Tuesday, September 29, 2015

5 Easy Ways to Save Money on Christmas

Do you always spend more than you intended to on Christmas? If so, you're not alone! Here are five easy ways to save money on Christmas.

Start Shopping for Christmas Gifts as Early as Possible

Don't wait until December to start your Christmas gift shopping. By then, all the good quality, reasonably-priced products will have been sold and the stores will be filled with expensive, over-priced gifts.

If possible, shop for Christmas gifts throughout the year. Whenever you see a great gift for someone you love, purchase it immediately, if funds allow. At home, wrap it up, add a gift tag and put it in a dedicated cupboard or 'hiding place'.

If you haven't yet started Christmas gift shopping this year, start now! There are still many sales and good deals to be found in October and early November.

Spread the Cost of Food and Drink

The last grocery shop before Christmas is always expensive. In order to reduce its cost, start buying 2 or 3 extra non-perishable items each week. Store them in a separate cupboard and, by the time Christmas rolls around, all you'll need to shop for are meat, vegetables and other fresh items.

Just think - there are 12 weeks from now until Christmas week. If you added just 2 extra items for Christmas to each of your weekly grocery shops, you'd have 24 items ready for Christmas. If each item costs £2 on average, your final Christmas shop would be reduced by £48!

Make Use of What You Already Have

Most of us have lots of Christmas items tucked away in the loft, attic, garage or other storage places. However, instead of getting these items out and deciding what we can re-use this year, it's all too easy to just buy new.


Challenge yourself to find all the Christmas-related items you have in your home and see how many you can use this year. Don't buy anything new until you're convinced that you haven't already got a similar item hiding somewhere in your home!

You might also have food and drink that you can use at Christmas. Look through your kitchen cupboards and freezer to see what you can find. 

Make Things For Christmas

You can make many things for Christmas yourself, including decorations, Christmas cards, gift tags and wrapping paper.

You can even make some Christmas presents yourself. You don't have to be very good at making things to create unique personalized gifts. Some ideas are given in the Spend Less, Enjoy Christmas More eBook.

If you enjoy baking, you can make a Christmas cake, Christmas biscuits (cookies), gingerbread, mince pies and many other Christmas treats.


Send Christmas e-cards

Christmas e-cards have become an increasingly popular alternative to sending traditional Christmas cards through the post in recent years. Consider sending Christmas e-cards to at least some of the people on your Christmas card list.

You'll save money on Christmas cards and stamps and the environment will benefit (even recycling Christmas cards uses a lot of energy).  You also won't need to stress about last posting dates because you can send an e-card to anyone in the world as late as Christmas Eve!

Christmas doesn't have to be incredibly expensive! Do you have a favourite way of reducing the cost of Christmas?




  



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