Della is very sad because
Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result.
She wants to purchase a gift for her husband, Jim:
Something fine and rare and sterling -- something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim.
Della adores her husband, and she longs to buy him a present that is beautiful, something of which he can be proud, and she knows that one dollar and eighty seven cents is nowhere near enough to purchase such a gift. And yet, this was all that she could save despite trying for several months. It is for this reason that Della decides to sell her long and lovely hair to a wig maker; this gets her enough money to go and look for something wonderful for Jim. Ultimately, she buys him a gold watch chain to go with his magnificent watch, but— ironically—Jim has sold his watch in order to buy her some beautiful tortoiseshell combs for her hair.
As the story opens, Della is feeling frustrated and despondent about her state of poverty. We are told she would like to "howl" and "sob" over her lack of money. Repetition reinforces this. The narrative repeats several times how little money Della has to spend: $1.87. She knows that she has saved down to the last penny, and it is still not enough to buy her husband a gift worthy of him.
The setting reflects the financially tight circumstances Della lives in. We learn her flat costs only $8 a month (obviously this reflects pricing of more than a century ago, but it is still low even for that time). We learn that her sofa is "shabby" and that her husband's income has been been reduced by a third, from $30 to $20 a month. Della's mood is bad because, with the finances suffering, she cannot afford a decent Christmas present for her husband even though she has been saving every penny for months. She looks at her surroundings and sees shabbiness and want.
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