Budgeting Tips #3 ~ A Teen/Tween Gift For $10

I have to credit my teenage daughter for this thrifty tip. She wanted to buy a birthday gift for a friend but didn't have a lot of money to spend. She came up with the idea of a movie basket.

As you can see in the photo, we used a Orville Redenbacher popcorn bucket as the basket. Then we added a movie, M&M's, and other movie candy. The movie, Rat Race, was purchased at Walmart for $5. The popcorn bucket was $2 at Walmart. We bought the M&M's at Walgreens because they had a register reward deal. Cost was $1.50 . Plus the Swedish Fish were .99 and the candy bar was .50 . So the total gift was $10 plus tax.

My daughter and her friend had a great time watching movie while eating the popcorn and candy. Walmart had a selection movies for $5. Some other titles that I saw for teens were Frequency, Oceans Thriteen, Black Beauty, and Napoleon Dynamite. I liked the popcorn bucket because it made a great basket and then you pop the popcorn in the bucket.

Teen gifts don't have to be expensive to be fun!