New, New Thirfty Gifty for Christmas and All Ocassions 2011..Santas Challenge...

fedupandskint

Merry Christmas to everyone on here and the old thread, it's been a happy friendly helpful place and my favourite one

I am super organised this year and in the process of assembling a trifle, stuffing and have made Jamie's make ahead gravy and onto the pavlova next then the cranberry sauce and apple sauce

Head is bunged up with sinus now....hope it goes away overnight!

caroline78

First of all, sorry for the cut and paste...Also signed up to the money one and didn't want to have to retype all this...lol

I would like to join this year too. This was a bad year moneywise for us...We finally got married in May after 9 years together and also managed to finally get pregnant after 6 years of trying so have a "bean" due in April.
My husband doesn't work due to illness and I have just left work as I worked long 15 hour shifts for very little money and have been quite ill so decided my "bean" was more important than work. The downside of this is that we have £110 a week to live on, although rent is paid. My husband has three children, 18, 16 and 13 from a previous relationship and although we don't pay official money to them we do help out when they need it.
We don't buy a lot of people for birthdays but tend to buy a lot for Christmas, which I fully intend to cut way back on next year....telling people this year that we will not be buying them next year so they don't need to buy us either.
Hope to cross stitch some gifts for family next year which will help save us money as I already have the stuff here to make them.
Well, enough rambling from me...xx

mum2one

My end of yr totals for Christmas 2010 (excludes, Miss Hoodie, mum and dad)

Budget - £900 (just find the money tree at bottom of the garden)
Spent - £436.30 - all money neutral

Actual cost of presents - £1416.

xx

mrssnowy_2

Please may I join
Need organising/reminding as FORGOT to buy any Christmas cards this year,but ended up with 4 years worth of wrapping paper.
On the plus side I have made more presents, for birthdays as well as for Christmas.
Have a lovely Christmas everyone
mrss

rufusdog52

Im here too, good luck everyone with next years organising, Rufus xx

esmer

I will introduce myself properly. I am Kimberly, a single mum to one, a gorgeous daughter Natasha who is three in Jan. I work fulltime to support us both. I only joined the other one a few months ago, and it has helped me so much. My next challenge is DD's Birthday on 6th January! Thankfully Im organised, just have to make her cake The place im holding her birthday in does all the party bags, and food. All we have to do is turn up with the cake and some bags to put it in. I have all her presents wrapped. I just have to get her a card, and some balloons. She is going to be three.

elysia2003

Elysia's birthday is on the 18th. Isn't it a nightmare buying presents for January birthdays? Do you risk it and buy all the presents in the sale when there's only stuff that no-one else wants left or do you buy it before Christmas and watch in horror as the prices plummet? I always buy before christmas - in fact I just buy buy buy for Elysia, and when It comes to wrapping it 'oh that can go for birthday, that one can be for christmas' and so on. I've bought her a TV for her room (was £150 but only paid £40 with tesco vouchers, and a camcorder (was £150 but £60 in the sale) she gets £100 for a main present and about £100 on surprises.

If I have a £20 budget for a person, and I find something £20 in the sale they only get that, but with my kids, I budget £200 and I spend £200. What does everyone else do?

elysia2003

I forgot to introduce myself over here too. Oops.

Hi Everyone I'm Julie, and I set the challenges on the Thrifty Gifty Money Making Thread. If you haven't joined that one yet, over there is where we do surveys to make the money to pay for all the presents etc that we buy on this one.;)

I'm a stay at home mum, to two daughters. Emily is 19 (and did I say she's training to be a teacher? Proud mum here) and Elysia is almost 8 (my little angel).

OH works as a postie, and was hoping to retire early but no chance of that, we paid off our mortgage last year and went out and bought a brand new kitchen, it going to take another two years to pay off. Stop rambling Julie!!!

It's lovely to see some new faces here and even better seeing the 'old ones'.

Have a merry Christmas and I'll be about Boxing day starting for next year. :j:j:j

SugarSpun

Ooh, should I introduce myself too? I'm currently a stay at home mummy to my small girl, who is now 16.5 months old and a rambunctious little monster. I'm organised for this year except the cleaning and setting up/wrapping the baby's gifts because I wanted to wait until tonight to do them. I've also forgotten to ice the Christmas cakes :eek:

On the plus side, I'm already getting a head start on next year's gifts :rotfl:

laurenjs88

Im in this year! how exciting! x