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.

The gift of family quality time. Write on slips of paper activities such as a visit to the park, feeding the ducks, a visit to McDonald's etc. Make a good 30/40 ideas fold the paper up and pop it in a jar and pop a label on the jar calling it whatever name you think of. Then during the year each child lucky dips a slip of paper and that's your family activity for the day.

Also do you have anything that you could sell on Facebook marketplace to raise some extra cash?

Definitely join vinted and have a look for toys on there. Also I’d suggest going into the works, they often have board games/craft kits and toys at 2 for 10 ect you’d definitely get a lot for your budget in there. Brand new story books can often be 10 for £5 in the works also. I also suggest pound toy . Co.uk for really cheap stocking fillers. My 3yr old prefers really silly cheap things like bubbles, playdoh, suprise eggs, squishems, pop it’s etc to really expensive toys any day of the week.

Also check out poundtoy they do some great stocking fillers also check out gumtree like PPs said a lot of people are having clear outs this time off year.

Have a look at homemade science projects like make slime, make an explosion with a cheap bottle off coke and mentos

www.weareteachers.com/easy-science-experiments/
They have some great ideas I'm sure you can pick some and box up in the right quantities for your 2 older children present.

One year I gave DD6 a filing box with drawers with pound shop stationery.

So top drawer was colouring pencils, middle drawer was paper and card

Bottom drawer was glue, glitter, scissors etc.

If you have a similar box or can find one in a charity shop, you can decorate with stickers etc. Then sharpen all your existing crayons and pencils and bunch together with ribbons.

It was so special for her but the outlay was only a few pounds.

Our area has a Facebook group that gifts everything - toys, clothes, decorations, books, everything.

A friend of mine makes a piñata, you could paint it in Xmassy colours and fill with sweets.

actiongirl1978 I love your stationary box idea, that’s something I would have really enjoyed as a child as I loved to organise and sort things.
The large packs of felt tips are a good present as they look big under the tree.

For the stockings you could make fudge, cookies and little bags of festive popcorn? Or little sweets.

The Argos 2 for 15 is a great idea.

My two still talk about getting 'Crazy Soap' from Santa - they get super excited about it every year, might be a good stocking filler. www.boots.com/kids-stuff-crazy-foaming-soap-blue-225ml-10199586

My son also likes the colour changing soap www.boots.com/kids-stuff-colour-change-bath-300ml-10229213

@Wellyscooterwalk

Thank you very, very much everyone for taking the time to reply and the fantastic ideas. I’m so grateful.

Balloons (fab! They love balloons and I have some left over from previous birthdays!), DIY messy play kit and alphabet toys, hot chocolate kit in jars, bird feeder kit and reshaping crayons all fantastic and the kids will love them.

I don’t have Facebook but maybe I’ll have to temporarily join for the sake of marketplace, thank you.

@Kikkomam our charity shops are similar, some items are more than they would be new .

@JingsMahBucket it doesn’t include the Christmas food no. We will obviously forgo Alcohol/snacks this year so the cost of a basic Christmas dinner will fit within our usual food shop if we’re careful. We’re happy with previous years decorations too so the only new ones this year will be homemade/brought home from school 😄.

I was feeling so get up about making this work but this thread has given me so much enthusiasm, thank you.

If you do join Facebook definetly look for a local freebay group too

The works have 10 books for £10. They're mainly Christmas books but there are some that aren't. It includes books like the Polar Express and the dinosaur that pooped Christmas.. These would be good for the younger two.

My kids loved Hairy Maclairy

Facebook market place! I got a John Lewis dolls house as a joint present for my two girls. £100 in John Lewis I got it for £20 x

Join your local Freecycle group and ask for toys, books or clothes.

