This time of year it’s so easy to spend (a lot) more money than we planned to.
There are so many presents to buy, cards to post, decorations to replace and food to stock up on. It’s all too easy for costs to creep up and get ever so slightly out of control.
There are still some things you can do though, to save a bit of money in the run up to Christmas. Even with just a few weeks to go, it’s not too late to make some savings.
- If you’re planning on posting Christmas cards to friends and family you can save a bit of money by getting them all ready to post before the 20th December and sending them 2nd class instead of 1st. It might not seem like much but if you’re sending a big stack of cards then those pennies do add up.
- You could even go a step further and send email cards instead, if you know that your friends and family won’t be too bothered by not receiving a physical card from you.
- If you’ll be travelling by train to visit people this Christmas then get online and book your tickets as soon as possible. You should still be able to get cheaper prices on advance tickets. Even better, think about taking the coach instead, it’s quite often a fair bit cheaper.
- Set a budget for presents. If you have a lot of nieces and nephews to buy presents for then it’s a great idea to set a budget for how much you and your siblings will spend on each other’s children. You could also arrange to do a Secret Santa with the adults instead of buying presents for each individual person.
- As much as we know Christmas is coming each year, it so often seems to catch us off guard. And sometimes, no matter how prepared we are, something will happen that we just can’t be prepared for. Like the boiler breaking down, or the oven dying when you have a huge turkey to cook. When something like this happens you can still save some money by using websites that find the best deals for you. Whether you need a cheap tumble dryer to relieve your laundry woes, or a great deal on a microwave to make cooking easier over Christmas then these sites are a great place to start.
- For anything you do buy this year, check around to get the best price first and see if there are any offers for the item on cashback websites. While getting cashback on the things you buy won’t save you money exactly, every little helps and you can always put the cashback money into a savings account ready for next Christmas!
Hopefully there are some ideas here that will help you keep your spending under control this Christmas.
It’s really all about taking a little bit of time to check out all your options before you buy anything, making sure that you’re going for the best value option and thinking about what you actually need to buy.
Disclaimer: this is a collaborative post.