****MONEY SAVING TIPS FOR CHRISTMAS**** Please post here! Let's help each other...

[ShinyHappyPeopleHoldingHands]

Seeing as so many of us are broke and regardless, somehow, we have to 'fund' Christmas, I thought maybe we could put all out tips/advice (from anyone.. most of us have experienced "brokeness" at some stage!) in one place so we can all help each other!

I will be back when I've thought of some....

I save all my cards to use as tags the next Christmas. They look even better if you use pinking shears to cut out the pictures. You can 'posh them up' with that gold binding if you want.. but I usually don't!

Another idea was to sort through all your stuff to see if there is anything worth ebaying. If you do it all together then it won't be as much of a faff and it might help to raise some cash?

\link{http://www.freecycle.org/display.php?region=United%20Kingdom/Freecycle?}
You can join a group near to you (or any of them come to that) and it's full of people who post things they no longer need/want.

Freecycle?
You can join a group near to you (or any of them come to that) and it's full of people who post things they no longer need/want.

My tip is " Dont look at the price of things that you have bought before Christmas until at least Febuary of the next year. You wont get very P1$$£& off that you could have got it them for less than half price if you only wanted a few more days or the sales

Sometimes it does pay to wait until the last minute.

HMV have an offer where you can get three DVDs for £15.. big selection so great for presents!

Expect everyone already knows that Woolies are doing the three-for-two offer on their range with the purple gift tag stickers. You get the cheapest of the three items you choose FREE

Superdrug are doing the same with their 'green parcel sticker' range...

Here's my money saving tip - not only does it save money but it has an added surprise element too.

Before you do this though, you must make sure that you have already purchased your essentials.

I arrange for a baby sitter and then I go to the supermarket about 2 hours before they close on xmas eve. Usually there aren't as many shoppers as you would expect and many of the shelves are bare, BUT they have reduced many items...and I mean reduced.
Over the years I have been able to buy extra special food items eg. clotted cream, nice cheeses etc. Last year I bought massive bags of of the toppings they use for the fresh pizzas for 20p a bag. I put the bags in the freezer, and they kept me going until March! I usually come home with bags full of veg, a couple of years ago i got a big bag of sprouts for 5p (down side to everything I guess )
Sometimes you get lucky and find xmas chocolate things and xmas decs reduced.

As an added bonus to this tradition of mine, I buy more than I need, including meat items (I'm veggie) I then call in my friends and neighbours and distribute the goodies. Last year I took a bag full of goodies (sausages, pies, veg, chocolate etc)to my friend. You should have seen her 3 kids! they rummaged through that bag as tho it was xmas morning already!...now that was £1 or so well spent

When I said buy cards in the January sales, actually the sales for cards often start in December after the last posting dates (16th for 2nd class and 19th for 1st). So when other people are still shopping for this Christmas, you are shopping for next Christmas and saving money too (cards are usually half price)! If you waited until January you might find that a) they had already sold out or b) they were down to 1/4 price.

go to school faryes. They often have very cheap craft type presents.

Tesco are doing a three-for-two offer as well on some quirky 'gifty' type items

My cash saving tips for Xmas....

Buy 1 get 1 free offers at the supermarkets

Charity shops (great for books and small stocking filler gifts...I got a 'Handy Manny' style tool box with wooden tools - £2 and perfect, fab kids books at 60p and a wood framed bag to put Dad's partners sewing gifts in)

One year in my student days I set a £5 limit on presents...amazing the creative things you can find on a budget.

E-mail christmas cards are free if you don't want to stop sending all together. Take a christmassy photo of the kids, add Merry Christmas and you're away!

Ikea do very cheap wrapping paper, or use the kids' artwork.