Common gifts teenagers give another include plushies, snacks, self-care products and clothes, depending on the individual. Finding the right gift for someone can be difficult, especially if searching for an item at an affordable price. There are various budget-friendly stores like Dollar Tree, Five Below and T.J Maxx, where less expensive items can be found.
For the holidays, T.J. Maxx set up a gifts under $30 section for customers to go through. A few of the items seen on display are Snoopy gift sets, which are popular among the youth, or Champion, a common brand for sportswear apparel.
The gift sets have varying themes of fictional characters like Snoopy or the Grinch merchandise included in the set. In addition, there are items such as belts and clothes already wrapped with a red ribbon. These gifts are readily available and suitable for people who are busy without a lot of time and effort to prepare a gift.
At Five Below, the majority of their items are under $20. Items can vary from plushies to toys, home appliances, pet accessories, clothes, shoes and keychains.
They also feature trendy and fun items like a Hello Kitty speaker for $10 or a spa advent calendar listed at $7 as Hello Kitty is a popular character among teens and advent calendars can be enjoyable to open.
Five Below also has crochet knit sets and a slushie maker, which can help beginners learn how to crochet or make their own iced drink.Similar to Five Below, Dollar Tree includes home appliances, toys, art supplies and crafts, which are useful for making do-it-yourself (DIY) items.
DIY tutorials posted online on platforms like TikTok, Instagram and YouTube involve using materials such as pipe cleaners and paper, costing under $10. Some creative options as gifts include pipe cleaner jellyfish lamp, flower lamp, keychains, hair clips, paper cards and flowers can be made with said materials.
Freshman Phoebe Phung’s own DIY she created for her friend, came with a note card made with colored paper with pink and white flower corners and bracelets attached to it. She made her own kandi bracelets, which are colorful beaded bracelets, following a YouTube tutorial on ladder bracelets and kandi stars.
“The bracelets, the beads, are pretty pricey, but they’re really cheap to make, in my opinion, because you can get a huge bundle of these beads for a good amount of price, but it’s, it can get really pricey depending on what types of beads you buy,” Phung said.
For her, she finds the bracelets are inexpensive to make, considering the beads she uses are lower priced, around $5 to $10. Though, depending on the beads, prices can vary up to $20 since there are differences in consistency, durability and material whether purchasing lower or higher-priced beads.
Sophomore Anqi “Angel” Liu made a plushy of a character from the Roblox game “Die of Death” for her friend. Using felt, she sewed and stitched the plushy, which took a couple of hours to complete.
She believes the pricing was justifiable for the length she received as a yard is huge.
“You could get these for really cheap online depending on the felt you get, or the fabric felt is, usually only for 25 cents but the actual plush fabric could usually cost to a couple dollars or bucks for a yard,” Liu said.
She prefers to create plushies over other parts of crafts like drawing, especially since the gift is more meaningful.
“If your friend has really niche interests, you could make them, but it does take more time and effort, but it’s definitely worth it because it shows that you love them,” Liu said.
Although the process was time consuming, she found that it was worth it since her friend liked the gift.
There is a wide range of ideas and ways like browsing through websites for DIYs that fit someone’s interests to save on money while still creating meaningful and appealing gifts for them.
