How are you economising this year?

[yellowflowers]

We are:

Having pound shop crackers because everyone likes a cracker but no one cares what gift is inside

Making fudge and other presents

No Christmas tree

Smaller presents

I have knitted toys for my nieces and nephews (had odd bits left from knitting cardigans for DS so didn?t cost anything).
We have also said to friends and family that we are just buying for the children, not adults and they don?t need to get us anything.

Will be making presents for teachers
Have bought DD's presents and presents for my friends using Clubcard vouchers
Will be giving DSS a cheque (thus banking it after Christmas..)
DP and I will only get each other small gifts
Have 'made' online calendars with DP's own photos as family presents (his photos are great)
Still got to find real money to buy DSD the hallowed 'GHD's though.
I wish I could knit!

No Christmas tree?! :( But how does that economise?
I am doing a lot of homemade presents and not buying for people I don't really need to (ie friends DHs who I don't know that well and won't give a shite)

DP usually lugs home some tree beast from the local garden centre which costs £40 or more, so it would save money if you usually buy a real tree.

Making our own decs from greenery

Remembering that the DC get a sea of pressies from friends and family!

Using nectar points for Christmas food shop.

Not going out NYE and offering paid for babysitting.

Keeping track properly of what we've bought all ready.

Second hand for younger DC who cant tell the difference.

Yes we usually buy tree for about £30. Have a one year old who will just eat it anyway, or knock it over.

We used clubcard vouchers too - forgot about that. Got sil a mag subscription and used rest for toys for our new niece/nephew due soon.

I'm also doing my weekly shop at Morrisons to collect the till vouchers and get £25 off my Christmas shop.
I'm quite enjoying the frugality in a weird way.

I've been buying the DCs presents over a period of weeks- got some good half price toys in Argos and Sainsburys.
Stocking gifts as well- bought in stages so that I'm not doing a last minute panic shop (and spending a fortune on crap)

DH and I are vegetarian, but DCs each chicken, so I won't have to spend £60 on a Kelly Bronze (will buy them a nice Taste the Differnce Free Range chicken breast to roast)

I've got £110 in Nectar points- and will do my child free Christmas shop when DCs are at the cinema with DH.

Not buying things we just won't eat- that includes Christmas pudding.

No stocking for DH. FFS we are nearly 50!!!
No new PJs on Christmas eve. They are teenagers now and wear tracky bottoms in bed :(
No presents between DH and me. We have anything we need and don't need anything we want

BUT we are buying a real tree dor the first time in YEARS. I am stupidly excited

Dor=for obv.

Our first baby is due in a week - eek! so we've got a very small budget this year. I've made toys for friends' kids and family kids (ie niece and nephew) but adults aren't getting anything more than a homemade Xmas card this year. What with the crisis, nobody I know minds in the slightest!!

No new decorations. Got an artificial tree.
No advent calendars for me and DH.
Small presents under a fiver for adults.
No cards.
Deals and 3 for 2 on all items I have bought. Not paying full price for anything!

We bought loads of second hand Ben 10 toys off Ebay for the DS's.

We aren't buying for adults this year (apart from our parents).

I got loads of toys using the double up Tesco vouchers.

We don't need to host Xmas dinner this year since we did it last year (phew!).

Set a limit for mine & DH's present to each other (£50).

I have been saving those park vouchers all year for Christmas, £100 m&s for food, £100 amazon and £250 high st vouchers spent n boots and debenhams. I also saved all of tesco clubcard points too and doubled them for toys £240 worth and did an Internet shop, kids sorted! I suppose I am not economising but I have saved all year round to make it much less stressful. Saving for next year already!

I'm regifting any of DD's old baby toys in perfect nick to DS who will be 6 months old and will have no idea what's going on. MIL says it's dreadfully cheap of me but like I said between gritted teeth unless she wants to employ me (lost my job 6 weeks after I gave birth) she can keep her unhelpful opinions to herself.

I always use my nectar points to get aleast some of the christmas food shopping every year and my advantage card points to get some presents as I save both through out the year for christmas (yes, I am that tight).

I'm sticking to the budgets I've set for people and stopped buying for adults other than parents, siblings and my gran. (I used to buy for everyone)

We decided a few years ago to only buy for the children, not the adults.
Waaay better.

