Alisha,
I really love your idea!
How did you approach the business?

Robert, if you look again her budget was not $25, that was simply the amount of petty cash she was allowed to spend at one time.

I think you did great Rose.

At our property we have 119 units and I did something similar. I bought cards at the Dollar Tree for $1 per box of 20, candy canes for $1 per box of 16, and several bags of candy at $1 each plus gift bags decorated with snow flakes for $1 for a bag of 40. Every resident got a card with a hand written note and a goodie bag of candy. They really appreciated the time we took to do this for them and it cost us under $30.

IMPRESSIVE ROSE!!! Thanks for the awesome ideas!!!

I took a super simple approach yet kind of time consuming...

I contacted all of the businesses around us and asked for discounts, free stuff, etc. Then wrote out cute little Christmas cards with a humorous picture of the maintenance man & myself. Stocked the card full with the coupons, discounts & put it in a tiny gift bag with holiday candy. Also invited the residents to join me online on facebook & twitter for contests, free stuff...yadda yadda. It was fun. And I'm getting a really nice reaction out of it. People are getting their holiday hams with a discount coupon!

Rose...Great job on the gift items...your residents will love the fact that you did this for them...if your residents are like mine, they know you don't 'have to' do this, but you 'choose to' do this for them...and that means more to them then any expensive gift...Happy Holidays!

Wow! You did a great job putting together wonderful goodie bags while remaining under budget. I am super impressed! And it was said earlier, but I will repeat it, your management company is lucky to have you. So are your residents!

Today I put gift bags on each residents door. I think I did pretty good for staying under a buck each!

Here's the final breakdown cost:

.10 Cocoa (big boxes of swiss miss from Winco)
.25 calendar (2.99 per dozen from Oriental trading
.13 package of cookies (8 packs for a dollar at dollar tree)
.08 four peppermints ($1 per pound at dollar tree)
.06 Christmas chocolate ($2.48 per lb @ winco)
.17 Holiday ornament ($2 per dozen at Big Lots)
.08 plastic bags to hang on the door ($3.99 per dozen @ Oriental Trading)
.00 Christmas card hand made by me with love. (I donated the paper, I found a ream of card stock at a yard sale for $1.50 last summer.)

I'm sure there was some cost to for the ink to print out the cards, but I'm not sure how to calculate it.

Thank you to everyone for the suggestions!

I am already looking for ideas for my next retention, so please let me know of any successful ones you have!

Rose