Balloons everywhere around the two year olds pressies, makes the whole thing look ‘more’ on Christmas morning . If you have disco/fairy lights, tinsel, bubbles and good music then you can get away with anything.
Charity shop books are good, especially ones with dust jackets that can be removed to reveal a perfect edition underneath.
Also look for presents in the bric a brac section,
Nice eggcups, weird ornaments etc can be quite special and sometimes cost pennies.
Charity shops are often expensive these days but church jumble sales and school fairs can be excellent places to pick up really good second hand toys more cheaply.
A second hand Christmas jumper/ a pre loved giant bear/ some pound shop bubbles /few books a poundshop selection box, some crayons etc..
Not too pricey but makes a nice ‘pile’ of things to open.
I have in the past resorted to budget presents that were things I’d usually say ‘no’ to on normal occasions, so mad blue gobstoppers, ear piercing and … a hamster. Not suggesting you should buy a hamster for Christmas but you get the idea. A little bit of acquiescence goes a long way at Christmas!

I'd budget £10 for the two year old...buy some playdoh and a couple of books from the pound shop.

Older kids get £45 each

I'd also include to bulk things out...

Selection box
Huge tub of popcorn and a dvd to share

I've get each dc 2 gifts from the argos 2 for £15 sale, and 2 gifts from the works 2 for £10 sale. Then five little things from the pound shop for a stocking. £10 left over for a tub of sweets and some crackers.

The dc won't care. Spent time together send have fun. Play some board games, watch a film, the important things don't cost money.

Can you skip the Christmas stocking and just get them one or two nice presents and maybe some cheap chocolate?

Also, get your hands on some whoopee cushions. Best present ever, I don't care how old you are . When I got one for my daughter one year it was played with far far far more than anything else - mainly because she could get all us grown-ups joining in with the joke and that was the bit she liked about it most.

Also, as PPs have said, things like huge bars of chocolate are exciting to get, ESPECIALLY if they're allowed to eat some for breakfast for one day only - it's the sudden license that's fun and memorable.

Check gumtree too for used toys in your area. Most people use Facebook marketplace nowadays so you might get some bargains on there. I sell on there occasionally as I don’t want to use marketplace.

In our house Santa always wraps presents in old newspaper (environmentally friendly) as we still have a stash from several years ago.

I agree with all the pp who have said to focus on family experiences. We had a couple of years when the DC were small where finances were very tight and most of the presents we gave came from charity shops or were things we were buying anyway. Some of the things we did were:

• DC made boxes of sweets to give to grandparents (decorated a couple of small boxes we had lying around and filled with fudge we made together)
• Night time (very early evening but after dark) trips out to see the Xmas lights in nearby villages. We also took a flask of hot chocolate.
• Covered the kitchen floor with old sheets and did a messy morning. Favourite was corn flour mixed in to a paste with water. Looks a bit like snow (so vaguely fits the Xmas theme) but behaves oddly- so you can roll it in to a 'snowball' in your hands and it acts like a solid but once you stop rolling it in your hands it goes liquid and runs away. Bonus points there for fitting in with primary school science!
• Visited 'Santa' at a local charity fundraiser for £1, rather than the usual expensive trip to a commercial event

One of my favourite things growing up was a battered old cardboard box which Mum had put some sparkly clothes in - things that were way too big, but had sequins etc on ..that and old costume jewelry that I could put on.. just a dressing up box - could you ask around for that sort of stuff ?? Anyone getting rid of sparkly scarves, feather boas, beads and bangles etc??

Also if you have a garden could you build a mud kitchen?? They cost £££ new, but a second hand sink in some pallets etc with some pans and kitchen utensils from a charity shop??

Also you can get Christmas mugs from supermarkets fairly cheaply - add some hot chocolate, marshmallows and squirty cream and make a little hot (well warm at that age) chocolate station for the family?

Is your eight year old into art?
I spent £20 in the works on my art obsessed niece and ended up making a full artist kit.
Paints, brushes, paper, instructional book, sketch pencils

Huge cardboard box full of balloons
Wrapping paper over door to burst through in the morning - like unwrapping the living room
Second charity shops!

are you crafty at all?
My favourite present at 8 years old was a doll with a crocheted dress on from my nan. It looked like me and 22 years later I still have her and cherish it.

The best present my girls ever got was when I asked the school for a copy of the blank register pages they used and made them a folder register. They played schools for hours on hours with that thing!