10 Easy Ways to Save Money To Pay for Christmas

Christmas is only around the corner!

If you haven’t thought about it already, it is time to start budgeting for the most expensive time of the year.

So here are 10 really easy ways to start saving money for Christmas right now. The sooner you start, the easier it will be – so get cracking!

1. Keep Any $5 Dollar Note and Put It In a Tin

Grab one of those $2 money tins, and keep every single $5 note you receive. It is now ‘Christmas Tax’. Annoying when you hand over a $50 note and get all $5’s in return, but you have to do it! You can do the same with gold coins if you can’t do $5 notes!

2. Buy a $10 Gift Card Every Time You Do the Food Shopping

I think that the most expensive part of Christmas is the food. By the time you add up all the little Christmas extras (like the chocolate-covered almonds – yummmm), it can cost a fortune for a single meal! By buying a gift card on top of your shopping every week or fortnight, it is an easy way to accumulate enough gift cards to pay for Christmas food. Just ask at the checkout as you are going through!

3. Start a Christmas Savings Account

Set up a separate bank account just for Christmas. Then go into your internet banking and set up a weekly/fortnightly transfers of funds for the day you get paid. This is a painless way of saving money without having to really ‘do’ anything. The sooner you set it up, the less you need to spend.

4. Extend Your Shopping By One Day a Week

Instead of shopping say every Saturday morning, try and extend your shopping by a single day every week. After seven weeks, you have effectively saved as much money as you would spend on a normal shop (which depending on your family could be hundreds of dollars!). By putting about 10% of that shopping money away every week, you will easily save money for Christmas!

5. Go Without Your Coffee

Say you buy a fancy coffee every day, and that coffee costs $5. Well, if you started to make coffee at home today, by Christmas, you would have a whopping $400 in your Christmas fund! Just by giving up coffee! Imagine if you also cut back on snacks, bottled water and other things that you don’t really need. It is the small things that really add up, be conscious about where your money is going, and transfer the amount you would have spent in your Christmas fund instead!

6. Bake or Make Some Gifts

Not sure what to get Aunty Sue this year, or Grandma Jones? Instead of spending money on a gift, consider making a ‘gift of food’.  Not only will it cost considerably less, it is really from the heart. Think about items like:

• Lemon Butter
• Nuts & Bolts
• Fudge

7. Make Some Simple Christmas Gifts to Sell to Family and Friends

If you are crafty, why not make some small gifts that you can sell to your family or friends or at your local school to make a few bucks for Christmas. Mums are really busy these days, so if you make something that appeals to a wide audience and keep the price relatively low, you will be onto a winner. We suggest the following:

• Christmas Lolly Sleighs
• Cookie Mix in a Jar
• 20 Unique Gift Ideas in a Jar

Other places to sell your goods include your local Buy, Swap and Sell Pages, Etsy and Ebay.

8. Offer Your Services as a Christmas Shopper

As mentioned above, many parents are super busy around the Christmas period. They are very time poor and the thought of organising everything for Christmas can be very overwhelming. Why not offer your services as a Christmas Shopper. Advertise in school newsletters and on Facebook. Make sure you listen to what your clients want – and stick to the budget given. You can charge up to $25/hour for something like this!

9. Clean Out the Kids’ Wardrobe and Sell Unwanted Items

Kids go through clothing like nothing else. Go through your kids rooms and put aside anything they don’t wear, have outgrown or don’t use anymore (toys too). Then advertise them on your local Buy Swap and Sell pages (as they are free!). A great way to make a bit of cash to put aside for Christmas. Even better if you own some Lego that you don’t want or the kids don’t play with anymore, coming up to Christmas, Lego is liquid gold and people pay up to $26/kg for it – have a look on Ebay!

10. Buy Second Hand Furniture and ‘Upcycle’ It For a Profit

Again, if you are a crafty person, keep an eye out on online forums and buy, sell and swap pages, see if you can pick up old timber chairs or wooden chests. Invest in some chalk paint or similar – and then re-sell at a profit. Yes, it does take a bit of time and patience, but if you can buy low enough, you can make some real money. Stick to popular colours that are trending (look at Pinterest for some inspiration) or even take orders!

Do you have anything else to add to this list?