Frugal Christmas

[Louboo2245]

I am a notorious over spender, in every aspect of my life, despite being a low income family, but this year I am determined to reel it in a bit.
So thought I would ask the help of my fellow MNetters. So lets see if we can come up with exciting presents for a reasonable budget?

i am too, deadly at christmas. i tend to go without things so i can spoil the kids. cutting back this year.

I'm running out of things to cut back on, even starting doing odd jobs for my sister to help keep our head above water :o(

Any specific types of things youre looking for?

I could do with ideas for my friend - newly married, quite quirky, well travelled, 30 yrs old, no kids. Around about £10 or £20 if join xmas and birthday.

Also ideas for a 15 month old girl who has a brother who is only 18 months older so lots of toys already and doesnt need clothes, budget about £20.

I plan on buying the soap and glory (hate the stuff myself) Christmas pack which is about £60 so I can split it for Christmas presents and secret Santa.

I am picking up bits and pieces now on our local Facebook for sale page too. I bought 3 small Yankee candle jars for £5. I bought ds a secondhand big foot toy virtually brand new for £20 which retails at £125 there too.

No Christmas cards this year bar immediate family.

I'm struggling most with my BIL who is 25 and still quite immature (though a lovely bloke) Lives at home, and wants for nothing as whatever he want he goes and buys (just spent £600 on a camera)

Also my children
DS is 8 for his birthday I bought him a £70 scooter and told him he had to look after it make sure he brought it in etc, it got stolen when he left it out over night (we did remind him regularly about it) so reluctant to buy him expensive gifts as he is still in a I don't care about my stuff place. (He's also lost his DS)

and DD who will be 11 months and so her Birthday will follow really quickly after Christmas.

I've done shoe box collections for my Dnieces and nephew with either homemade stuff or cheap thing picked up in sales etc, though my other BIL children are a bit trickier as they are teens and very into labels sooooo any help?

What about this poster BeaWheesht www.iwantoneofthose.com/gift-home-office/my-scratch-map/30000539.html

Don't buy presents for adult relatives except for parents. It saves so much hassle. As for teens, give them a gift voucher.

I was thinking about getting inlaws gift from charity shops or car boot sale this year.

In my family we give the children gifts only on dh side there are no children so we end up buying his mum dad two brothers and sil gifts and i think its stupid now we have two children of our own to buy for. They always expect gifts even tho they earn more than us. They used to write xmas list ffs they are adults!

So i have a budget of £5 each and i think that is too much

Can you make them toffee/cakes/chocolates?? Relatives shouldn't be materialistic IMO, Christmas isn't about the gifts.

They're all on diets or diabetic! How well do these things keep? Am I going to be up until midnight in CHristmas eve baking?
A gift voucher for where though? I agree with materialistic thing, but not sure family is so understanding.

Next? Boots? M&S? Cinema vouchers are great for teenagers, you can get all sorts. Your relatives need to learn to be less picky!

Cinema vouchers sound the way forward for these two. I agree. I think the rents would be fine with it, but the rest are difficult at the best of times

Pizza Express vouchers? £20 so they can put the rest towards it.

A photo in a frame is a lovely gift imo.
Or a framed and illustrated poem or drawing?

LOVE that map - great idea!

For your dd Id reccommend happyland from elc - its quite often on offer. Tbh though at 11 months how about just a nice helium foil balloon and some secondhand little toys?

Keeping an eye out for second hand toys, but can't find anything I like. Everything seems to be a sickly pink, or very bitty if you know what I mean.

beawheesht search on facebook for Arc Kisses, she does personalised typographic prints for £22, might be nice for your friend as you could get one with details of their wedding, lyrics from the first dance, etc.

Lou my DS will also be 11 months at christmas, so far I've bought him a 9m+ smart trike which was reduced to £29.99 in ELC, two HappyLand playsets which should have cost £70 for the two but were reduced to £27.40 for the two, Tesco have Matey bubble bath and glove puppet wash mitt sets for £3.66, also got him an 'I Love my Daddy' board book and soft toy reduced to £2.50 also in Tesco.

Asda have a selection of small stocking filler toys for 6-12m+ such as floating boats, wind up frogs and little toy vehicles for £1 each. They also have a penguin shaped bubble machine that sticks to the side of the bath tub for £9. I don't know if any of these ideas would be suitable for your DD.

Also, if you do happen to buy things from the ELC, ask on here for the appropriate Big Birthday Club code (this month its BLUEBIRD) and you'll get 20% off everything, even sale items.

as gifts for under 2s i was always grateful for clarks vouchers!

We're doing a Secret Santa for all the adults in the family - it was fantastic last year, one £50 present so we all got something really good and not just tat.

Saved everyone a fortune.

we had thought about secret santa with adults but as mself and 2 siblings only bought the parents anyway i somehow felt it was unfair on my mum and dad who spoil the 8 grandkids but then get only 1 present off 3 families! How do you work it so its fair?

We do secret santa with all the adults (£20 max) and then santa always brings an additional surprise stocking for grandparents (nothing too expensive but lots of nice little bits, alcohol etc).

We work it so we have a cap of about 25 quid per adult per present and then have a secret santa for stocking which we have a cap or 15 quid, everyone gets something and then a little extra on top.

They are a bugger to stick to though

We have a willow tree on the village green - about now is a good time to cut some 4/5 foot long droopy bits that you can reach, strip the leaves - twist into a wreath shape, or bend into star shapes leave in garage/shed to dry out- add some twiggy bits of holly/ pine cones / a bauble or 2 etc in December and there's the door decorated... and some star shaped ones sprayed gold and wound randomly with a wire with glass beads on it, make nice presents, and you can make little wands - bend a small star with long bit of stick left on - add some pretty beads and voila a fairy wand - for pennies...

Ohhh I like the idea of doing a secret Santa within the family! :)

I don't think mine are quite ready for that yet, but I've persuaded everyone bar DH that we should do £10 maximum for each adult! Hopefully if I can stick to this, I'll spend £100 on Christmas for the adults and then I'll have more to spend on DS!