They'd like to know what plans you have to get finances in order - or is it something you manage well, try to avoid thinking about or leave 'til the new year to sort?
Always think about it - keeping on top of it helps.
Do you wait for sales or discounts when buying gifts - does this help you? Start buying for Christmas in the January sales - and then throughout the year whenever I see something good. In fact, I have some toy cars for the dc that I happened to spot in Sainsburys Clearance sale over a year ago - with 85% off sets of hotwheel cars, so I bought lots - they got a set each last year and will get another set this year. The sets of 5 cars cost as much as an individual car does normally so easy to know that it was worth picking them up and they would get used eventually.
Do you set budgets for gifts, food, drink etc - if so, why? If not, why not? Has this changed since the recession started?
I don't sit down and work out a budget but try to keep it reasonable and within certain limits - for the dc, dh, my sis and her family, my relatives, for dh's family, friends... It has also got to the point where I can buy job lots of presents for certain groups - eg dh has lots of siblings, mostly now with grown up families. So they tend to get a box of nice biscuits or big tin of panettone - which I pick up in Costco as soon as I spot them, £5 instead of £18 in the shops. This year I am getting twitchy as they are already in and dh hasn't even begun to think about how many of his family we are likely to bump into around xmas - last year was a big family celebration so we saw everyone and it was easy to hand stuff over. Obviously I don't want to be buying panettone only to discover we are sending presents.
When in comes to food I do a mixture of cheap and expensive - I order our turkey from waitrose because we have always had really nice ones from there (and some dodgy ones from other supermarkets). But I do go to the market to get my fruit and veg where it is significantly cheaper and the quality is fantastic.
I also bulk shop for stuff where appropriate in costco and look in places like lidl and aldi too.
Do you shop online or do you prefer to buy gifts in person? Do you feel safe shopping online?
Mixture of both - some stuff can be bought easily online, especially from big shops (amazon, john lewis, marks and sparks etc), not least for friends that live up in the Shetlands or from other well known brands abroad for friends in the US and Oz, helps to save on delivery and postage. Must admit I am a stinge and never pay for gift wrapping on presents - always makes me gulp when you see how much they charge (when we got married I worked out that people had probably spent a combined £200 or more on having our gifts giftwrapped when we got to take them out of the boxes they came in anyway, and the wrapping then needed to be disposed of. wish they gave an option to the wedding couple of do you want cash vouchers to the value of your gift wrapping!)
I don't tend to order from sites that I don't know or get good recommendations about. MN and MSE are useful sites to get reliable info on whether or not retailers are good.
I also make use of the click and collect facility offered by lots of sites now - means that you can go to the store, have a mooch around and look to see what else catches your eye but know that you have the main things you are going for sitting there waiting for you to pick up at the end - best of both worlds!
What money saving tips can you pass on to others at this festive time - for example - do you make your own gifts? Do you buy fewer gifts?
- Start looking early and don't be afraid to buy stuff in the sales
- Keep a notebook or list on your phone or computer with details of what you have bought and where you have hidden it. You don't want to get to a day or two before christmas and discover that you can't find anything, meaning a mad expensive dash to the shops to get something worse than have already bought and lost. or that you have bought 3 presents for auntie mary but nothing for cousin bill.
- Do not call this notebook or list anything that hints that it contains your santa secrets - it needs to have a Clark Kent disguise and look very boring. Mine is called 'Curtain Fabrics' which I know will keep out everybody!
- Keep a budget in mind - and also a relative equivalent budget of what it looks like you are spending. Whilst it is great getting a bargain you don't want to discover that for one nephew you have got a massive Kreo transformer lego type set that cost you £8 instead of £48 (thank you Argos summer clearance!) but that for the other one the £10 only bought a small full price toy that doesn't look like much and even though you spent a bit more it looks like they have got a much lesser present.
- It can be incredibly time consuming to be an uber bargain hunter so make use of tools and tips, the christmas threads on MN have been great already this year, MSE site provides lots of hints and tools. Sign up for the main sites you like for their newsletters and money off vouchers. Sometimes it is better to set a limit - and decide that if you see something for 50% off (or whatever) then you will buy it - even if there is a chance you will see it for less later - because you won't waste lots of time watching the computer waiting for the price to fall further and also risking it being sold out altogether.
How much will you and your family spend on Christmas this year? Have you been saving for Christmas or buying things over the last few months or year?
Not saving per se - just buying things as and when I have seen them through the year.
I usually set myself a challenge of not buying anything that is full price or not on offer in some way - managed it last year, previous year all ds2 wanted was a mickey mouse cuddly toy that wasn't on offer so did relent and get that but everything else that everybody else got was a bargain. This year dh wants a board game set he has seen in John Lewis that hasn't come down in price in the last 3 years (he's wanted it for 3 years actually...) and so I figure I might have to just splash out on that. I have also seen the Bletchley Park/Alan Turing Monopoly set that I think he would love - they are selling them to raise money for BP though so I don't think they will come down in price and it's for a good cause.