Christmas is an expensive time of year, here are a few Christmas Money Saving tips that you can look at to help save money and also make Christmas that bit more affordable.
1. Make a list and check it twice!
It’s not only the big man in the red jacket with the white beard who needs to make a list and check it twice, you should be doing so too!
You should make a few lists to cover a varied range of points around Christmas.
- Presents – Who do you need/want to buy presents for?
- How much do you want to spend on each person?
- Cards – Who do you want to send a Christmas card to?
- Create another list and write down those who send you a Christmas card and compare it to your sent list. After Christmas compare the lists and perhaps think if all the people you sent Christmas cards to actually need to be sent a card next Christmas?
- Food & Drink – What food and drink do you want to have in over Christmas?
- Think realistically how much you are likely to consume, throwing food away because you bought way too much is just like throwing money in the bin. Worse case scenario is if you run out of a few items after Boxing Day to New Year you can do a “quick shop” to replenish some stock.
- Decorations – Do you need any new Christmas Decorations or Christmas Tree?
- Most people will have a box of Christmas decoration in the loft so unless you are buying a real Christmas Tree there potentially won’t be much in the way if new Christmas decorations needed to be bought.
Creating a list of all these different things that you may need to sort over Christmas helps make it more manageable. It can help you be more focused and less impulsive when out shopping. If you know exactly what you need and you stick to your lists then you are more likely to keep to a budget that if you just impulse buy everything with no clear thought on what you actually need.
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Christmas Cards – Do you really need to send so many?
Sending Christmas cards can not only be a time consuming thing to do but also not cheap.
Firstly, really have a think on who you actually really need or want to send a Christmas card to? Does everyone on your list really need one or are there some people on the list you could verbally wish them a Happy Christmas and maybe come to some sort of “none card buying pact”.
On top of the buying of the Christmas cards you also may need to post them. So don’t forget to factor in the cost of a stamp (currently 46p for a 1st Class stamp or 36p for a 2nd class stamp).
If you are going to send Christmas cards then try and buy then in the Christmas Sales where you will likely get boxes of Christmas cards at a fraction of their “pre-Christmas” prices and then store them away for the following Christmas.
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Start buying for next Christmas starting on Boxing Day!
This may sound a crazy thing to say but it’s not. After Christmas when all the Christmas & January sales are running you have a golden opportunity to grab lots of Christmas related items at a fraction of their usual price that will be perfect for next Christmas.
This includes things such as: Christmas cards, Christmas Decorations, fake Christmas trees, wrapping paper. If you really want to be prepared you could even grab a few presents that might be suitable for someone the following Christmas.
You can make some real decent savings by stocking up on some of the basic Christmas items during the sales as shops don’t want to be carrying the stock all year and want to get rid of as much as they can to free up space.
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Free letters from Father Christmas!
There are plenty of companies out there who charge around £10+ to sort you a personalised letter from Father Christmas out. Now we know that the big man int he red jacket with white beard is busy at Christmas time but he does allow these perosnalised Father Christmas letters to be sorted for FREE!
Instead of paying for a personalised letter from Father Christmas why not print out one of the currently 2 different free letters available on Personalisedgifts.co.uk:
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Buy presents after Christmas!
This idea won’t go down well with many but it is a possible option. Instead of buying all your Christmas presents before Christmas when they will be at full price, why not wait until the week after Christmas and buy them in the sale. You are likely to get many gifts at a fraction of the price in the sales simply by waiting.
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Buy online and use discount codes!
Shopping online can in itself be a way to save money over going to the high-street. Add in huge numbers of Christmas shoppers on the high-street and compare that to sitting in your nice warm home makes buying Christmas gifts online a far more attractive and less stressful thing to do.
So first off, shopping online means that you can easily compare the price of various items you want to buy quickly and easily with just a few clicks of a mouse button. Also, the beauty of shopping online is that you can also make use of the various discount codes that are quite often available and that you do’t have the luxury of when on the high-street.
For example, if you were to shop at the online gift experience retailer Buyagift, you could make use of their Buyagift promotional code to save you money of the cost of any gift you are buying from them.
There are many of the big high-street retailers who also have online stores where there can be money saving discounts available, such as with Dixons discount codes and various other online stores too.