From Aldi To Harrods

7 things you can do now to make Christmas easier on your bank balance

by 28 Comments

Now that October is here, I am daring myself to start thinking about how we can make Christmas a little easier on our bank balance. The past few weeks have seen some massive changes in my life (I quit my job!), plus my husband Tony only receiving Statutory sick pay at the moment, we need to be thinking about Christmas already. Last year, almost half of Brits planned to pay for Christmas with credit, so with a few months to go there are still plenty of ways to save for the festive season. Here are some things that you can do now to make Christmas easier on your bank balance.

7 things you can do now to make Christmas easier on your bank balance

1 – Set a budget

Setting a budget will help you to ensure that you have enough money for Christmas. You can do this in two ways – either decide how much you can afford and set that as your Christmas budget, or decide how much you want to spend on each aspect of Christmas, including gifts and food. Once you have set a realistic budget, you can use this as your base for money to save or earn before the festive season.

2 – Start cutting back

There are many cut backs you can make now to help you save money to put towards Christmas.

  • Take your own work to lunch – a meal deal from a supermarket costs around £3-£4, so if you were to cut these out completely then you could save almost £300.
  • Meal plan to make use of food that you already have in your cupboards and freezer.
  • Do a toiletry stock take and try to use up what you currently have before purchasing new.
  • Think carefully about each purchase you intend to make – is it something that can go on a Christmas wishlist for a loved one to buy for you?

3 –  Earn extra cash

There is still more than plenty of time to earn extra cash for Christmas, whether you need an extra £100 or an extra £3,000! There are so many things you can do to earn cash or gift cards in time for Christmas. These are my favourites:

  • WhatUsersDo – £8 or £15 per website you test, paid monthly via Paypal.
  • Prolific Academic – a survey website with a twist – you don’t get screened out of surveys! Payout is at £5 via Paypal (try to save it until £20 to save on Paypal fees)
  • Matched betting – if you are looking to make some serious cash (I’m talking thousands) in the run up to Christmas then matched betting is for you. It is completely risk free AND tax free. I’ve made £3,000 in my first two months.
  • MintVine – a survey website that pays out once you’ve reached $10 (which can be converted into £s in Paypal)
  • Quidco – join today and earn £30 really easily.
  • Market Force mystery shopping – not only do you get paid to shop, but your purchase is reimbursed to a certain amount – this means you can buy Christmas presents whilst mystery shopping!

For more ideas, check out my posts on making £100 a month, £500 a month and £1,000 a month.

4 – Write your cards early

Do you dread writing your Christmas cards every year? Getting them done early means that you can send them via Second Class mail in the UK or economy mail worldwide and save money. Alternatively, if you have them written then you can hand them out throughout November and December when you see a friend or a loved one.

5 – Buy gift vouchers with a discount

Zeek offer you the chance to purchase gift vouchers at a discounted rate, which is fantastic for your Christmas shopping! What’s more, you can get £5 off by entering code 2m343d. Buying gift vouchers may be a little more fiddly but you can save some serious cash.

6 – Look for deals & freebies regularly

The closer we get to Christmas, the more stores seem to charge. There are some fantastic deals to be had in October and November, especially with the recent popularity of Black Friday sales alongside Cyber Monday. Set up price alerts for items that you know you will be purchasing and make a point to check the prices every couple of weeks or do – then you’ll know when you’re getting a deal.

7 – Spread out your shopping

Adding one or two Christmas essentials into your weekly grocery shops will help you to spread the cost of Christmas. Be careful to check the best before dates though, as I’ve been caught out with specialist Christmas food that expires before the day itself.

Do you have any other tips for helping to make Christmas easier on your bank balance? I’d love to hear them!

You might also like

Comments

  2. Brilliant tips. One I rely on is Iceland’s Loyalty Card. They allow you to add money when you buy so I round up and put the pence on the card. Even though I’m putting on figures as low as 2p, it really mounts up over the year and that’s all our Christmas food

    Reply

  3. hello, I have just signed up to Zeek but cant see where to put the code in- will it ask me for it when I make a purchase?

    Reply

  6. Very good ideas Emma especially the one about getting the cards ready to take advantage of 2nd Class stamps. I am unsure if this still works but I have used WH Smith gift cards to purchase stamps. I was lucky to find some un-used gift cards during a clean out of my office drawer and was able to use them to buy stamps.

    This year ‘Im-iin-doors and I are spending Christmas at home, just the 2 of us, and so I am aiming to have “Our most frugal Christmas ever” using what is in the freezer, from the garden, in the cupboards and paid for using our stash of Tesco and Nectar points. Wish me luck!!!!

    Reply

    • I love those offers! Have you seen the competition to win £1,000 in Amazon gift cards? To be in with a chance of winning you need to buy £30 worth of vouchers before the 10th October.

      Reply

  9. Fantastic ideas – I quit my job this month too! It’s liberating but scary! I save with a savings club – £75 every month and after 10 months I have £750 which covers the majority of our gifts and food shopping.

    Reply

  11. Along time ago we agreed with friends that we would limit spending on presents. For friends with children we only buy for the kids. For friends without children, we have a spending limit that makes us be ingenious with our present buying. It works for us.

    Reply

  16. Fantastic tips especially on making money, as a freelancer and a graduate paying my university debts off it always great to monetize. Especially in the run up to Christmas.

    Reply

  18. This is my first Christmas on The Money Shed forum and doing lots of surveys etc for vouchers alongside my normal work from home has meant I have got a nice amount of vouchers saved already. I don’t go mad at Christmas, have a small family, but it is nice to have the vouchers set aside to treat everyone.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

This post may contain affiliate links. This means that sometimes if you click through to a website and register or purchase something, I get a small commission. This does not affect the content of From Aldi To Harrods.

Popular posts

Pages

Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.