November 21st, 2025
The holidays can be just as fun as they are stressful. With traveling, buying gifts and maybe decorations, putting up said decorations, snatching up good deals, and holiday meal planning and prep, this is truly the most overwhelming time of year. With all the hustle and bustle it can feel near impossible to set aside any length of time to just rest. Many mothers find themselves in a whirlwind of tasks, made even more challenging if they have very young children. The holidays can be made yet even more challenging if their budget is slim.
In my first post about self-care activities for moms on a budget, we discussed journaling, exercise, and brain games (like puzzles and sudoku). In this post we’re going to be diving into three more easy self-care activities that busy moms can do—even in the midst of the holidays and on a budget.
Coloring Books
Even if you’re the type of person who doesn’t like making artwork or doesn’t have an artistic streak, coloring books take out much of the guesswork in what to draw. I personally use coloring books frequently, and although it sounds childish, doing simple coloring is actually very relieving. Additionally, coloring books and your chosen medium (like colored pencils or markers) can be easily stored for traveling and can be set up and packed up quickly, making it an ideal activity for a quick 30-minute calm session.
Coloring books for adults do exist, so you don’t have to choose something way out of your age range with too simplistic of a design. In fact, adult coloring books are a diverse world that I recommend looking into. You can find books with patterns for almost any topic you can imagine, like jungle-themed, geometric designs, cats, or mandela patterns. If you can imagine it, it likely exists. Personally, I find simple geometric designs or something like a mandela pattern less challenging than, say, a nature scene—catching a color pattern on a mandela is easier than coloring in a whole mountain scene. Of course, if you like complicated, go for it. But simple is good too.
I found these two coloring books on Walmart.com and Barnes&Noble.com, respectively: one is random patterns and only costs $4.97, and the next is goblincore-themed and costs $9.
As for what type of coloring medium you can use, that’s up to you. You may like watercolor, markers, paint, or colored pencils. And each one of those has much diversity within itself. But to keep the activity of coloring as simple as possible, I would stick with either coloring pencils or markers, since watercolors and paints require more setup and cleanup and can’t easily be done if you don’t have a table nearby. I personally like markers because while you can’t get as much texture and depth with markers as you can with colored pencils, markers require less hand movement, which means that coloring is made easier. If colored pencils are preferred, make sure to have a sharpener on you.
I found a simple 12-count pack of colored pencils on Target.com for $1.25. Of course, if you want more colors or higher quality, plenty of options can be found online or at craft stores like Michaels. This pack of markers from KingArt.com costs $10.39.
Coloring is also a great family activity as well as a solo activity. Your child can learn to color at the same time that you color along with them! But if you want this to be a private time activity, it’s very simple to squeeze in even just fifteen minutes of coloring before bedtime, lunchtime, or any time of day that works for you.
Crafts
Crafts might sound like a complicated concept, and while some crafts are complicated and can take hours to complete, other crafts are very beginner-friendly and can be done in under thirty minutes. Even crafts that appear to be challenging can be deceptively simple, like this 3D pumpkin craft I recently did. You may have appropriate material lying around at home already, but if not, simple craft items do not cost much at places like Walmart or Michaels.
Assuming that you already have scissors and glue at home, this packet of orange construction paper from LakeshoreLearning.com costs $1.49 for 50 sheets. You’ll be well on your way to making many paper pumpkins.
Like with coloring, some crafts are family-friendly activities. But of course, since the name of the game for this post is relaxation, a fun craft can be researched ahead of time and completed in under half an hour after work or over the weekend.
Recipe Book
This one is definitely more niche, but something worth doing. These days, most of our recipes are found on YouTube and Pinterest. Cookbooks are still regularly published, but aren’t as popular as they used to be. However, creating your own cookbook is actually quite fun and isn’t as involved as it sounds.
First, get a journal or something that holds notecards. Then get notecards (if applicable). Here are some options for what you could choose:
- Index Card Box $1.15
- Notecard Sleeve Journal $9.99
- Index Card Binder $7.33
- Ring-Bound Index Cards $10.29
- 2-Pack Journal $9.96
- Large Index Cards $6.02
At that point all you have to do is write down your favorite recipes. That’s it!
This is a rewarding activity for multiple reasons. First, there’s something satisfying about having a physical journal in your hands rather than sifting through so many pins on Pinterest. Sometimes scrolling through your phone to find something that sounds good is more exhausting than just flipping open a book. Plus, you could also use a recipe book as a motivator for creating healthier dishes, avoiding eating take-out or frozen dinners too much, or even creating motivation to lose weight.
Second, it gives you a way to narrow it down to only your favorites. Not all pins or recipes within cookbooks you’ve purchased are your favorites. But when you create a book of your own, that book is uniquely yours, filled with recipes you already know you love. Third, it can build a bridge between family members if you find that you want to do a little journalism into that one dish your grandma makes that you just can’t get enough of. I encourage you to pass down those family secrets and not let them be lost to history (hint: you can give them to your kid).
And finally, writing down recipes in your spare time has a therapeutic quality. At least for me personally, I find it satisfying to write fun dishes down on notecards. You can personalize it by putting stickers on the front of your journal, giving it some flair, or even having multiple notecard binders to separate between types of food (like a vegetarian binder and a breakfast binder).
All this means that the act of creating a personal recipe book is not only rewarding but practical. You can start by making it a goal to write down one recipe per week minimum.
Conclusion
Before I go, let me add up the numbers for you if you were to purchase options from all three categories. If you were to purchase one coloring book, one medium to color with, construction paper, and one notecard binder with notecards or journal, your total cost might look something like this:
This randomly patterned coloring book ($4.97) + a 12-pack of colored pencils ($1.25) + a 50-sheet pack of orange construction paper ($1.49) + an index card box ($1.15) + large index cards ($6.02) = $14.88!
Of course, this price isn’t exact as your final cost will be determined by many different factors, such as sales, whether you purchase in-store or online, what you purchase, shipping costs, and subscription plans. But this calculation is meant to show you that even on a budget and during the holidays, it’s possible to indulge in fun self-care activities. As an added bonus, you can even take some crafts, coloring sheets, or recipes and give them as gifts!
Author Bio
Krista Ruffo, born and raised in Orlando, Florida, began blogging with South Project in February of 2025. She’s a University of Central Florida graduate with a BA in English and a Certificate in Editing and Publishing. A passionate writer and reader, Krista aspires to work in book publishing in the future. She currently works as a Content Coordinator for a family magazine and as a Marketing Representative for a water company. In her free time, she enjoys creative writing, taking photos, hiking, and gardening.