O.s. Christmas Spendless Challenge

ceridwen

Seems that the Christmas Season starts earlier every year - and the main purpose seems to be for shops to get their hands on our money. Christmas shouldnt be just a spendfest, where everyone goes a bit "over the top" striving to outdo each other on the spending front.

Anyone interested in a Christmas Spendless Challenge? My proposal is for spending limits on extra expenses for Christmas of say:
£100 for a single person
£200 for a couple
£300 for a family.

Reckon, as a single person, I'll come in at about £90 - thats presents for parents, cards (and stamps as required), special meal out with a group I belong to, Secret Santa present at work.

Nothing on "party" clothes - as I have loadsa clothes.
Nothing on decorations - I'll just put out candles and maybe pick a bit of greenery.

Anyone fancy telling us about buying a party outfit for a tenner from a charity shop or homemade gifts or even just forgetting the whole thing and giving the money to charity instead?

(Wonder if anyone can manage a buy nothing Christmas?)

Hardup_Hester

This is mine so far
Cards, nothing still got some left from last year
Wrapping paper ditto
Gift for DGS £3.46
Secret Santa at work £2, it should be £5 but I got a gift reduced from £5
Outfit for works do £2.99p from ebay inc postage
Haven't costed gifts for my kids yet, tho they are getting some home cooking & we have a £5 limit on gifts this year.
We buy for hubbys mum & dad, I got her toiletries for £3.50 & him a bottle of Ale for him.
I have a couple of books for hubby, £2.
We already have a load of decs so won't buy more.
All thats left is the food & not sure how much I'll spend on that.

Gingham_Ribbon

Great idea! I've moved your thread to the Christmas board where it should get more response. Thanks.

kisto

I'm a single mum with 2 kids and I reckon our xmas will come in at much less than £300 (as that's all I'll have anyway)!

-Pressies for the kids (x2).... £50 each (max including stocking fillers)
-Pressies for other family members & 1 secret santa ...£50 total
-Xmas Food....£30 or less as we're not having traditional xmas dinner
-Party clothes... £0 no parties to go to and I've got loads of clothes
-Decorations...£10 (I needed to spend £6 on a xmas tree stand and also spent £4 on misc other little decorations), used last years decorations.
-Cards...£3.50
-Wrapping...£2.00
-'Christmas Caper' 9 mile run...£6.00 entry fee which is followed by.....
-Xmas evening function with running club... £20.00
-Xmas meal with colleagues...£11.50

ceridwen

Congrats to both Hester and Kisto. Kisto - at £233 according to my (admittedly dicey!) maths and Hester an unknown quantity (due to food spends not yet known) - but looking good.

Omitted to mention my sole Christmas "food" type stuff is a bit of contribution to Christmas Day at my parents (bottle of organic wine and some fairtrade nuts and dried fruit) - so thats included in my approx £90.

Christmas Dinner could be a bit of a "dealbreaker" for people - the price I have heard turkeys will be! - but scope for creativity there and do someone elses Christmas Dinner instead (ie the Christmas Dinner one would have in some other country - take your pick: Scandinavian countries, Germany, Africa....)

Vampgirl

We're being as frugal as we can this christmas - no new decorations, using cards left over from last year, no new outfits, buying prezzies carefully and not spending too much etc... But the main expense is going to be the christmas dinner and I can't see a way around that :-(

We usually go over to my parents in law and have like a 2nd christmas day with them a couple of days after boxing day: brother in law and girlfriend always have her parents over on christmas day so its the only way my parents in law can get have a "christmas" with both their sons at the same time. This year though they're coming to ours because MIL's arthritis is getting really bad and she can't stand up long enough to cook dinner, but this means that we're going to end up paying more than we usually would. We usually chip in for the meat, but this year we'll be paying half (parents in law will be paying other half, hubby's brother won't contribute at all). Oh well, there's not much we can do about it, we'll just have to cope.

Uniscots97

Vampgirl wrote: »

We're being as frugal as we can this christmas - no new decorations, using cards left over from last year, no new outfits, buying prezzies carefully and not spending too much etc... But the main expense is going to be the christmas dinner and I can't see a way around that :-(

We usually go over to my parents in law and have like a 2nd christmas day with them a couple of days after boxing day: brother in law and girlfriend always have her parents over on christmas day so its the only way my parents in law can get have a "christmas" with both their sons at the same time. This year though they're coming to ours because MIL's arthritis is getting really bad and she can't stand up long enough to cook dinner, but this means that we're going to end up paying more than we usually would. We usually chip in for the meat, but this year we'll be paying half (parents in law will be paying other half, hubby's brother won't contribute at all). Oh well, there's not much we can do about it, we'll just have to cope.

Sorry if being nosey but why won't your BIL contribute if he's coming to dinner too?

Vampgirl

unixgirluk wrote: »

Sorry if being nosey but why won't your BIL contribute if he's coming to dinner too?

Coz thats just the way he is He and his girlfriend both have good jobs and a nice house (whereas we rent and are struggling to pay off debts), but they're incredibly stingy, and more importantly they hardly ever help out with my parents in law. :mad:

FIL is almost blind and for MIL we have to find a wheelchair to borrow if we're going anywhere so its not like they can get out on their own anymore. We take them shopping whenever they need to go, we help out around their house, we've taken them on holiday a couple of times (they pay their share of course, but they're still holidays that we wouldn't have had if they hadn't wanted to go in the first place). They're lovely people and I don't begrudge helping them out, I do get annoyed at brother in law's attitude tho! Families eh!

