A helpful app to track your holiday purchases

Do you have trouble keeping track of your holiday gift purchases each year? Who you already bought for? How much you spent? Even where you hid that item you bought back in August??

Well, guess what! There’s an app for that!

I heard about this app in a budgeting group (shocking, I know) I’m part of on Facebook. There are several other apps out there that track this info as well so find whichever works best for you! I personally like to download a few free apps for whatever it is I’m looking for a new app for, test each out, and then decide which works the best for me. I just want to let people know that this even exists! It’s especially helpful if you are trying to keep on a budget…which you know I always am!

Plus, let’s be honest, I just forget everything if it isn’t written down somewhere!

This one is called Santa’s Bag. There is a free and a paid version. The free version does have ads at the bottom, but I didn’t find it terribly annoying. Or you can pay $4.99 to remove the banner ads. There are also ads under the ‘Find Gifts’ tab that basically shows you gift ideas from Amazon. For just tracking my gifts and recipients, the free version seems to do the trick!

To get started, add your recipients under the second tab along the bottom of the screen. There are tabs within each person where you can add more details. Links to gift ideas, preferences (or things I always forget, such as my nephew’s size!), even addresses if you need to mail gifts!

The you can set your total budget amount for all gifts or you can set a budget per person.

As you get ideas or begin purchasing gifts, you can add them to your list. There are options to mark if the item is an Idea, To Buy, Ordered, To Wrap, Wrapped, To Send or Given so you know where in the process you are! Plus, if you are making the item, check the Handmade option and you will see and additional To Make icon appear!