Here are a bunch of budget-friendly, healthy(ish) Easter gift ideas. From Easter baskets to Easter eggs, if you’re trying to save money and eat healthy, you’ll find what you need here.
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When you’re trying to save money and eat healthy, holidays are a struggle.
During Easter, I feel like stores throw every kind of baby animal-shaped chocolate at my face. We walk by whole aisles full of pastel decor, baking supplies, and plastic things to fill our Easter baskets. Between that and my inexplicable love for malted milk balls in the shape of robins eggs, Easter brings a lot to tempt my wallet.
Easter Gifts on a Budget
Easter is so fun. As a kid, I loved everything from the spiritual reasons we celebrated to the more commercial ones. Who doesn’t love an Easter egg hunt?
I want my kids to have good memories associated with holidays. However, over the years, while we celebrated on a budget, I learned a few things about making Easter budget-friendly, fun, and meaningful.
I’m not the parent who thinks we need to throw the bunny out the window. However, as a parent who has to live with hyperactive sugar-high children and all their extra plastic stuff, I want to be intentional about how we celebrate this holiday.
If you’re trying to save money and eat healthy this year, I hope you find some ideas you love.
Budget-Friendly Easter Gifts
When I was growing up, next to the cross and remembering God’s unconditional love, the best thing about Easter was the scavenger hunt. My dad invented The Dread Pirate Cottontail, who left buried treasure at our home every year. The only way to find it was by following the clues. These hunts grew more elaborate as we got older. In fact, after I moved across the country (you know, as an adult), he set up an online version, so we could have one more hurrah with the most fearsome bunny on the seven seas.
The scavenger hunt cost my dad an hour or two every night before Easter, but it didn’t cost him any extra money. My parents turned the Easter basket tradition into something infinitely more memorable.
In fact, it saved them money. Cottontail only left one gift for each child instead of a whole basket, and we didn’t even care. Well played Pops.
Maybe creating a scavenger hunt makes you want to pull your hair out. What can you do instead that will create a fun memory for your kids and won’t cost extra? (HINT: hiding the gifts and playing a round of Warmer & Colder is always a win)
Budget-Friendly Easter Baskets
When it comes to building a frugal, fun, junk-free Easter basket, I use the same rules for a junk-free Christmas Stocking. Get all those tips here.
Budget-Friendly Easter Eggs
And Healthy-ish Easter Eggs.
As a parent, I spend far too much time managing my kids’ sugar intake and the cheap plastic toys that come into our home. I’m not against candy, and I’m not against plastic. However, I am against excess and waste.
We live in a country where the average person consumes 66 pounds of sugar a year (including children), when the recommended amount is under 22 pounds.
Meanwhile, my kids receive plastic toys from the dentist office one day and don’t even remember them the next. It’s fun, but if I’m going to spend my money on Easter egg fillers, I’m going to be a little more intentional.
Let’s also remember how much of our chocolate comes from sources that use slave and child labor. If I can buy less chocolate and invest in the good stuff, I think I should.
Frugal Easter Egg Fillers
Here are some ideas to keep the Easter eggs fun, creative, frugal, ethically-minded and hopefully slow our insulin dependence.
Fair Trade Candy
It doesn’t have to be something really expensive. I bought a bag of Fairtrade chocolate peanut butter cups from Aldi for less than the price of a bag of M&Ms. They’ll fill the same amount of eggs but will hopefully support a better world.
More frugal, health-conscious candy finds here!
Fruit Snacks
Aldi carries organic fruit snacks that I use in place of jelly beans. Free of artificial dyes and juice-sweetened.
If you really want jelly beans, try these dye-free jelly beans! Trader Joe’s also carries dye-free candies, including jelly beans (this is what they look like – obviously not budget-friendly here).
(Yum Earth has lots of candy options, are mid-range expensive, and I can usually find them in the health food section of Kroger. Here’s what they look like – again, not a budget-friendly source.)
Pennies & Nickels
This is so easy. Not much gets my kids more excited than cold hard cash. So I fill some eggs with loose change. These are easily their favorite eggs.
Coupons
The classic frugal gift that shows extra TLC. Ours are redeemable for gifts like:
- “1 extra TV show during TV time.”
- “5 extra screen time minutes.”
- “Make your choice of cookies/treat with Mama.” (Here are some easy no-bake ones!)
- “1 box of your choice of cereal at the grocery store.” (Cereal is a treat at our house, so they don’t usually get to choose.)
These ideas reflect what I know will excite my kids according to their ages and personalities. Be creative with yours! Think about inexpensive requests your kids frequently make.
Hardboiled Eggs
Since we color the eggs anyway… those are our primary hiding eggs. The treat-filled ones are just a fun supplement.
Every holiday, we have a choice. We have plenty of opportunities to spend a lot of money. How will we spend our precious dollars? Can we create intentional, creative memories? I hope these frugal, healthy(ish) ideas help make that choice easy.