Skint Christmas for three children

[Wellyscooterwalk]

Please help me with some DIY/ very very cheap ideas for Christmas.

We are in the ‘both working full time but barely scraping by’ bracket this year.
We can only find £100 to cover Christmas for our three children - stockings and gifts and other- and I’m trying to make the most of every penny. (£100 all together not each). I’m willing to spend every spare evening making/baking/searching for things.

I’ve already put together an advent calendar using Christmas themed books we own/craft activities we already had the materials for/‘activities’ such as a walk to see Christmas lights.

I will try to bulk out stockings with primark socks etc. and toiletries such as toothbrushes/bubble Bath which would normally fall within our groceries budget.

Any ideas of age appropriate gifts/stocking fillers that I can make please? Or things to buy cheaply which would be worth while?

Children are 8,6 and 2.

Thank you.

I've been there OP. This year I managed to get almost everything for very little on poundtoy- they're really good for stocking fillers and a lot of the stuff on there is pennies.

For activities, sorry if anyone has already said this but garden centres often have really amazing Christmas displays. It's also lovely to take some hot chocolate or something out for a walk to look for lights on houses. I'd also check to see if towns near you are doing big light switch ons/Christmas events because that's a lovely and free way to spend an afternoon.

Could you also get the children involved in making some decorations to keep them occupied over the holidays? I can still remember being given the job of making paper chains out of strips of leftover wrapping paper when I was about 8 and the house looked amazing! Collecting pine cones is also a nice thing to do and you can dip them in glue and glitter to make hanging decorations or bung them in a nice bowl to put in the middle of the table. My DS's favourite thing at the moment is taking his little bag out to collect pine cones.

I've got my thinking cap on for you OP, I've done a few skint christmases and they've all been really nice.

Oh also, one of my DS's favourite things from last year was watching an online panto. It's a lot cheaper than buying tickets for a whole family, I know it's not quite the same but we still had a lot of fun. We couldn't afford takeaway but we got a few reduced oven pizzas and had them on the sofa while we watched it which he thought was amazing.

A quick look on YouTube suggests that you can actually watch some from previous years for free if you can get YouTube on your TV?

Could you ask on a local Facebook Page if anyone happens to be getting rid of X,Y,Z.

People are keen that stuff is reused and enjoyed again these days. I know i'm always happy to give away for free. Sometimes on FB marketplace i'll put a £5 price tag just to cut out time wasters

A great one my kids loved when they were small and we were broke was making biscuit faces. Smart price digestives and mixed bags of the 5 for £1 Asda sweets and a bit of icing and then they had to make faces. Turns out red laces make great hair! Cost less than £2 and kept them busy all day. They still ask to do it now and they are 13 and 17. We would also decorate Balloons with cotton wool and glue on eyes and a paper hat. Pipe cleaners for reindeers etc. You can even attach a paper straw to a balloon and thread string through the straw. Don't tie the ballon, stretch the string across the room and let go of the balloon end and it shoots across the room like a rocket. So we had Santa rockets 😁

Always worth looking at eBay and search for bundles of whatever it is your kids are into. I would have 1-2 boxed and wrapped gifts with the eBay figures arranged on top of them to make it look good and like they weren't meant to be boxed.

Try local Facebook gifting pages, they're brill and usually very generous this time of year as people are having their pre Christmas clear out. I'd have a look through what I have and offer if local but my daughter has only just turned two so I suspect your youngest has probably grown out of most of what she's got currently!

I agree with the previous poster who said focus on the older two for Christmas. Your youngest child really won't know any better.

Paper chains made from old wrapping paper or magazines are good as both an activity and a decoration.
Join Nextdoor and free cycle as well as fb market place.
Whereabouts do you live (roughly)?

I probably have some spare stuff if it helps, that’s why I ask!

Oh, and Christmas crackers made from toilet roll tubes!

Felt food is good fun, but only cheap if you happen to have each colour needed already. Otherwise the cost can really add up.

If you did want to make toy food (and hadn't any felt) then I would use cardboard and crayons to make a loaf of bread with various sandwich fillings to choose from and a pizza set. A loaf of bread would be several slices of bread shapes cut from thin corrugated cardboard with details (like crusts) added in crayon. The sandwich fillings (cheese, ham, cucumber and tomato slices etc) work best if cut from white/pale cardboard with details added in crayon. The crayon shows best on paler card.

A pizza would be a circle of corrugated cardboard cut into triangle slices with thinner cardboard for things like tomato sauce, cheese, mushroom etc which can be added on top. The crayon on cardboard food is surprisingly effective and robust. A useful tip is that a serrated knife will cut corrugated cardboard but don't let children see you doing this.

If you are neat at cutting out then you can also cut cardboard shapes instead of buying the eva foam shapes.

For other craft things I would look for things which will last the longest - so ink stamps not stickers and pencil crayons or crayons rather than very cheap felt tips as the felt tips never seem to last long.

Samedaysame I was really feeling the Christmas spirit reading all these lovely, supportive posts. I hope you never have the misfortune of having a ‘poor’ time in your life.

Is there is anything more ironic than someone saying in relation to Christmas that you shouldn't have children if you can't afford to get them nice stuff?

@Samedaysame a brief reading of the Christmas story might fill in a few missing blanks you seem to have.

Do you have anything you can sell on ebay or fb marketplace?
Old toys or clothes maybe?

Do you have any subscriptions or direct debts that you could stop?

Can you cut back on weekly spends such as coffees/lunch from cafes.

Can you walk places to cut back on desil costs.

Are you buying supermarkets own brands rather than named brands?

Are you cutting back on electrical/water using to save money.

Are you budgeting weakly grocery spends and using up leftovers/ food that's slightly over date.

Lots of luck op 💐

I am sure you will all have an amazing Christmas. Please do let us know how you get on as I think you are going to pull off a magical Christmas.

Try shops like home bargains if you have one, charity shops and marketplace.
This year I’m going to do some evening work (babysitting) for some extra pennies. Could you do a few nights babysitting? X

Can you tell us the region you live? We might be able to help xx

I don't know what the deleted post was but I'm glad I didn't see it.

This is to everyone on here though, do you think it would be possible to organise meet ups to swap / give / get things?

This isn't the only thread where people are struggling and there are always offers of help

It might be a bit late for this year, and it would need to be regional, there is no point someone travelling hundreds of miles to pick up a card board box.

I'm highly unlikely to work again (teacher) so I've given away loads of pens / pencils / craft materials to a local children's centre but I have text books and ring binders which are not great Xmas presents but might be useful.

What do you think?

If you know what they want or have ideas for them it’s definitely worth looking on eBay/vinted/marketplace. For one of mine we’ve got a hot wheels car park thing, £20 from fb marketplace and there were 8 cars with it. The cars are going in the stocking and I’m adding a wooden spinning top, a blind bag, a couple of playmobil dragons (ebay) sweets/chocolate and some essentials. Very low cost but looks like lots of stuff.

Another one wanted playmobil fairy and unicorn stuff and I got a set from eBay for £12. Again the figures will go in the stocking and I’ll add similar as for the other child as well as some felt tips. The felt tips can then be used with the Aldi colour in Cinderella carriage I’ve got for £8.99. Oh and in the bundle I got the dragons for other child in there was also a playmobil baby with high chair and cot which she will love (going in stocking) and some Christmas figures which are going in the advent calendar.

I’m all about second hand!

Does Facebook have a “buy nothing” gifting page that is local to you? I’ve got a couple of stocking fillers for my girls from there as people are clearing space pre Christmas

@Mum233

Can you tell us the region you live? We might be able to help xx

Yeah id like to know that too.