Im stressed about the cost of xmas

sammy_kaye18

lily81 - are you crafty at all?? could you make something maybe?? there is a crafty thread goign (crafty for christmas 2008) with lots of easy designs and ideas over there too if you fancy a peek.

Also the mug idea - you can always make it really simply into a readers mug - find a nice appropriate mug, add a few hot chocolate samples and a mini bar of chocolate, maybe a little whisk (wilkinsons have them half price at the minute for a pack of 2 so they are 24p instead of 49p) and maybe add a nice bok from a charity shop. wrap in cellophane/wrapping paper and that could be a nice inexpensive gift.

What about giving gifts ina jar - you can make things up liek the dry ingredients for a cookie mix etc for kids and then include a nice christmassy dvd form a charity shop so they have a nice snack with their film - cheap inexpensive and somethign the whole family can enjoy.

I also agree - maybe sign up for pigsback, slice the pie and then bview (ou give reviews on shops/businesses in your area and they pay you in gift certificates for amazon - ive done 84 reviews and have 40 of vouchers - ive jsut used £17.99 to preorder a dvd for my boyfriends christmas present - cost me nothing and is one gift out of the way for him.

Primrose

Surely your relatives know that you're not working at the moment and that money must be tight for you. Why don't you stop putting yourself under this kind of stress now and simply tell them that you will not be buying presents this year as you have debts which must be dealt with first. If your family have your interests at heart they will understand. If you do it now, you can come to some kind of arrangement about a mutual "no presents" policy, everybody knows where they stand and there's no embarrassment. Christmas is a deadly time for those with debts, with the moral pressure to spend money you don't have, just to keep other people happy. Have the courage to buck the trend now. Just buy presents for your son.

scattymam1

I'm part of the 2008 money neutral gift challenge too - You don't need credit/debit cards to do surveys - I've been doing surveys for IPSOS and since january I've had about £30 in Argos vouchers which will be spent on presents - there's also Toluna, Onepoll, valued opinions and Lightspeed panel that I get quite good payouts from. I don't spend much at christmas - I always buy things that look like they cost more. Have a look on the hampers thread too as there are loads of ideas for cheap hampers that look like you spent loads. It's hard cos you want to give your kids everything but if you can accrue some Argos vouchers you can use them on your son.

I'm working on a tea and coffee hamper - found a basket for 50p, will fill with free tea and coffee and hot chocolate samples that I send off for or find, I found some cheap mugs and coasters in the wilkos sale for 50p and I bought some coffee bean seeds off ebay for 99p, will try and grow them in some pots I already have and add that to the hamper, so for about £2 I could have a nice little hamper, I will probably add some coffee chocolates and maybe something else but it will still be well under £5 and when wrapped up with some acetate and a bow will look great.(I hope)

lilly81

Thanks for all the replies and great advice.
Im going to talk to my sisters about a no presents for the adults at xmas. Im going to give my dad a stash of free samples for xmas, he is very understanding about my money worries, for his birthday in feb I printed off all the photos I took at xmas for him. He ws very happy with that.
Im thinking about doing a 'secret santa' type thing for our birthdays.
I know 2 of my sisters r struggling at the mo so hopefully they will appreciate the suggestions.
Its my sons 6th birthday in october and i am doing him a pirate themed party at home. When the 4 kids (i have had to limit the numbers) arrive i will give them each an empty party bag, which they have to fill up with prizes that they get from the games!

sethsgran

I have 4 children, now all adults, but when they were young and at home I would suggest to my family who have smaller families that they buy us a family game rather than individual presents. I appreciate that buying for my 4 was harder for them. I still do this now except I am the one buying the joint present. I am making a home movie night bucket for a friend and her 4 children. They love snuggling up together with mum and dad so I have bought a DVD got a small plastic bucket, cost 50c when on holiday in US kind you would get popcorn in. Then I have some Kool Aide for them 10c a sachet, sweets to go with it and I am putting microwave popcorn with it all. Whilst in America earlier this year I picked up a pkt of pop corn cartons, small, so that they can each have their own. I will probably put some disposable cups with it and hey presto a present for 6 people that has cost me less that $20/£10. Joint presents can be so much fun

Elle00

I'm on a low budget too but I have a much smaller lot to buy for so I manage fine. I think the suggestions about doing "kids only" is a good one. If you wanted to give a token present to one another you could have a fun challenge maybe and all decide you're going to spend £2 - and see how far you can stretch that £2. Something like that anyway.