Tish_P

Can you ask your brother-in-law to bring the wine or something? He might be more sensible about that than about contributing to the cost of the food. You could say it's because he's so knowledgeable about wine and you know he would choose a better one than you would, if he's the kind of person that might work on.

Hope your family Christmas is lovely anyway.

Vampgirl

Tish_P wrote: »

Can you ask your brother-in-law to bring the wine or something? He might be more sensible about that than about contributing to the cost of the food. You could say it's because he's so knowledgeable about wine and you know he would choose a better one than you would, if he's the kind of person that might work on.

Hope your family Christmas is lovely anyway.

Thanks It will be I'm sure - its a special time of year and we're not going to let family squables spoil it! I like the wine idea - problem is hubby likes to think he's a bit of a wine buff so I don't think he'd trust his bro to bring the wine LOL, but I'll suggest it to him.

I have my own little laugh tho coz people say I'm a good cook and always compliment my food (and we rarely have leftovers so I take that as a good thing!) and they've been over to ours for family events lots of times since MIL got so bad but we've never been invited to theirs so I can tell myself that its coz they don't want to be shown up :rotfl: (probably nowhere near the truth but it makes me smile hehehehe), I just wish the whole situation didn't upset hubby so much.

MoneyGypsy

Hi,

I just thought I would share my progress for this Xmas. I normally spend a fortune around Xmas time, but a large tax bill and reading this site inspired me to be a bit more imaginative. I started reading the Freebies board and then other boards and wondered how much stuff I could get for free (or at least really cheaply) for Xmas. I think I will join The DFW "Celebrate Christmas for free in 2008" Challenge but need to get this Xmas out of the way first! (see http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=613251&highlight=xmas+2008) Sorry can't fuigure out how to post links but not type in the whole thing.

Also inspired by Gettin me own back's achievements for this Xmas (see http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=585017&highlight=xmas+2008+free)

Apologies in advance for the length of this post.

So far I have for:

SIL

Will make a basket from:

1. Mini CK perfumes (free unwanted gift)
2. Elizabeth Arden mascara (free sample - about 1/2 noraml size)
3. Pantene Restoratives shampoo and conditioner (free sample but in 30ml bottles not sachets)
4. Aussie Miracle Moist 3 min conditioner (free sample - sachet worth 99p)
5. Olay moisturiser (free sample - in 7ml bottle not sachet)
6. Virgin simcard with £5 airtime (free)
7. £10 Boots voucher (free with Pigsback clicks)
8. Avon stuff x 3 (got 10 items for £9 from their naturals range when it was on offer)

Will also make:

1. Jar containing muffin mix - done in layers with a fany recipe attached
2. Flavoured vodka x 2 in a nice swingtop bottle
3. Silver necklace or bracelet (discovered real silver in my jewlerry making kit - went nuts a couple of years ago on e-bay)


MIL

For basket:

1. Nature of Britain calender (free)
2. Avon stuff x 3 (see above)
3. Mini whiskey x 2 (found in house)
4. Whiskas kitten pack for the cat (free)

Will make:

1. Muffin mix jar (as above)
2. Homemade truffles (not sure how much the ingredients will cost)
3. Jewellry with pearls found in kit

Also:

1. Audrey Hepburn boxset (£9.99 HMV

BIL

1. Flavoured vodka (see above)
2. Hitchcock boxset (£15 HMV - haven't gotten this yet but hope it is still at this price instore when I go)
3. CK Eternity (free - unwanted gift)
4. Muffin Jar (as above)
5. Muffin mix
6. Homemade truffles

OH's Niece (Age: 2 in Jan)

1. Mr. Men boxset (£3.99 when I bought the AH boxset from HMV)
2. Disney books x 5 (free from Grolier - sent 2 'inspection copies' back and get to keep other free)
3. Books also came with a mini bookshelf thing
4. Funkit boxes x2 - 1 clay making, 1 painting (£3.95 - there was a discount code posted on the discounts board for £5 off. The 2 boxes were on BOGOFF, then I added the discount and only paid P&P)
5. Thinking of getting her a WWF polar bear pack (will probably dponate via £10 direct debit a month - would do this anyway so will do it as a gift for her)

OH

That's a secret in case he reads this, but I keep telling him it is amazing what you can get for two quid these days!

Total so far including buying 5 kilner style jars from Ikea (£6.95) and 6 1/2L swingtop bottles from Wares of Knutsford (£16.99 inc P&P):

£50.82 (although I will admit that I am getting OH's presents from a separate budget)

Other ideas

1. 6 Xmas cards (free samples) - will use those and everyone else is getting e-cards. I normally buy charity cards but this year following a tip from another MSE'er I will give the money i would normally spend directly to Oxfam.

2. Wrapping paper - tips from this site which I will try:
1. free sample of funky wallpaper from DIY shops
2. cheap offcuts of fabric from a fabric shop
3. tissue paper and cellophane for baskets from flowerhour.co.uk


Any other ideas gratefully accepted!

Lol. x