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Christmas shopping is never easy — but Kate Gosselin has some tips that might help.
The 50-year-old nurse and former reality TV star, best known for her time on “Jon & Kate Plus 8,” took to TikTok on Nov. 12 to share some of her best holiday shopping tips when budgeting for a big family.
With as many as eight kids to shop for, she has learned a thing or two about how to make it work.
And it all starts with a detailed Christmas wish list.
Kate, who shares eight kids — twins Madelyn and Cara, 24, and sextuplets Alexis, Hannah, Aaden, Collin, Leah and Joel, 21 — with ex-husband Jon Gosselin, said she likes to ask for her kids’ list early.
“I always like to take advantage of the holiday sales,” she says of her Christmas shopping strategy.
As for the Christmas list, Gosselin has her kids list everything in order from most to least important — and has them include a link, color, size and price for each item so she can easily find (and budget) everything.
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The lists then go into her notes app in her phone for easy, 24/7 access when shopping.
And while she does her best to purchase all the items on her kids’ Christmas lists, Gosselin said she also tries to improvise with her shopping and surprise her kids with gifts they didn’t ask for.
Kate Gosselin’s expert tip on keeping Christmas fair and equal
When budgeting for Christmas, Gosselin said she likes to keep it as fair and equal as possible.
To do this, the mom of eight says she usually starts shopping for one kid at a time — whoever gives her their list first — and stops shopping when she feels they have enough gifts to make it a good Christmas.
She then tallies up how much she spent on the first child and uses it as her budget for each child after.
In the event she goes over her budget for a child (which she says happens often), she does her best to compensate for the other kids by increasing her budget for those she already shopped for.
At the end of her Christmas shopping, she utilizes an envelope approach that she learned from her mom.
“My mom used to give us an envelope at the end of Christmas to make it fair to the penny and I always appreciated that about my mom,” Gosselin said in the TikTok video.
She went on to say that some years she would get as little as $4 in the envelope to account for the difference in what her mom spent on her siblings’ gifts.
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And now she does the same with her kids for Christmas.
“I know that might sound silly, but to me fair is very important,” Gosselin said, adding that some kids might get a few dollars in the envelope (or none at all), while others might get as much as a few hundred.
“People have gotten $10 in their box, some people get $150 if they didn’t ask for much,” she continued.
Other Christmas shopping tips from Kate Gosselin
In addition to the envelope idea, Gosselin says she also gives out one family gift every year.
And while her kids are getting a little too old for the annual Christmas stocking, she has found a great way to keep the tradition going by wrapping her kids’ favorite skincare items and toiletries in the stocking.
“I’ve done that one, maybe two years so far and it was a huge hit,” Gosselin said on TikTok.
To ensure she gets the right items, she has her kids make a separate Christmas list exclusively for the skincare and toiletries.
Gosselin went on to share a few vintage photos and videos from previous Christmas celebrations — including a video of three of her then-young kids opening a tiny robot known as Fijit Friends.
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“Such sweet memories. Makes me wanna cry!” she wrote in a text overlay.
