Every week I share five frugal things that I’ve done during that week just to show you that the small things you do all add up to a great frugal lifestyle where you can learn to live a fabulously frugal life but being so close to Christmas, I thought I’d switch it up a bit and share some of the things I’ve done to save money this Christmas.
Hey! 👐
1) This is one I know I’ve mentioned but I’m calling it out again anyway as it’s such a big one for me when it comes to Christmas shopping. I do three things all year round so when it comes to Christmas, I have funds ready to do some of my Christmas shopping.
- Use my banking app to round off every purchase to the nearest pound, double it and add it to a Christmas savings pot so I have a little stash of cash ready to go.
- Save points on my Boots Advantage card taking advantage of any offers for extra points on the app. You won’t save a fortune from this one as it’s often cheaper to buy things elsewhere rather than Boots but I got enough points to buy some perfume that Miss Frugal was after and some aftershave for Master Frugal so it was definitely worth doing.
- And finally, the big one for me is Swagbucks which I’ve probably mentioned a million times on here already but genuinely, for the last three year’s it’s been a huge help as I’ve done a few bits on there every week which has slowly built up my balance of ‘Swagbucks’ and every November, I’ve converted them to vouchers which I’ve been able to use for shopping. My refer a friend link is here if you want to have a look around and get started now for next Christmas.
2) From around the end of October, I start our Christmas Cupboard which I basically slowly fill with random treat things each week that I buy when I do my weekly food shopping. It’s not really a cupboard to be fair – it’s a big bag for life in the garage which I’ll bring inside and unpack on Christmas Eve so we have lots of treats for us to enjoy over Christmas without me having to spend a fortune on a big Christmas shop.
3) Staying on the food theme, we don’t go all out for Christmas Day food either. To me, Christmas dinner is just one meal and I don’t want to spend a fortune on the food itself or have it take me half a day to cook so it’s just a Sunday dinner in reality for us. We’re not huge turkey fans so we’ll have gammon and chicken most likely with the usual veg, roasties and Yorkshires. we don’t go for starters usually and the pudding is just a fancy cake from the freezer section at the supermarket.
4) Literally everything I’ve bought online has been for the best possible price I can find it for! I’ve used cashback sites, googled for the best prices and then used Honey to make sure I can’t bring the price down any lower. I’d say that in around 50% cases, I’ve been able to save money on my shopping.
5) I’m usually a fan of giving experiences at Christmas but this year it’s a bit different as I’m reluctant to give an experience when there’s no timescale on when we’ll be allowed to do that so I’ve scaled back on that this year but I have printed out some of my printable gift certificates and made some promises on what we’ll do when we’re allowed to.
I can’t tell you what they are in case there are little eyes reading this but there’s some fun stuff in there that I think the kids will get a kick out of.
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As always, we’d love you to join in with us by sharing anything you’ve done that’s been thrifty or frugal from your week – whether it’s an Instagram picture (#5frugalthings), a blog post or even a video. Just add your link to the Frugal Friday linky at the bottom of this post.
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I’m linking up with this Cass, Emma and Becky in this week’s ‘Frugal Friday’ linky.
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