog I didn’t love!
The yoga hack: one of my favorite ever purchases
For those who’ve been consistently reading the blog (and if that’s you, thank you!), you know I’ve always landed on the frugal side of spending. I was at my most frugal when I was in graduate school, making $21,000 per year.
One of my favorite things about being in graduate school was that I had free access to the University gym, and that included unlimited, free exercise classes. I was OBSESSED with these free classes.
There were, what seemed like, an infinite number of them. As a former college volleyball player, I loathed just going to the gym and lifting weights (because I had had to do it every morning at 5 am for far too long…). I wanted to be doing something fun, like playing volleyball, while I exercised. For me, the classes checked that box. They were, for the most part, fun. My favorite classes that I got into were spinning, barre, and yoga. Beloved yoga.
This was around the time when I was still spinning on the hamster wheel of life, stressed out to the max. Yoga class provided the hour-long oasis I needed to escape life as I knew it. I would go to yoga class in the morning before school. I would go on my lunch break. I would go in the evening, before or after dinner. Whatever worked for my schedule that week. It became a huge part of my life and routine, and I didn’t even have to buy any of the equipment because the University provided everything.
As life goes, graduate school ended, but my yoga obsession did not. And I learned, to my frugal horror, how expensive yoga classes actually are in the real world. I am all for them, and I am all for fantastic yoga teachers making a legit living off of them. I have paid for plenty of yoga classes (and yoga retreats) that I don’t regret at all. But I wanted the option of doing yoga every day if I could, and I simply couldn’t afford to do that on my, at the time, $40K per year salary as a postdoctoral fellow.
Now, at this point, I absolutely could have just done yoga by myself in my apartment. I knew enough of the poses and what I liked and did not like that I could have just made up my own practice. That would have been the ultra-frugal thing to do. But those who do yoga know that this is simply just not the same. Plus, I love the experience that a class gives. I didn’t necessarily like being with other people in the class, but I loved the instruction provided by a good teacher. I loved being able to simply check out of my brain, listen to the instructor’s words, and let me body do its thing. It was so freeing and relaxing.
I’m sure I was telling everyone and their brothers about my conundrum, and someone (God bless them!) recommended the Down Dog app. I have never looked back, and I still use it today.
Down Dog: my yoga angel
Down Dog is an app you can use on your computer, phone, or tablet to do yoga classes. But they are not pre-recorded classes with a real-life human instructor. When you want to start a session, you can set how long you would like to practice for, and the app creates a sequence on the spot for you. To me, it feels like a yoga class in that you have no idea what poses will be coming next. It creates a unique practice for you every time you sign in.
On the other hand, you can also save a practice after you do it if you like that particular one. I rarely do this, but sometimes I like the flow they’ve chosen SO much that I’ll save it for days where I really need something comforting. However, I rarely replay them because I’m never disappointed with a random class when using the Down Dog app.
Even though the “instructor” is more of a robot than an actual person, they actually look quite real. The avatar doesn’t actually speak herself, it’s just a voice over. I haven’t found this to be an issue at all. In fact, for me personally, I rarely even watch the screen and just listen to the instructions since I know most of the poses.
Other things I love about this app:
- You lose the commute: no having to drive to yoga classes! Get ready to maximize your time
- You can choose a practice as short as 4 minutes (I like 10 minutes for a quick work break) or as long as 80 minutes based on your needs
- You can choose different instructor voices, types of practices (including pace and difficulty level), and music types based on your mood
- Apparently, the app contains more than 600,000 sequences and has a unique algorithm feature that adjusts the difficulty as you get better (but you can also just set the difficulty at the beginning of any practice)
- You can set whether or not to include savasana, and for how long
- I’m sure there are a million other features I don’t even use
I also love that (rarely) I can get Mr. Dink to do yoga with my by using the app. I am convinced that Mr. Dink, as a carpenter, needs a little yoga in his life to keep his body limber and healthy into old age. When we do yoga together, I set the difficulty on the app to “beginner” and the speed to “slow” so he can keep up with the pace and instructions, since he has no previous yoga experience.
There are also other Down Dog apps that I don’t use and so I can’t vouch for, but for what it’s worth, they include HIIT, Meditation, Running, and Barre apps. I downloaded the Barre app once with good intentions, but have never used it.
For the first year I used this app, it was completely free, and it had all the features I use to this day. About a year into using the app and loving it, I received an email that they were going to start charging to use the app. It was a lovely email, one I could appreciate, about how they are growing their business and want to be able to continue making people happy with yoga. I paused for about 1 second before hitting the purchase button.
First of all, the price was barely enough to make even a small dent in my budget at the time. Second, this was something I used at least every week and brought me so much happiness. It seemed like a small price to pay for something that sparked that much joy in my life. Plus, I wanted to support this great business that I had grown to know and love (they even decided to make their apps free for students and teachers during the pandemic, and it looks like this might still be the case).
