How Do I Save Money Leading Up To Christmas?

elsien

Leave your purse/wallet, cards and phone (if you use your phone to pay for things) at home when you go out. Or if you're going out for a carton of milk (for example) don't take any extra then you can't be tempted. 

Brie

hand made cards, hand delivered cut a lot of costs - especially as 1st class postage is hitting the £1 mark!!  If you have to post, post early.  If you have to post overseas send it surface rather than airmail.  Or order something from Amazon (or similar) in their own country.   or send emails instead of cards (yeah, I don't like that either)

buy stuff for Christmas dinner on the afternoon of 24th Dec.  most of it will be discounted.  OK maybe you'll have to be creative about what you're eating but call it an adventure!!!  Get everything you want for Christmas and boxing day into the trolley.  Look at it and put at least a third of it back.  You know it will still be too much.

DON'T BUY CHRISTMAS CRACKERS!!! Major waste of money and almost no one actually likes the tat included, the naf jokes or wearing paper hats which last all of 2 minutes.  

Radical thought - go alcohol free!  (ok maybe not)

We did a limited present space one year.  Everyone had a bag.  Everyone's presents had to fit into that one bag.  Eliminates big toys, fluffy jumpers and makes people think small (which other than fine gems normally means small money as well.)

No Christmas wrap - wasteful, hard to recycle.  Get a roll of paper and get people to decorate it.  My dad always drew great stuff on our wrapping - or pasted weird articles or cartoons.  We've used newspaper and left over wall paper as well - declutters nicely!!!  (mom striped red and white flock paper off a house we moved in to and we used that paper over the next 10 years)

Brie

OH - Act like you're Ukrainian!!! 

The eastern orthodox church has its calendar is a bit different so for Ukrainians Christmas day is 7th January so you can actually buy anything in the post Christmas sales!!  

JGB1955

Going forward - join the 2023 Christmas challenge.  Saving for Christmas 2023 - £1 a day — MoneySavingExpert Forum
£1 a day and you're sorted!

Pollycat

I agree with the suggestion to cut out/cut down on gifts but it's probably too late to agree this for this year.
You don't need to spend a fortune on food just because 'everybody buys mince pies etc at Christmas'

Arthog

This year, we all need warmth, food, and some relief from the worry about rising prices.

Some cash for the heating bills, wrapped in a home-made packet.

A home-assembled hamper in a home-decorated box,

Warm clothes, rugs and throws.

Giving a warm and worry-free winter is just the thing this year. We're all in the same situation so we can admit that we're on a tight budget.

We'll all remember this Christmas!

CapricornLass

I would echo the idea of giving vouchers for your time.  My younger son did this when he was out of work and stony broke,and made a cheque for two/three days work in the garden for my mother's Christmas present.  She was thrilled with it (and used it).  She told me later that she would much rather have him working round the garden for her rather than get a strange workman in.  If I remember rightly, he laid slabs for her.  It doesn't have to be gardening. It can be for other DIY tasks, or for things like babysitting, or a week of walking the dog.

With regards to the food, I would think carefully what you are buying, and what you are serving when to your family, and what they like and dislike.  Menu plan, make lists, and make sure you know how much you have to spend..  In the run up to Christmas, buy one or two items extra each week in your shopping, and put away.  If only one of you eats sprouts, buy six-eight loose sprouts rather than a whole bag. If you shop at Tescos and have a clubcard, you can get a scanner which you can use to scan your items as you put them in your trolley, so you know exactly what you are spending.  If something is just too expensive, or blows the budget, then have the courage to put it back on the shelf.

One thing we have done for many years is to have the starter and main Christmas meal at mid-day, and then eat the Christmas pudding/dessert for tea, as no-one has room for it at lunch-time. (I heat the pudding up in the slow cooker during the day, so its ready for when it's wanted, and all I have to do is make the rum sauce.) Where you can probably cut down is in the sweets/biscuits/snacks/party food area.  One tin of sweets and one box of posh biscuits should be plenty, especially if you also include sweets in the stockings. One Christmas cake. I do buy a turkey and a gammon ham, and use both of them as the basis of meals and sandwiches for the week between Christmas and New Year, but nothing else meat wise.  Think about portion control - maybe three slices instead of four, type of thing, to make the meat go further?  Take a tip from the Cratchetts in Christmas Carol,  and fill up on sage and onion stuffing, and potatoes. 

I assume that you are already on the lookout for anything which the family will soulfully assure you is essential for Christmas, but never end up eating, such as things like trifle, or figs, dates and nuts!  Do you have a Lidls/Aldi near by?  Some of their Christmas food is good value.  I've got food allergies, so can't try it for myself but OH says it's very nice.

short_bird

Check what's in the store cupboard - did you get anything in last year's sales and it's still good?
Anyone gone vegetarian or vegan or been diagnosed coeliac?
Was there anything that didn't get used or something you could buy less of as everyone got bored with eating it?
I remember someone saying she was fighting over the last few sprouts in the supermarket despite most of the family not eating them...

Rosa_Damascena

Arthog said:

This year, we all need warmth, food, and some relief from the worry about rising prices.

Some cash for the heating bills, wrapped in a home-made packet.

A home-assembled hamper in a home-decorated box,

Warm clothes, rugs and throws.

Giving a warm and worry-free winter is just the thing this year. We're all in the same situation so we can admit that we're on a tight budget.

We'll all remember this Christmas!

So true! Energy bills will go up by £900 pa on average by April and the vast majority of us will just have to suck it up. I was amazed to hear current subsidies match the NHS budget! This can't go on, but neither can companies continue to exploit customers.

Flugelhorn

Arthog said:

This year, we all need warmth, food, and some relief from the worry about rising prices.

Some cash for the heating bills, wrapped in a home-made packet.

A home-assembled hamper in a home-decorated box,

Warm clothes, rugs and throws.

Giving a warm and worry-free winter is just the thing this year. We're all in the same situation so we can admit that we're on a tight budget.

We'll all remember this Christmas!

lovely idea - when student son was living in ancient, no central heating, single glazed house in Scotland he got hot water bottle, fleecy tops, warm socks as gifts - appreciated for much time after Xmas 

home made hampers are great as gifts can be really thought through but not expensive