GURL, she’s sticking to her budget this year, and it’s giving fiscal fierceness, it’s serving “ain’t breaking tha bank” realness, it’s giving my presence is tha present 🧑🏽‍🎄🎄🎁 I remember the first holiday season I decided not to break the bank, it was honestly out of necessity ... I had just finished my first semester of graduate school at NYU, and dahling it was a semester of financial culture shock ... realizing how expensive the city was, still learning how to properly budget, and that ultimately I had to make some very adult decisions on how I spent my coinz and so I got creative ... I left New York to go home just a few days before Christmas with a plan. The first evening of being home, I snuck away from the family convo, looked through our cherished family photo album, and selected my favorite childhood photo of us ... a photo of my father holding me as a baby, a photo of my mother and I wrapped in a blanket smiling at the camera, a photo of my older brother giving me a bear hug as a toddler ... I went through that album and selected a photo for each family member. Then I strutted over to our local convenience store and got the images blown up and framed .... cost me about $7 per photo (frame included, gurl). I’ll never forget the morning my family unraveled the wrapping paper and saw those photos ... tears of joy, the joyful laughter from resurfacing and reminiscing such lovely moments from our pasts, the memories we revisited ... we all hugged each other in the end realizing that our family, the memories and moments we created with each other, the love we had for each other ... that was the true gift and it was priceless get creative with your gift giving, gurl, you don’t need to break tha bank nor indulge in this materialistic/capitalistic culture simply because “tis tha season of giving” ... sometimes the greatest gifts are simple ones 💚 #giftideas #giftgiving #holigays