I have bought bits and bats for my boys from July onwards in sales. Used Tesco vouchers (£5=£10 for toys) for niece's and nephews presents.

We always make Christmas cake and pudding and also jams and chutney.

In actual fact, this Christmas we should have a fair bit more disposable income as I went back to work fulltime early on in the year, but then my car packed up and we had to replace it.

Hey ho.

Excellent thread - as a result I have been and counted up my clubcard vouchers (which I had completely forgotten about) and discovered I have £30 worth which I can double up for DC's toys. Thank you!

We stopped buying for adults in 2007 and have never looked back.

No new decs this year - apart from one special one each for dd's on Christmas eve and ones we have made.

dd2 (1yo) mostly has second hand toys.
dd1's presents have mostly come from my doubled up Tesco points

Splitting the cost of Christmas dinner and boxing day spread with friends who we will be spending the day with.

xmas is very very tight this year for me. thankfully ihave all the dcs xmas gifts bought, including new jammies, a dvd and story and sweets for xmas eve. still came to £250 though .

i reuse all my decorations and tree every year and this year the same. think i am on year 5 of the same stuff. dull but necessary.

the only people i am buying for other than the dcs are my mum, dad, sis and cousin and my best friends 3 dc. usually i would have bought for my otehr friends dcs and a few other family members but just can't stretch to it this year. not sending any cards either. dont think anyone knows my new adress so doubt i shall recieve any either!!

i am very lucky in that my mum does xmas dinner every year at her house so that is a saving for me, especially as ds1 is so fussy it would be wasted on him.

the pets usually get a stocking but not this year (sorry guys!)

i'm not buying any wrapping paper either. i should have enough in the house from previous years.

oh yes, any xmas otings will be free ones. i am a national trust member so shall avail of any thing on locally that my membership covers. also, (i think this is great) one of the local pubs is having a grotto every sunday in december and it's FREE!!! free to see santa and free to get a gift so the dcs will love that (and my pocket will too). anything else we do will probably involve collecting random bits of nature and painting them silver.

We are just giving one present each and then stockings with lots of homemade goodies, as the DS's will get so much stuff from family that they will still get more than they know what to do with without us buying them a million things

I have had a rule for a few years now that I get just one new Christmas decoration each year, that way I can add to the decs, always feel as though there is something new but don't spend a fortune. This year I have bought some fantastically kitsch chilli lights

I am making as much food from scratch as possible and we aren't buying anything that we know we won't eat. Also, as we won't be able to drink loads as we will have 2 small children all day, we have decided just to get a couple of decent bottles of wine rather than buying loads of booze

Here'sthethingbooyhoo - I LOVED painting twigs etc silver when o was younger. I fact I still would and looking forward to dd being older so we can so it again. Lucky children. Look at the red ted art blog - it has loads of ideas. www.redtedart.com/

Tesco has wrapping paper (quite nice,red with white holly outline) for 15p a roll and plain red gift bags for 20p. We'll be stamping Christmassy designs on the bags and using a mix of the value and decorated brown paper to wrap. There's loads of paint and glittery craft stuff here already.

We've also made some presents. Yellow Moon have paint-your-own mug sets, photo cubes and makey-stuff on offer atm, I am putting DD to work .

we have 4 sisters and a brother between us - all with boyfriends/girlfriend.
we will give each couple a christmas bag with a bottle of wine, a box of chocolates and a dvd in it. (dvds were 3 for £12 in sainsburys, chocs and wine were half price) 10 people - £50 roughly.
giving our parents personilsed calendars of grandchildren. £15 each calendar. another 4 adults done for £30. however, i still think we should stop buying for the adults and next year ill push for this.
all children in the family are getting a good but half price toy from the brill sainsburys sale that was on at the end of october. if you missed it keep it in mind for next year, its a very good sale.
no christmas cards or postage this year except to grannies and the odd must.

em, think thats it. im not giving up a decent home cooked christmas dinner so will buy good ingredients and a good turkey between sainsburys and asda.

ill now read the whole thread and see if i can get some more ideas from you guys.

The wine, chocs DVD idea is brilliant. Will do that next year I think.

it is isnt it? ill put on the tag something like "have a night in, on us"
quite proud of myself on that one.
just hope none of them are on this mumsnet or ill be getting some funny looks on christmas day. shit. name change soon.