I know what you’re thinking, Christmas Day?! Even halloween is still far away!
But hear me out, Christmas is FREAKING EXPENSIVE. Years ago, I’m totally broke before Christmas Day comes around.
When I talk with my mum friends, the consensus is that Christmas is the most expensive holiday. There’s food, presents, decor and parties. It drains our finances super fast and my expenses sum up to what I usually spend for 4 months!
So I always prepare for it as early as mid year.
Of course, this system isn’t perfect, some months I can’t or there are things I’d want to spend on more but that’s the point in preparing early, I can skip a month and still be able to save 3K By Christmas Day and this is how I’m going to do it..
If you want to save that much cash – do this too! All these ideas are totally achievable for everyone. Let’s do it and not put Christmas on the credit card this year.
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Here’s How You Can Save 3k By Christmas..
With Christmas fast approaching, it’s a bit hard to think of ways to save money. Sure, it’s possible to help out with the family budget or save money by changing your own behaviour, but that’s a lot easier than cutting out more expensive activities.
Set Up a Raiz Account
Raiz is the new name for the App Acorns, and it is an App I have used for the last couple of years. What it does is connect to your bank account – and you can easily allocate a set amount to come out of your bank account every day, and it gets placed into an online savings account that is also invested in the Stock Market. At the moment I have that set on $7.50 – and you would be surprised at just how fast this grows – especially when you forget about it for a few months. You can pull the money out at any stage.
Raiz also will round up all your purchases to the nearest dollar, and will put those cents into your online account – and then invest it in the stock market.
How much can you save?
90 Days Until Christmas x $7.50 per day savings = $675 by Christmas!
Start Buying Christmas Gifts on Sale NOW
Don’t leave all the gift buying until the last few weeks of Christmas when it is mental at the shopping centres. Instead, write a list of all the items you plan on buying for your family and start doing online shopping right now! Not only could you save up to 20% by shopping online, most of the time when you sign up for newsletters, but you can also get $20 off your first order or free shipping – and you don’t even have to leave the house!
Here are some great Online Deal Sites to buy discount online gifts:
| Amazon Australia Amazon Australia for tech gifts, beauty items, toys and more… the choice is just massive (as are the savings!). The best bits to check out on Amazon include: Amazon Best Sellers, New Releases, Gift Ideas |
| Ozsale Ozsale is my favourite online deal site. A great place to get discounted Fashion (including high-end brands), Beauty & Nails, Toys, Shoes and Fragrances. |
| Yellow Octopus Fun gifts and White Octopus Gifts |
| Kogan Electronics, phones and tech gifts. |
| Crazy Sales Discount sports equipment, electronics, musical instruments, fashion and appliances. |
| Bargains Online Discount bikes, tools and hardware, gym and fitness equipment, petcare and beauty. |
| Deals.com.au Discount holidays, discounted attraction tickets, discount flights |
| Best Deals Today Discount sports and fitness equipment, musical instruments, appliances, pet supplies, travel items and gardening supplies. |
| Hey Hey Cheap cooking and kitchen goods, plants, home and living. |
| Groupon Groupon is great for buying discounted experiences, low-cost dinners, travel deals and spa treatments. |
| Scoopon Much like Groupon, Scoopon offers discounted dinners and experiences. |
| Shop Zero Discounted appliances, tech, phones etc. |
How much can you save by shopping Online Deal Sites?
Depends on your spending, but even conservatively by shopping online for two kids, two parents and a partner, you could save $400!
More great tips on saving money online:
- You can even use the layby Apps such as Afterpay or Zippay if you are good at budgeting over four payments.
- See if you can find discount codes before hitting the ‘Pay’ button to get an item even cheaper!
More Reading:
Start Saving Shopping Points
Grab a rewards card for your local Supermarket – and instead of cashing in the shopping points as you shop – save them up. I use the Woolworths Rewards card – and save up all my shopping savings for use at Christmas time. I’ve usually got a couple of hundred dollars in there to use!
To save money rather than spend it – you just need to log into your Woolworths Rewards account and select the savings method you want to use.
How much can you save? A conservative figure would be $100
Sign up to Shopback and Get $ Back from Your Woolies Shop
I signed up for Shopback last week, I’d never heard of it before. You log into the App and choose who you want to shop with, and you get a percentage of your shop (up to 30%) – back – cash in hand!
They have shops listed such as:
- Woolworths
- Asos
- eBay
- Groupon
- Booking.com
Plus if you refer your mates – you get $5!
How much can you save?
One lady made $600 in four months….. I suppose it depends on your spending, but it doesn’t cost you anything to join and try it!
