Six months till Christmas - how prepared are you?

MSE_Jenny

Six months till Christmas - how prepared are you?

It's six months until Christmas. Don't groan – now's a great time to plan your festivities so you can have more and pay less.

A typical family spends £800, yet many struggle to foot it from December’s pay-packet alone and end up borrowing. So for an £800 Christmas, put £135-a-month aside now.

We'd love to know how prepared you are for Xmas. Have you started saving, grabbing cheap goodies or did you buy your decorations in January?

Click reply below to discuss. If you haven’t already, join the forum to reply. If you aren’t sure how it all works, watch our New to Forum? Intro Guide .

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double_mummy

Gifts abiyt half done
decorations done
food ordered and half payed off
cc cleared in preperation for grabbits
Not doing too badly this year woo hoo

nearlyrich

Nothing sorted yet but it's in the budget and will not be unexpected at all...

tigger462

Cards & Decorations - Done
Gifts - Got a supply of giftsets etc purchased in the sales & throughout the year when on offer so getting there, Some gifts are fully done when I saw toys on sale throughout the year so far also!
Saved - £200 for any extra presents
Dinner - going to a family members but will contribute!

msgigglewick

3 Main pressies left to buy
Decorations are recycled year in year out lol though i picked up giant stockings yesterday to use instead of santa sacks (£8.41 down to 84p)
Food have £100 extra saved.. so thats sorted...


Xmas prep? nothing to worry about there.. i'm looking forward to getting on with christmas themed crafts come september lol

Gettingtherequickly

Have cards and wrapping paper and quite a few presents. Sadly, I have a spreadsheet with list of what for who, so more or less organised that way.

Will start on the cakes soon, I don't decorate them, just wrap nicely and recipients can eat whenever they want, bearing in mind there is so much extra food around over Christmas. I didn't cut mine at all and gave it to someone at Easter, was very mature then and loved, to the degree I was asked for 2 the next time!

Am currently collecting whatever free samples I can get, and have just had my godson's mug delivered, only cost me P&P.

alittlemadam

I have bought quite a few gifts already either on a buy one get one free, in the sales or even as a re gift. Ive also bought some cards in the sales after Christmas as well as wrapping paper.

I normally buy my gifts throught out the year and keep them in an old suitcase on top of the wardrobe so it isnt such a big expense all in one go and also keep a spreadsheet of what gifts are for who and the amount of money spent. Occassionaly i buy more gifts than necessary in case i forget about someone or just put them away for the following year.

The only real gifts that i have to get are the main presents for my 2 children and my husband which are normally bought in December.

I have even been known to pick up gifts from the £1 shops and make up bags which always seems to go down well. :j

suki1964

Most of my pressies for work colleagues and friends and younger family members bought

Cards wrapping and decorations bought

£200 m&s gift vouchers nearly paid for. Bought through park vouchers. Girl in work organises it. Means I have a little extra put aside and she gets a wee bit more herself in commission Win win situation I think

Christmas isn't a mad spend here. Us older family get small token gifts I only get one day off. We don't go mad on food shopping. I meal plan as usual and although we will splash out for good food, we don't buy piles of it and nothing is wasted

Kat_Lowell

I usually say that I'm going to shop around to get the prices on everything, but now I've found Flubit, they'll give me the best price on any online product which is such a time saver. I have no idea how they do it but it's a cracking business! Just find a product online and they'll give you the cheapest prices on the web.

Here's the site if anybody wants to have a look: http://www.flubit.com/

LalaGomay

All I've done is:
Bought 4 baubles in the January sales.
Bought one present in May (when I got too much for someone's birthday and kept a present back!)

SugarSpun

I have one gift left to buy, it's for my Dad and will be some vouchers: one for a hot towel shave in a nice village about a half hour drive from them, and then one for a pub lunch for two in the same village. I don't want to buy those just yet, but I assume I'll be able to spare 35 pounds or so in November.

Wrapping is about half done, I need to do the kids' wrapping and also wrap up 24 books for Advent, then two gifts for my DH that haven't arrived yet need to be wrapped too. Everything else is done, and the stockings are filled (except mine, I will ceremoniously hand it to my DH at the start of December).

Decorations and cards are all bought already, I'm also going to donate or give away anything we don't use so we don't just keep acquiring more of them.

Food and drink, I think we'll buy a crate of Coke and some juices, some extra milk for hot chocolate and that's it drinks wise. We normally host a party on the 26th but this year will be booking a restaurant table instead so I don't have to deal with cooking brunch for 18 people - baby's due in September and I will be too busy

I like making a meal plan for Christmas really early, too, so I can see what we need to buy and then I can sneak the nonperishables in with the regular shop. I also like to visit it regularly and make all sorts of plans for how amazing Christmas will be, although at this stage we have so many family food traditions that I already know it looks like this:

Christmas Eve dinner: reindeer-shaped-pasta bake
Christmas breakfast/brunch: dim sum, frozen and steamed
Christmas lunch/dinner: roast [meat]and trimmings, cake for dessert
Snacks: nice bread, pate, fruit, cake, savoury and sweet biscuits, cheese
Boxing Day breakfast: toast
Boxing Day lunch: all you can eat
Boxing Day dinner and beyond: leftovers forever

I will need to be reminded not to buy the Thorntons grabbit this year; we still have loads of it from last year.