I write reviews for Dooyoo.com which pay 50p per review plus 1.5p every time a member reads my review and can be cashed in as Amazon vouchers every time you have £10. I use these for Christmas and Birthday presents (books, DVDs, toys etc). I've already bought my son's main Christmas present as it was on sale on Amazon for £15 (down from £24.99) and paid for it with my vouchers from review writing. He'll only be three so another £20 - £30 in vouchers spent on books and DVDs coupled with a chocolate snowman and he'll be good to go

I use my Tesco Clubcard vouchers from the November mailing to buy some alcohol and chocs for the festive season too (I look out for the early offers and put things away). I also have a £10 giftcard put away from Valuedopinions.com who I've been answering surveys for.

I'm an Avon rep so I can pick up gift sets cheaply in the clearance section every now and again. If you've got a friend who sells Avon, ask if they'll let you order from their reps mag as a one off and offer them a couple of quid for letting you. It's not always cheaper buying out of the rep mag but every now and again we get some amazing clearance bargains.

Also, I totally agree with those suggesting checking out car boot sales. I sold some old bits at the weekend and there were loads of stalls around that were selling brand new unwanted gifts. I got a brand new vanity bag for 50p in fact! Charity shops in my area are amazingly expensive but you can get brand new gift sets worth £5 for 50p at local car boot sales. They'd want at least £4 in the charity shop.

fruityslh

I did the movie box like seths gran suggested last year for a couple of families where there was more than one child, the parents loved them because it was something different and not yet more toys, I got a 3 pack set of childrens films for about £4 from a Lidl that was closing Down (moving ) fleece blankets from Au Nauturale for about £2 each and sweeties from the pound shop with some fruit shoots. Best thing you have done is to think about it now as you have time to prepare following all the excellent ideas on this board

melissa75_2

I found this offer: http://www.uwish.co.uk/content/multi-buy-list.cfm?offerid=75 its 7 dvds for £10, and delivery is free. Its mainly kids dvds that you can choose from, a lot of them are old cartoons. There's my little pony, transformers, digimon, inspector gadget, around the world in 80 days. There's quite a few to choose from. I got "adventures in babysitting" for myself too!

sethsgran

melissa75 wrote: »

I found this offer: http://www.uwish.co.uk/content/multi-buy-list.cfm?offerid=75 its 7 dvds for £10, and delivery is free. Its mainly kids dvds that you can choose from, a lot of them are old cartoons. There's my little pony, transformers, digimon, inspector gadget, around the world in 80 days. There's quite a few to choose from. I got "adventures in babysitting" for myself too!

Fabulous site thanks for that

WartimeScrapingofMarmite

Elle83 wrote: »

I'm on a low budget too but I have a much smaller lot to buy for so I manage fine. I think the suggestions about doing "kids only" is a good one. If you wanted to give a token present to one another you could have a fun challenge maybe and all decide you're going to spend £2 - and see how far you can stretch that £2. Something like that anyway.

I write reviews for Dooyoo.com which pay 50p per review plus 1.5p every time a member reads my review and can be cashed in as Amazon vouchers every time you have £10. I use these for Christmas and Birthday presents (books, DVDs, toys etc). I've already bought my son's main Christmas present as it was on sale on Amazon for £15 (down from £24.99) and paid for it with my vouchers from review writing. He'll only be three so another £20 - £30 in vouchers spent on books and DVDs coupled with a chocolate snowman and he'll be good to go

I use my Tesco Clubcard vouchers from the November mailing to buy some alcohol and chocs for the festive season too (I look out for the early offers and put things away). I also have a £10 giftcard put away from Valuedopinions.com who I've been answering surveys for.

I'm an Avon rep so I can pick up gift sets cheaply in the clearance section every now and again. If you've got a friend who sells Avon, ask if they'll let you order from their reps mag as a one off and offer them a couple of quid for letting you. It's not always cheaper buying out of the rep mag but every now and again we get some amazing clearance bargains.

Also, I totally agree with those suggesting checking out car boot sales. I sold some old bits at the weekend and there were loads of stalls around that were selling brand new unwanted gifts. I got a brand new vanity bag for 50p in fact! Charity shops in my area are amazingly expensive but you can get brand new gift sets worth £5 for 50p at local car boot sales. They'd want at least £4 in the charity shop.

I bought four Orchard Toys games (normally quite expensive), which looked brand new at a car boot last week as stocking fillers, so I agree, this is a great way to save money on pressies especially if the children are young and don't realise something isn't brand new.

I'd also recommend Hawkins Bazaar (either online or they have shops nationwide) - they sell fab little gifts which don't cost the earth.

I saved all my pretty jars last year and made jam, crabapple jelly and pickles to give as gifts (blackberries are free growing on the side of the road and everyone always has too many cooking apples they would be happy for you to take off their hands!) It was the first time I'd ever tried making jams & pickles and they tasted lovely so even if you've never done it before don't let that put you off.
Great tips on here by the way :beer: