Today’s Hint: Go for a Family Thank You Card  

They say second kids often get the short end of the stick.

My newborn number two is having to make do with hand-me-downs, he isn’t getting as many pictures taken of him as his older sister did and he isn’t getting his own personalized stationery for thank you notes.

While I bought note cards personalized with my daughter’s name pretty much right after she was born, this time around I’ve saved money on handwritten thank yous by employing a smarter stationery buying strategy that is today’s hint: I bought family thank you cards, i.e. note cards cleverly personalized to come from any member of my family.

There are various family stationery design options. The most widely available (and sometimes cheaper) option is to go for cards that pretty much only display your family’s last name, as in “The Schultz Family,” and or monogram (like this example from Tiny Prints).

There also are a limited number of designs out there that use images (think bicycles or birds) to represent each member of the family (Etsy is a great source for such cards). I opted for one of these more elaborate designs, buying family note cards ($1.50 each) featuring a family of owls from PaperHouseDesigns’ Etsy shop (see my card in the image above).

Regardless of whether you go for the more elaborate or the simpler family note card options, they’re all more economical than buying each member of your family his or her own personalized notes, and they’re a great option to consider for sending holiday season thank yous. Since anyone in your family can use them to dash off a quick thank you or other handwritten note for any purpose, you’re not going to be left with lots of unused cards personalized for one member of your family.

But what if you already have drawers filled with such unused cards? The good news is you can still transform them into family cards with the help of a stamp (read more on that here).

Of course, if you don’t care about sending personalized cards, there are other more frugal thank you strategies you can employ, like sending notes on any old note cards, on the back of your baby announcements or via email. And encouraging your kids to create handmade thank you cards is not only cheap, it’s also a great and easy toddler and young kid activity.

What are your tips for saving on thank you cards?

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