Raising eight children isn’t an easy task no matter who you are, and that seems to be especially true around the holidays. Now, former reality star Kate Gosselin is talking about how she has budgeted through the Christmas season every year to make sure that her kids get the best experience she’s able to give them — even when her financial situation wasn’t ideal.
Kate shared a TikTok video about her budget and staying organized during the holiday season.
@kate.gosselin Merry Christmas shopping! Tips on how I manage to complete a very LONG list each year. PLUS Christmas past pics and VIDEO at the end! Enjoy! #Christmas #Budget ♬ original sound – kate.gosselin
Since Kate likes to take advantage of the sales that often happen leading up to the Christmas holiday, Kate said she asks her kids for their lists in November, around Thanksgiving.
“I always tell them to number the list and start with the most important thing, the thing they want the most at the very top, and go down from there,” she explained. “So if they only want five things, they’ll add little silly things or whatever at the end. I don’t care how they do it, I just always want to know what is the priority for them.”
She does her best to keep the gifts “fair” for her kids.
She admitted that while the budget changes in the “good years” and the “not so good years,” she does go above and beyond when it comes to spending the same amount of money on each child — often “to the penny.”
“I got this actually from my mom,” she said. “My mom used to give us an envelope to make it fair to the penny. And I always appreciated that about my mom, because literally, some years I would get like, in an envelope, like $4.81. And I know that might sound silly, but to me fair is really important.”
Kate has continued this tradition by gifting her kids the money she didn’t spend in a box for each of them. She added, “Now, sometimes not everybody gets a square box. That means I finished your list completely. And sometimes I unavoidably have gone over a dollar or two. That doesn’t usually happen. I’m usually pretty to the money.”
She doesn’t always stick strictly to the lists, though.
Though Kate said she prioritizes the items on her kids’ lists first and foremost, she also likes to surprise them when she can.
“Even on not good years, I like to do as much as I can of their list, but they love when I improvise and add little surprise things that weren’t on their list,” she said. “It makes them very happy and that’s fun for me, because otherwise I just kinda feel like click, order, click, order. It doesn’t feel very from the heart. So I like to add little things.”
Her kids also get one joint gift to share.
“This year, it’s a game,” she said. “I already have it ordered. It’s a super fun game that I actually learned when I was in New Zealand. And I wanna teach it to my kids. So we’re getting that.”
Sounds like Kate’s kids are all set to have a great Christmas!
