Help! Buying for 50 staff

Silver-Cat

duchy wrote: »

Tell your boss to stop being such a scrooge and to up the budget to £1 pp

they get bonuses, this is purely for a bit of fun!

PrincessJR

When I worked at Thorntons they did 1 choc boxes (usually wedding favours) but theres no minimum order and they come ready boxed in a tray type box. You choose whichever you want (all the same or a mixture). Not sure of the price now but they used to be 80p each?

Would have made more sense if your boss had given you a £60 budget really but I understand its a bit of fun.

You could buy bags of boiled sweets? open them all and randomly leave a few on each desk? They are already wrapped?

Or go to a sweet shop and get some swizzler lollies, give each person 2 or 3 (depending on cost) tied together with ribbon?
good luck!

nancmat

ask for a bit more & get lottery tickets less stress lots of fiddling around making bits

moneysavingmumofone

What about making snowman soup? Cellophane bags from Poundland (20 in a pack) fill with enough hot choc for 2 mugs, candy cane stirrer (about 12 for £1) and a handful of marshmallows. Tie the top with ribbon (included with the poundland cellophane bags) and add a tag!

LEJC

some of the ideas here are lovely....snowman soup and nicely packaging chocolates...but I think the way to go is multibuy bags of things that can be easily split up.

You see you only have a small budget and to then go and repackage or make up "homestyle" gifts its going to take you a lot of time to do for all the staff....I really hope your boss is paying you overtime for buying and wrapping the gifts....its one thing being given a small budget to produce presents and I hope that you are not being taken advantage of in your generosity to help....sorry feeding of the 500 comes to mind!

I also wonder if the men would actually know what to do with snowman soup if they were faced with it!....my husband wouldnt have a clue and potentially your hard work making the bags up would be left on the desk until the new year.

Other than that wilkinsons have some joke type stocking fillers...for the men you could get wind up snails...2 in a packet for £2....how about a few kinder christmas eggs they might be 2 for a pound or 60p each....popping candy or space dust...

B and M have mini lindt bears for 20p each so a couple of those for each person may be nice...or bags of chocolate coins which can be split.

The snails in wilkinsons look like these

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/RACING-SNAILS-TABLE-TOP-RACER-DESK-TOP-WIND-UP-FUN-x-1-/350666843085?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item51a55f63cd

Perhaps you could go to greggs or some other similar baker and see if they would give you a discount on a bulk buy of christmas cup cakes or similar..a lot less hassle than in effect going round individually choosing presents for people.

Also have a look in the supermarkets at the deals like bogof there are things like cadburys festive animal biscuits in sainsburys at the moment...at 77p per person there isnt much leeway and with the amount you have already spent its going to make it quite difficult to get everyone a present that represents comparable value

Special_T

Just a thought, The Card Factory have calendars at 59p each or 2 for £1. I got some yesterday as stocking fillers and the quality is really good, plus they come with an envelope. You can perhaps include a Lindt Chocolate, mentioned by an earlier poster, too, the total then = 70p per person.

Superdrug have free delivery plus there is a code for £10 off when you spend £50. They have individual chocolates (Cadbury Wishes, chocolate coins etc) for 65p plus boxes of Malteasers or Thorntons treat bags or mini Roses for £1. I know your remaining budget is £35 but perhaps you could take it to £40 with some toiletries (showergels etc are on half price) for yourself? Plus if you have a Superdrug Beautycard you get a point for every £1 you spend.

HTH

Special_T

Another idea….how about Thorntons Chocolates?….the Christmas ones are 5 for £3 so 60p each http://www.thorntons.co.uk/category/Christmas-Gifts/5-for-3/pc/2407/2419.uts
The Continental bars are nice. I purchased some Santa and Reindeer chocolates in the offer (they are not on line now , but may be in store?)
In the clearance you can get 30 white chocolate ghost lollies for £10!!!
If you order on line you do have to pay delivery, but there are usually some codes around which should cover this.

scarlet_sky

If you were thinking about getting the boxes of Thorntons chocolates and dividing them up into bags as others have suggested, I saw that on Wilkinsons website they are doing the Thorntons Premium collection 359g for £4 at the moment.

beadysam

How about a little baggy of old fashioned sweets - the 10p each ones (or 11 for £1 in Morrisons), or a bundle of chews tied with xmas ribbon?

mandragora_2

These are lovely, if you decide to go down the road of buying chocs and wrapping them in cello bags - I've bought them for friends before now, and jazzed them up with smart wrapping - they've been mightily impressed and asked where I got them from. I may have been known to lie, and reply 'Belgium'....


On special offer too at the moment:
http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=264491324