Genius Hack For Stress-Free Gift And Card Tracking – All Year Round!

Discover the simple method to make sure you always have the right cards and gifts for people ready to go when needed.

How many greetings cards and presents do you buy each year?

How many times do you have to run to the shops to grab a last minute gift or card?

I have what seems like a never ending list, and while I love to send cards and gifts to people, sometimes it can feel quite overwhelming to keep on track with them all.

As such, I decided to try and find an easier way – and it worked! – so I’m sharing it with you today in the hope it will help you too.

This will save so much money, time and effort in the long run as well – what a bonus!

So, let’s get to the solution…

To start with, I’ve previously shared how I set up my gift station, which includs a place for all my cards:-

As you can see, there are quite a lot!

The Issue With Random Card Buying

I’ve been in the habit for some time now of grabbing cards I like and that are priced well (my usual budget is £1 each wherever I can), in bulk when I see them.

If I’m in the supermarket I’ll grab a few cards of differing genres i.e. girls birthday, boys birthday, male and female birthday, blank cards and maybe a thank you/get well etc….

This way I always have a little “stock” in the cupboard to grab when I want to send a card.

There are issues with this though:

• I usually end up with a few cards I never use as they’re never quite right to send
• They’re for events that I don’t use that often (no-one has got engaged recently, for example, and I have bought a couple of these cards as I went through a phase where there were quite a few of these celebrations happening so I wanted to get ahead)

So, over time I’ve created a little card clutter – arghh!

So instead I wanted to create a system that ensured I bought the right cards at the right time, and had little waste involved.

The Simple Card System – The Right List…

So first I went to my Home File and took out the list of Birthdays and Special events that I have in there.

This is a great master list of everything, and I use it to write into my diary any events so that I always can see what’s coming up and send the card/present at the right time.

However, I wouldn’t want to carry this list around all the time as I want to keep it safe.

I wanted a list that I could carry around in my purse – specifically one that just had details of events on it that I had to buy cards for – so that I could see at a glance what I needed to buy when out and about.

I therefore decided to write on a sheeting of small labels and use this as my list.

You can see on the picture below that I wrote down the date and the event (and if it was needed, who the card would be from i.e. just my daughter) on each label for each person – and I did this for the entire year…

As soon as I buy a card for a specific person on the list, I can take the sticker off and stick it to the cellophane on the card so I will know who it’s for when I got home, plus my list immediately has that person taken off and I’m left only with a list of who I still need to buy for in my purse.

A simple idea that really works.

Yes, it takes a little setting up at the start of the year – but it saves so much time throughout the year that it’s definitely worth it.

This Works For Gifts Too..

I also wrote a list for gifts I needed to buy for the year as well – that’s on the orange paper behind.

(There aren’t as many of these as cards, and it’s harder to stick a label onto a gift without it making a mess, so for these I can just write what I buy next to them on the list and cross out the name).

It’s so nice to see everything written down in black and white so I can more easily quantify what I had to shop for in the upcoming months.

TIP – Use these lists to write a monthly budget for cards and gifts so you can more easily keep track.

TIP – You can buy items way ahead of time in sales and know that you’ve already bought for that person – saving money at the same time (or it can enable you to buy more with the same amount).

Keep everything organised at home

So, I now have a list of everything I need to buy for, and a pile of cards in my gift station.

The next thing I did was go through what I had and stick the stickers on any appropriate cards that I already had. This was loads of fun as it meant that I was ahead of the game and this always makes me happy!

As each sticker also has the date of the event on, I decided to “file” the cards into a date order so that I could really quickly find the ones I needed when it was time to send them.

I simply used some coloured clips that I had in my office, labelled each clip on top with a month of the year so that I could see the month from above (as that was how I would have to see it in the drawer), and then clipped together all the cards for that month with it (or at least as many as I could!).

Such an easy system!

As you can see from the picture below, I store all my cards bought for specific people and specific dates in the plastic tubs, and I have extras in the drawer in case I need any.

I love this system for so many reasons:-

• I can buy cards in bulk easily when offers are on in shops, and know that I am getting ones that are needed
• I know at a glance in my purse what I need to buy at any given time
• When I see something I think would make a great gift, I look in my purse and see who I need to buy for
• I can try and get all my cards for the year early on (it’s my competitive streak!)
• No more rushing to the shops because I have forgotten a card etc….

TIP – keep stamps and postage wrapping supplies to hand as well to make it even easier!

TIP – Also keep a buffer amount of cards and gifts or extras such as childrens birthday parties, gifts for when you are a guest at a friends house etc…

As and when a special event comes around, I have the card ready to be written and a gift ready to be wrapped – then sent.

Easy!

So now you’ve got the system to track things properly – why not get some gifts to start getting ahead? HERE are some fantastic hand picked ideas you’re going to find useful...