BEING THERE
For many people, just your presence is a present. Putting a few dollars a week away (or at least all your daily pocket change) into a jar is a painless way to save, and have enough put away for at least gas to go visit relatives during the holidays. Sometimes bus fares or reserving a rental car can be better options, especially if you don't have a lot of winter driving experience, or an unreliable vehicle. Finding fellow musicians you can carpool with, especially if you can somehow arrange a gig to play once you get to your destination, can also help pay for passage, as well as help you and some fellow songwriters further your skills at the same time. If a party is planned, perhaps you could volunteer your music skills, but keep in mind that family can often be the most brutal of audiences, so don't allow any ribbing to ruin your holiday for you. Bring plenty of demos to hand out-this is a great way to reduce your stock at year-end for tax purposes. Wrap them if you like in the daily comics or just plain brown paper cut from grocery sacks-if you put a few green or red circles or other shapes on them with marker they will look as nice as many designer wraps, or you can just cut out festive pictures and shapes from mail circulars and glue them on. Many of your relatives may well feel insulted if they don't get at least a single, so be generous with them-you probably have more than you will ever get rid of, anyway, and family can be great network contacts, even if they don't particularly like your music. They might play your songs to make fun of them, but someone might notice you are good and pass word around-you never know.
BUDGET MAILING
You can save for postage with the jar method, too. Many self-serve postage machines take pennies, even, or some of us just convert money to stamps when possible so we won't be tempted to spend it on other things. If you keep the packages under a pound and use the self-serve hoppers, you can avoid post office lines entirely, and give yourself a lot more songwriting time this way. Try sending really practical gifts to your family and musical pals like phone cards, gift certificates to stores or restaurants they actually can use, or small trinkets that they might like that don't take up much space like homemade jewelry, organizers, guitar strings, a tuner or perhaps discs of fun samples or artwork they could use for their music or promo packets. Many people are very happy with a silver chain with a cute pendant on it-you can often get the chains cheaply at many big-box stores, as well as pendants to attach, but don't ignore earrings, either-many of these can be easily detached from their hooks and used as pendants, and if you are a gal with a few half-pairs sitting around, you can quickly empty out part of your jewelry box and solve a bunch of gift problems at the same time. Some of these things you might very well have sitting around your place unused, so cleaning them up and sending them somewhere they would find use not only declutters your place, but saves you and them money while you are at it. For example, if you have a non-computer-using aunt who loves to write letters, why not send her a nicely packaged set of stationery made up of leftovers you haven't touched since you discovered email? You could send her some stamps, too, if you have a few left over-you know she will put them to good use.
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