Cash is the ultimate last-minute gift, but giving it doesn’t have to be boring! Check out these creative ways to make giving cash as a gift more fun and engaging.
Money Tree
A “Money Tree” (pictured above) is a cute Christmas table decoration as well as a clever way to give cash as a gift. It’s pretty easy and takes less than 15 minutes! Start with a small terra cotta pot, some floral foam, a dowel stick and a styrofoam cone. Simply pin your dollar bills to the styrofoam to make the tree’s branches. Add a little moss at the base of the tree, and a star on top. It’s very festive!
Candy Box
Here is creative way to give money as a gift: a candy box of money! A great thing about this DIY way to give cash is that you can give any amount you like. Make it all dollar bills for a fun inexpensive gift, or fill up the candy box with $20 bills as a creative way to give a lot of money. This makes a fun Christmas gift for hard-to-shop-for teens, or a nice graduation gift. Instructions: Cash Candy Box
Play “Dough”
Reuse a Play-Doh container to hide money in and give it as a gift. This gift idea works really well as a stocking stuffer! Add a gift tag that says something like, “Here’s some ‘dough’ to play with this Christmas!” for a funny play on words. It’s such a cute way to give money.
Rubber Band Ball
Wad up the money you’re giving as a gift and start wrapping rubber bands around it. Keep wrapping until you have a nice big ball of rubber bands! Then, wrap up the rubber band ball itself. This is a way to give money that will keep the recipient busy as well.
Canned Goods
Use a canned food item to hide your cash gift! If there’s a food your recipient particularly hates, be sure to use that for extra laughs. Use a knife to slit the label at the back of the can, near the glued seam. Peel the label away from the can (on the side without glue) and slip the money underneath the label. Carefully glue the loose end of the label back in place, without gluing the money.
A bill fits perfectly around a regular sized can without getting in the way of the glued area.
Money Pad
Make a “money pad” by glue a stack of bills together on one end. This is an easy and fun way to give cash as a gift. All you need is white school glue and money. New bills work best. I’ve done this, and the glue does not ruin your money! Kids especially will enjoy peeling the bills off the stack as they use them.
Stack up a pile of bills neatly. Place something heavy, like a stack of books, very close to the end you want to glue. Apply the glue to the very edge of the stack of bills and allow to dry (mine took about an hour). The bills will peel off individually, like a notepad.
You could also add a cardboard base to your money pad (cut a rectangle from a cereal box) or a note to the recipient on top of the money stack. I recommend using $1 bills, to make a more impressive stack. The money pad pictured is 20 bills and it’s not very big.
A Box in a Box – NOT!
This is a fun twist on the box-in-a-box gift idea. Wrap up a box within a box, within a box. Fill in the space with tissue paper, crumpled newspaper, grocery bags, junk, whatever you like. As the gift is opened, the recipient will dig through for the “real” gift, only to find nothing at all! Then you pull the money out of your wallet and say, “oops, guess I forgot to wrap it!”
Walnut Cracking
Carefully open one or more walnuts, and remove the nut. Fold a bill and insert into the walnut shell. Glue the walnut shell closed. Mix the nuts with money up with regular walnuts and let the recipient crack them open to find the cash!
The poem reads:
This gift may not look lip smacking
But to get what’s inside, you must get cracking
So go get a hammer and have some fun
Because to get your gift it must be done
Sorry mom & dad for the mess this will make
But you can always save the nuts to bake a cake
Cold Hard Cash
Who doesn’t love cold hard cash? Place the cash in a plastic bag to keep it from getting wet. Put it in a container of water, and freeze it into a block of ice. When I gave this gift, I just left the ice block into the snow in the front yard and let the recipient find it.
Tootsie Rolls
This creative way to give money is similar to the walnut gift idea above. Tightly wrap one or more bills in tootsie roll wrappers and hide them among tons of real tootsie rolls.
Here’s a poem to use with this cash gift idea:
“I had a special bag of candy made just for you
To find your gift all you need to do is chew.”
Unwrapping is part of the fun!
Money Baton
Tightly roll the money, and tie it with ribbon. Fill an empty tube with the wrapped money and candy. Decorate as desired. This gift idea is also a great way to reuse those plastic candy-filled candy canes. I always knew there was a use for those!
Hidden Cash in a Magazine
Give money by cleverly hiding it in a magazine!
You’ll need two magazines with thick pages. Cut a picture from one magazine and glue it over the same picture on the identical page in the other magazine, with the money sandwiched in between. This one can be very tricky, so use it for older kids.
Cash-in-a-Box
Roll up bills and bill-sized notes into a roll. On the last note, make a “pull here” tab. Put the roll of bills and notes in an old tissue box, or a box with a slit cut in it, with the tab sticking out.
