Festive Fivers Contest.

mummysaver

A few years ago a friend and I made a "wooden chest" from a cardboard box and papier mache and painted it, and then filled it with weird and wonderful jumble sale finds for dressing up, there were two very happy children and a peaceful - relatively - Christmas for their parents (who then wished they hadn't spent so much on toys that got rejected for our jumble finds!), plus lots of fun for us with papier mache!

charlotte_dunn

gifts to help children understand the importance of health eating. just buy a few seeds and pots and plant some vegetables. my 4 year old loves it she waters them and loves to pick them ready for us to cook with them. you dont have to be charlie dimmock to grow veg just have fun while your children help look and learn.

gillywilly_2

Name of present? A mosquito net!

Do you make it or buy it? Buy it from https://www.greatgifts.org

Total Cost? £5 and no stamp (freepost!) You'll also get a choice of freebie giftcards to house your voucher (so no need to buy a Christmas card, either!)

Details: From the Christmas Alternative Gift Catalouge, a gift to save lives! "Mosquitos aren't just a nuisance, they spread malaria, which kills two million people every year - most of them children under five. This life-saving gift screens children and adults from the potentially fatal effect of mosquito bites."

Buy your mother/lover/best mate/hot date this fab gift: it won't gather dust or end up on eBay and you'll both get that warm, rosy glow of having done something really important when all that's left of Christmas is a pile of unwanted presents, a hole burning in your pocket and a massive hangover...

For a tad more dosh, you could also 'buy' anything from a fruit tree to a nanny goat, from surgery for a cleft lip to a fully-functional bog (okay, it's getting pricey now). If you're amongst the first 1000 to spend over £75 (ie if you buy 15 people a mosquito net each...) you'll also receive a FREE bar of Divine Fairtrade Chocolate (yum). Finally, if you're paying tax, you can 'giftaid' your pressie so that an extra 28 pence in each pound (£1.40 for each mosquito net) will be donated to charity. All this for a fiver!

Also check out https://www.oxfamunwrapped.com for similar pressies (my favourite being 100 school dinners for £6 - can you believe it???) Happy shopping!

tubster

This is a nice present for someone who lives or works in London. You can go to the Time Out magazine website http://www.timeout.com/london/ and give someone a subscription. You need to set up a direct debit using your own address and fill in your friend's as a delivery address. It costs £2.50 for two months (eight issues). Obviously you have to remember to cancel the order after two months, so put it in your diary. You also have to allow a few weeks for Time Out to set up the delivery, so apply a couple of weeks before Christmas. If you want to splash out, you could let them have the magazine for more months at £7.50 a month... or cancel after two months, and do it for another two months (in your partner's name if they check) for £2.50 again - which adds up to £5 for four months of Time Out delivered every week, which usually costs £2.50 a copy (ie £40 worth of magazines).
And Time Out has freebies in it every week, so the money saving goes on for your friend...
and to top it all, you could also get them a FREE night in a London hotel to go with it, by using the internet to beat the Day's Inn 'best price or its free' promise at http://www.daysinn.com - this has been discussed in Martin's message threads before, and it really works. :rotfl:
SO a night in a London hotel and £40 worth of magazines for a fiver - can anyone beat THAT :beer:

Tubster

mandi_moles

Name of present: The Money Diet: The Ultimate Guide to Shedding Pounds Off Your Bills and Saving Money on Everything! - Martin Lewis

Make it or buy it: Buy it

Total cost: 3.99

Details: There surely can not be a better Christmas gift than this book !! :dance:

Where ? Amazon.co.uk

newbiemum05

Name of present: CHRISTMAS DVD OR VIDEO CALLED - JOY TO THE WORLD

Make it or buy it: PHONE FOR IT

Total cost: FREE + FREE P&P

Details: POSTED FREE AND FREEPHONE NUMBER
Either on dvd or video telling the story of Jesus's birth
Great for a stocking filler or gift

Where: Just call 0800 013 2020 and ask for the above

Gecko_2

Name of present- Send a cow: Shared fishing net for 4 farmers.

Make it or buy it- buy it.

Total cost- £5

Details- https://www.sendacowgifts.org.uk

This is a brilliant idea. You order a gift- in this case, a fishing net to share between 4 farmers for £5- and Send a Cow will arrange for it to be provided in an African village. You receive a special Christmas card and gift pack to go with it. There are photos, information cards and a Xmas tree tag to go with each gift for you to wrap up on Xmas day.

Isn't this what Xmas should be about- sharing what we have and looking out for others? I can't imagine anything else I buy for a fiver having such a tremendous impact at Xmas- this will enable four families to be fed.

Something to chew on over the turkey!!

:beer:

tubster

This is a good present for someone who likes walking, history, rivers and lives near London. It is called a memoryscape walk - the idea is that you walk along the river Thames tow path and listen to a CD (or you can use an MP3 player) of recordings made with people who live and work along the river, talking about their lives on the Thames - you play tracks at specific points along the way. Some of the recordings are very rare because they are from the Museum of London. One walk starts in Greenwich, the other at Hampton Court. You can listen, download MP3s and print out the map completely FREE at https://www.memoryscape.org.uk
or for a present, you can buy the CD set and a nice map booklet of the two walks mail order at £7 including postage and packing, which works out at £3.50 each.

PLEASE NOTE: I am the author of these walks - please support my project! :A

kangarookate

Name of Present - 'Cos you're worth it!
Make it or buy it? - Make it
Total cost - a couple of pounds for an appropriate container and some paper
Details - Basic idea is to create a jar filled with comments / stories etc...about what the receiver means to you that they can dip into between Christmas and the New Year.

Get a nice jar or something (suggest from charity shop etc..) and ask others who know the person you are giving the present to, to write down something for them to encourage them and to show how much their friendship means to them - this can either be an encouragement, a remberance of a funny story, a prayer or a joke etc...if you don't know any of the friends, then you can write out some of these things for them yourself - you shouldn't struggle for things to say to them as you're going to all this effort to make them something special!

One of these was created for my husband and I on my hen night and we had a lot of fun taking it on honeymoon with us and reading out a different comment every day. Some were serious and some were downright silly! We were really touched by what our friends really thought of us as we don't often tell each other this do we?

It's also great for a young person, particularly one in their teens who may feel they're friendless and hopeless and apathetic about life.....

You can put as many comments in as you want, but the rules should also be attached which is that they should only take out one comment a day. It'd be great to have one for every day in January to avoid the post-Christmas blues!

Fatty_Deposit

Name of present? Battery Tester
Do you make it or buy it? Buy it
Total Cost? £0.99
Details
Don't let flat batteries spoil your children's Christmas; get them a battery tester as a present. When their battery-operated toys run out of juice, at least they'll still have something to play with. Get one here: http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=777_3&products_id=88787