And my final thought here is that this could make a great Christmas gift for the right person in your life! If you know someone who loves yoga and doesn’t use/know about this app, this is a small price to pay for something that could bring so much joy. It looks like right now the app is $7.99/month, which is way less than I would pay to go to one in-person class. You could give one or more months as a gift, and then they could see if they liked it enough to continue purchasing on their own. Also, if you’re interested yourself, it looks like they still have limited free options on the app, so you could at least get a feel for whether you like the structure and features before purchasing.
Plus, this is not a gift that a) breaks the bank or b) is a material possession that will likely end up in a landfill. Those are my favorite types of gifts!
Other holiday gift hacks worth sharing
As I alluded to above, thinking about this post and writing about my yoga hack made me think of several other ways I spend frugally on gifts for Christmas.
Use newspaper for gift wrap
This may not apply to everyone since not everyone gets a newspaper anymore, but I have used newspaper as gift wrap for a number of years now. You save tons of money on gift wrap each year, AND it’s better for the environment than the shiny paper that’s typically not recyclable. Bonus for us, we also use our newspaper to get our fires started in our woodstove every morning during the winter.
If you don’t get a newspaper, I encourage you to consider it! It’s a great way to stay plugged into your community, and I find it very enjoyable to read on the weekend mornings with my cup of coffee. Plus, it’s a great way to avoid using my phone for literally everything these days.
Use Costco for all your gift-giving needs
We happen to have a Costco in our state, and while I can’t vouch for any of the other bulk stores, I have heard good things as well about the others like BJs.
Even though I live an hour away from the Costco now, I still like to go approximately quarterly for certain food items that we find make way more sense to buy at in bulk/large quantities. These include thrilling things like crunchy peanut butter (Mr. Dink eats toast with peanut butter every morning for breakfast), Lipton tea bags (Mr. Dink also has at least 3 cups of tea a day), old fashioned oats (I have oatmeal every morning for breakfast), trail mix for Mr. Dink’s work snacks, etc.
I have also discovered over the years that Costco is GREAT for Christmas shopping. Here’s a rundown of some of my favorites Costco Christmas finds.
- Chocolate: I will often buy whatever is on sale, usually a bag of Lindt balls or Ghirardelli squares, and tape one or two onto a present wrapped in newspaper (or throw a few into a gift bag if that’s your go-to wrapping style). It makes for an easy but yummy touch!
- Wine and beer: Costco has decent (and often oversized) bottles of wine and (at least ours) has a great selection of beer for much cheaper than what you find at the store. These (along with champagne, sangria, or any other alcoholic beverage you might want) make great consumable gifts.
- Clothing: There are plenty of options for good clothing at the right price, whether it be for a big gift like a winter coat or a stocking stuffer like socks. Mr. Dink LOVES the wool socks from Costco, and I find they last him about 2 years. Not bad for a 6-pack of socks for the same price as 1 higher quality pair. (Bonus benefit: I love how Costco has, for the most part, just one option for each item. It eliminates my choice fatigue and makes for a much quicker, more enjoyable shopping experience)
- Water bottles/mugs: This is one of my favorite Costco Christmas hacks because it feels like a 2-for-1 deal. Costco often sells large water bottles and travel mugs in packs of 2. Keep one for yourself, or give both away as gifts.
- Plenty of other random stuff: If I ever have the time, I love to just roam the aisles at Costco looking at all they have and getting ideas for later. For example, one year, I noticed on one of my trips that they had a whole case of tennis balls for something like $50. This was when my dad was still playing tennis, and so I bought it for him for Christmas when I saw them on sale. He was so happy that he’d never have to worry about buying tennis balls again, and he could also take extras with him and give them away to anyone who needed it.
Pro tip: If you are a Costco member, it pays to browse through the small catalog they send occasionally so you know what’s on sale, for even more savings! That’s how I got the tennis balls on sale.
Also, this year, we are loving these sheets we got from Costco. Mr. Dink is REAL picky about the feel of our sheets, and we had been using the same pair that he loved for going on 4 years now. Finally, the fitted sheet got a big rip in it (I had no idea this could even happen, but I find that frugality will always teach you interesting things). So, off we were to Costco to try to find a replacement. We LOVE the feel of these sheets, and I personally love the grip on the corner to keep them from slipping off. I personally think they could also make a great gift for the right person in your life!
Homemade goodies as gifts
This is one of my personal favorite holiday hacks. Pick something you love to make, or are good at making, and give the gift of homemade goodies for Christmas.
I have become known in my family for my Christmas fudge. All I do is use the recipe on the back of the Marshmallow Fluff container, and it comes out great every time. (Plus, it’s easy to make).
Bring it to parties on a festive tray from a yard sale, or put it in adorable tins from the dollar store and give them as gifts. Plus, the recipe always makes more than I need, so I end up being able to give some fudge out randomly to people who we spend time with around the holidays. It never ceases to put a smile on someone’s face.
I would love to hear about your frugal holiday hacks and gift ideas! What are your go-tos when it comes to Christmas giving? 15 days to go!