It’s no doubt that Christmas is an expensive time of year, and with the cost of living crisis people are feeling the strain. This post looks at tips for budgeting, saving, and reducing the cost of Christmas, so you can hopefully have more time to enjoy the Christmas festivities, and less time worrying about them.
Working out your budget:
Any savings plan starts with a budget. It keeps your spending under control and helps you keep track.
Make a list of everyone you plan to buy for and how much you intend to spend on them. Don’t forget to include Secret Santa gifts for work and things like gift wrap.
It’s also worth considering any extra expenses that you incur at Christmas time and plan to save for these as well. For example, work’s Christmas party, taking the kids to see Father Christmas, decorations, food. Anything you can think of, add it to the list.
Once you have listed everything add up your total, and brace yourself!
Saving:
Putting money by every month towards Christmas means when December comes round you already have the money. You can use online calculators to help you work out a savings plan. They will even take into account the interest rates for you.
If you cannot save enough and will be using a credit card an online calculator can calculate how much you will be paying back each month. Ideally we wouldn’t get into debt over Christmas. But when it is unavoidable, knowing what you are getting into helps you to stay on top of it.
Tips for Reducing the Cost of Christmas:
Really think about what you are buying. Avoid gimmicks and novelty gifts as these will likely cost more. I’m often guilty of thinking “it doesn’t look like much” and then buying something else to go with the gift and blowing my budget. Reverse your thinking and imagine receiving the gift yourself. I often find that helps.
When buying gift vouchers you can add to them for a relatively small cost to make the gift look more thoughtful. For example buying a bag of popcorn to go with a cinema voucher. A bottle of wine to go with a voucher for an M&S meal deal. Or maybe another voucher for your baby sitting services to go with a voucher for a restaurant.
Think about buying second hand. Sites like Vinted often have jewellery and beauty products for sale that have never been used and are half the price of buying new.
Creating hampers can be a lovely way of creating a thoughtful and personalised gift. For example if you have a friend that loves beauty products, picking up bits throughout the year that are on offer, means by the time it gets to Christmas you have a lovely gift bundle already to go.
More ideas:
- Organise a Secret Santa for groups of friends. Everyone saves money and often receives a more thoughtful gift.
- Club together with other family members to buy someone a more expensive item.
- Buy joint gifts for couples.
- Buy throughout the year and take advantage of sales and offers.
- Used discount codes and cashback sites.
- Make home made gifts.
- Create hamper gifts.
- Use Brown Paper gift wrap with ribbon or twine.
- Buy second hand.
- Use Clubcard and Nectar points.
- Make a list and stick to it. Even for the food shop.
- Don’t overdo the food shop. Remember it’s just a few days, how much food do you really need!
Remember to stick to your budget. With a bit of thought and planning it is possible to get through the festive period without spending more than you intended.
Do you have any tips for reducing the cost of Christmas?
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