My mom wanted to give my bro $$ for Christmas when we were kids. She decided to do 1) the cold hard cash idea above. 2) folded in leaves of a head of lettuce. 3) tucked into a loaf of bread. 4) pennies in a protein formula can (my bro was trying to bulk up for football) . . . . there were a couple other funnies but those are the ones that have stuck with me. 🙂
I rolled up the bills and pushed them into the fingers of gloves. He was disappointed that all he got were gloves and couldn’t understand why I insisted he try them on!
I love all these ideas! Such fun!
I have a nephew that placed a $50 gift certificate in a bag of popcorn as a gift for his sister. She was quite angry over receiving nothing but popcorn as her gift and threw the bag away. Thankfully it was still in the garbage when the gag was finally explained to her the next day.
One year for Christmas, I gave my son-in-law a picture of me in a really glitzy frame…….on the back of it, I taped his Christmas money. I have also put money between the wrapped PopTarts in the Pop-Tart box. Another year I put money mixed in with the pages of a book. Money is a very practical gift, but I just always have thought it not very personal. Thinking of different methods of delivery, makes it a little more fun and shows some thought.
The frame idea is hilarious! Thanks for sharing. 🙂
I have riled money inside a toilet paper roll with a slit in it with a pull tab and wrapped in wrapping paper. I also read a blog the other day that suggested sticking money in balloons and blowing them up and placing in a box. You can even mail it pretty cheap because it’s so light.
I gave a gift of $250.00 mostly in one dollar bills that I taped together. I folded it back to look like a stack of cash and tied a ribbon around the stack. Then told them to untie and then they realize its taped together and when held end to end is about 25feet long.
What type of tape did you use? This is a really cute idea but I would be afraid of the tape ripping the money when they pulled it off.
Invisible Scotch tape works well and pulls off easily.
I have used rubber cement to slightly overlap the bills and place a very small bead of rubber cement on the overlap.
i’ve done this and regular scotch tape pulls off the currency, no problem.
Every year for Christmas we play a Swap game and cash is always a favorite. The one that sticks the most was a few bills rolled up in the holes of a brick and then wrap the brick they think they’re getting a really heavy gift.
I made oragami shirt and pants out of $20.00 bills. There are lost website with easy instructions.
One Christmas morning, I told my daughter, “I’m sorry we weren’t able to get you much this year but money doesn’t grow on trees, y’know? Or DOES it???” I then looked pointedly at the tree. She followed my gaze and there it was! Money “growing” on the Christmas tree! I’d rolled up the bills, all different denominations, into tiny rolls and tied them with ribbon. I used to ribbon to hang them on the branches. She didn’t notice the money hanging there at all until the hint. She had fun finding all the money on the tree.
One year I made the kids a CD and all the songs had something to do with money in the title. The cover had all the songs listed and when you opened the CD, the check was inside.
Another year, my husband and I took our picture with our hands up like we were holding a big check (like the lottery winners). We printed the picture large enough to put in an 8 X 10 frame and put their check in so it looked like we were holding it.
Sue – I LOVE that lottery check idea!!
After seeing last year’s Christmas gift from me in a box to go to Goodwill with the package unopened, I thought I might not give my niece’s stepdaughter a gift this year. But after reading the walnut idea, I am excited to annoy the crap out of her by making her work for a gift I know she will appreciate.
So much fun.I love it,I love it. Thanks!
When I was a teenager, my parents got me a big vase for Christmas. Then they put a new watch in the bottom and crumpled up dollar bills to fill it up. I had to pull out handfuls of money to reach the gift at the bottom. It was so cool!
Neat idea! Thanks for sharing it!
I give my teenage grandson cash for Christmas every year. One year I got $2.00 dollar bills and layed them one over the other like a fan and taped them together like that. He got several fans. Another year I went to the bank and got a strap of brand new-uncirculated $1.00 dollar bills. He thought the fact that it came straight from the mint was awesome. Another year, I took a calandar and picked random days and slit the lines between dates (like between the 5th and 6th, and then also between 6th and 7th) then I folded the dollar bill so that I could slide it thru both slits so when he flipped to that month he saw the face center of the money instead of the square where the 6 is supposed to be. Last year I got a box of millionaires and carefully opened the clear wrapper, then put the cash inside the box, then rewrapped the clear wrapper.
I have used rubber cement to slightly overlap the bills and place a very small bead of rubber cement on the overlap.
Last year I took clothing gift boxes, spray painted them black and made ATMs from the “Bank of Mom and Dad”, taped and rolled bills of different denominations, put them inside the box, cut a slot wide enough for the bills, then attached a note at the end of the money (sticking out of the slot) that said “pull here to retrieve cash”. It was an absolute hit with my adult kids!