What is the best way to save for Christmas 2018?

[Oh2beatsea]

I always start well by saving cash at home or in a separate bank account then one month we are short on cash and I end up using the Christmas savings! Anyone got a better method please?

[tropical1]

I buy vouchers every month for the shops that we use the most for Christmas presents, Argos, Amazon etc.
Put them away and then got a fair bit saved by December.
This year I did £80 per month so a big help.

[mammymammyIRL]

I put into an online bank account with rabodirect by standing order when we get paid & track it in ynab, if it's really necessary I'll borrow out of & then up the weekly standing order to replace

[Macarena1990]

We save £50 a month into a savings account.

It hasn't been quite enough for the past couple of years so am going to increase it to £100 a month this year. Should pay for all presents, panto tickets, christmas food and hopefully a gift for DP and I as we never have enough left for us!

[AdoraBell]

Separate bank account, one that I don’t use for anything else. This year though I messed it up. Need to be more disciplined next year.

[ProlificLurker]

We have a regular saver - one that you can’t touch till twelve months is up. I’ve learned the hard way that it’s the only way to stop us dipping into it. I save for other things like house and car insurance in the same account too. I’m just not disciplined enough otherwise.

Might not be any use to you for this year as you want the money to be available a few months before Christmas, but you could start an account in, say, September 2018 to be ready for Christmas 2019.

[ProlificLurker]

Forgot to say, ours is with First Direct which pays 5% interest (although your money is not in there for a full year so it averages out somewhere between 2 to 2.5% I think). Either way it was a nice help when the account matured.

Good luck with your goals.

[Oh2beatsea]

Thanks for the good suggestions. I've just readanother good tip that I'm going to follow....in Feb and March I'm going to save the Council Tax payments that would normally come out but don't as we pay over 10 months. That should be £300 ish to put in the pot.

[specialsubject]

Not vouchers, ties you to one retailer and you lose it all if they go bust. Ditto hamper schemes.

Cash savings ( you can get a bit of interest) after living costs, six months expenses stashed and so on. And nows the time to declare ceasefire on adult presents.

[lolalotta]

Following

[HRTpatch]

Premium bonds

[alletik]

Will Work do it?

Someone requested where my DH works, and in response, they deduct an agreed amount every month (we're doing £50 a month next year) and then he gets paid it all in November.

Worked great for us - didn't have to save it, because we didn't even get it. And the lump sum in Nov is great!

[Oh2beatsea]

Oh it would be a huge bonus if the money was stopped from my wages but I work for a big organisation so it’s probably unlikely to happen. Good idea though.....I wonder if a group of us work colleagues could do it between us

[ivykaty44]

Have an emergency fund account for your emergency money and a Xmas savings pot for your Xmas money. That way you can leave the Christmas money alone

Also look at switching bank accounts to get better interest or cash. That way you pick up extra money and can put into Xmas account

M&S switch gives you £5 on a card each month if you put in set amount each month - I jyst have standing order between two accounts to do this.

£60 on a card towards M&S food or for presents

Buy presents now in the sales half price and put away for next year

Buy cards, stamps, paper and ribbons in the sale

[SandysMam]

Does anyone use Park or a similar scheme?

[AnotherShirtRuined]

I'm going to go about it a bit differently and start with a few lists and spreadsheets to get an overview of Christmas 2018 as I may be facing unemployment due to illness sometime in the new year.

Who do I need to buy for, how much will I spend on each person etc. Perhaps narrow down the list a little by approaching people now rather than in the run up to Christmas. If I get a few things in the sales such as wrapping paper and the like I shouldn't have too many extra expenses in December 2018. Also I think we are all set for decorations if I can manage to forage for pine cones and the like.

I do advent calendars for the children and will spread the cost for these throughout the year as well as Christmas gifts rather than save as this is difficult for me. Luckily we don't tend to go overboard and have established and agreed upon budgets for these within the extended family.

Does anyone have any ideas for cheap or preferably free Christmassy activities with children in the run up to Christmas? Perhaps based on this year's successes? I'd like to do an ideas list as well to have something to fall back on should finances indeed become tight this year. Any ideas would be welcome.

[freshandorganic]

I've worked out how much I've spent this year, divided it by 12 and then will be putting that in a savings account each month.

[ivykaty44]

Activities for children at Christmas - school fairs
Baking at home ?

[rainydaygirl]

Children's Christmas Activities : Make paper chains, collect and decorate pinecones, Christmas Lights walk around the neighbourhood - we give marks out of 10 for each house, make paper snowflakes to decorate the Windows, make jam for gifts, children make labels for jars

[AdoraBell]

Another if you lose your job, hope you don’t, then tell everyone other than DC that you are not buying presents.

Fingers crossed for you.

[AnotherShirtRuined]

AdoraBell Thank you. Will see how things go, but as my illness - long-term stress - has been caused by my current job, losing it might be a blessing in disguise. As long as I get well enough to find another. Just trying to find the silver ligning and all that

[Oh2beatsea]

Thanks everyone for the great ideas. I’ve started “sweeping” the small change out of my bank accounts each evening. Sometimes it’s pence, other times it’s £2-3 and it’s good to see it adding up! Just got to keep it in the separate account now and not spend it!

[MargotMoon]

My local credit union has a Christmas Saver account. They don't let you withdraw it until 1st November. I set up a standing order to pay in each month and forget about it, it's great getting the lump sum out to cover the Xmas shopping bill!

[bobdylannumber1]

I save 60 per month into an account in work it's locked in so we can't get it then it's unlocked mid November and we get vouchers for a lot of shops, I had 720 this Christmas have over 200 left for the sales, I also have a tin where I throw coppers etc into it can only be opened with a tin opener I didn't open it at Christmas as it wasn't heavy I'd only started recently putting money in it I'm gonna start putting a few pounds in it weekly and use it for foreign family wedding in the spring.

[mumontherun14]

Hiya I've been thinking about this as well . I've seen 2 savings ideas that I'm going to do. One is the 1p accumulater (google skint dad website) where you put 1p into a locked tin on the 1st of Jan then 2p on the second and so on and every day increase by 1p. If you do this for a full year it adds up to around £600 . Martin Lewis also suggested putting away £1 a day for 365 days (starting Dec 17) and if you can manage it £2 a day would give you over £700 by Christmas 2018. You would need to be pretty disciplined and try and put it somewhere you can't touch it. I've done a ceramic pot. Also our work has a link with the local credit union who have a Christmas saver account. I've never quite managed to get it up and running but this year am determined as Christmas just gets more expensive every year as my 2 are teens and the tech/chlothes cost a fortune. We can set up either £30 or £50 direct to come off our salary and it goes into an account and is locked till November xxx

[alletik]

Another one, what cashback deals do you do...?

I have a NatWest advantage card, whereby I pay £18 a month for phone insurance, travel insurance and car recovery (amongst other benefits). With that, I get cashback on my bills and I regularly get about £14 a month in cashback.

When I buy online, I try to use TopCashback or other cashback sites.

Finally, I always save my points on cards (Tesco, Boots etc)


I save my cashback all year and cash it in in December - which usually gets me somewhere around £200 - £300 a year. A nice little earner and I've not had to save as such.