Buy a $5 Gift Card Every Time You Do the Grocery Shopping
Every time you go through the checkout, ask them to add a $5 or $10 gift card to the total. Grab that gift card and put it away – this is a great way of paying for the really large grocery shop that all of us have to do before Santa comes!
How much can you save?
If you put away $5 worth of gift cards every week between now and Christmas Day – you would have $70.
Do Your Shopping Online Instead of In-Store
The sheer beauty of doing your shopping online is that you know exactly how much you are spending and you can’t be ‘persuaded’ to just throw more items into your shopping bag. Plus you can do it in your pyjamas and there is no wear and tear on your car.
Great for budgeting!
How much can you save? Time, sooo much time, energy preparing to go out and your sanity. The total would be different for each on of us, but if we all can agree that we can save gas money. And a lot of our sanity. It is so worth it!
Get the Kids to Use Their Own Money for Gifts
My kids are way too little to work – so usually for their father’s birthday or Christmas, I buy gifts from the boys for their Dad. Not this year. I have made them clean out their room and do chores to earn their own money. A few hints include:
- They have sold back their old video games for $$
- They washed and dried their old lego and sold it on eBay for $15/kilo
- I started allocating the allowance for extra chores (which is handy coming up to Christmas) – so they are sweeping verandahs, watering plants, helping Dad do the mowing, and taking the rubbish to the burning pile for a few dollars per day.
- I have also ordered them a Spriggy’s card – but I haven’t started using it yet – stay tuned.
How much can you save? About $80 – $100
Ditch the Household Crap and Spring Clean Like a Crazy Person
It is Spring – so Spring Cleaning should be high on the agenda. Getting rid of all the STUFF feels amazing but don’t just ditch it.. sell it for Christmas. Items like old bookcases, televisions, mobile phones, DVDs and toys always go really well. Here are some great ideas on ways to sell them for maximum profit!
- Buy a $10 stall at your local markets and plonk everything on a tarp – sell per item
- Use Gumtree or eBay to list the better quality or higher value products.
- List items on your local Facebook Buy Swap and Sell Pages
Great items to sell include:
- Women’s clothing, sunglasses, shoes and unopened makeup items
- Tools (any age, any condition)
- DVD’s
- Old furniture
- Sporting Equipment
How much can you save?
Well, you aren’t so much saving here as making money! Again it would depend on the number of items you can ditch, but a conservative effort would be $500 – $750.
Start a Side Hustle
You know what, many people (crazy I know) HATE the job of putting up Christmas decorations! So why not do that for them – for a fee? This is a great seasonal job you can do that can make you great money if you have a good eye for detail.
I am guessing you can charge around the $100.00 for the standard house (using all their own decorations) – and even ask at your local Supermarket or Corner Store for some commercial work – which could score you upwards of $250.00. Not sure about the pricing and it could have changed, so ask around before setting your prices or set your own!
Other great season side-hustles you can try at this time of year include:
- Babysitting (all those Christmas parties)
- Make and Sell Christmas Lolly Sleighs
- Pamphlet Delivery
- Christmas Baking and Cooking
- Organising Christmas Parties
- Waitressing or Catering Jobs
How much can you save or make? $100 – $250
Buy Supermarket Items for Small Gifts
When you think of purchasing a gift for someone, you are usually looking at the $20 mark plus all the rest. But sometimes it is just the gesture that means the most.
In our family, we buy a heap of blocks of chocolate from the supermarket and wrap it up as a small last-minute gift.
Around Christmas time we can pick them up for as little as $3 each – that saves up to $17 per gift! Adds up if you are buying a heap of really small gifts.
Other Supermarket Items that make great small gifts include:
- Christmas-themed biscuit tins
- Cadbury Scorched Almonds (who doesn’t love them!)
- Tea Towels with a chocolate bar wrapped in the middle
- Magazine in a coffee cup
Ditch Coffee and Cake for Tea and Biscuits at Home
Getting coffee with the girls to catch up for the Silly Season is a tradition, we are all busy and it is a habit to meet at the coffee shop to meet up with mates..
But seriously – by the time you have a couple of coffees between the group you could easily blow around the $50.00.
Instead, opt for a morning tea at home and make a beautiful Sand Cake decorate with passion fruit icing! And it will certainly beat anything you can buy at the stores – and it is much nicer – especially in the Spring weather when the kids can go play outside.
How much can you save? $50 easily!
Bake Gifts Instead of Buying
There are some people that are just impossible to buy for. Think of your Grandfather or your Boss’ wife. That’s where the gift of Baking works a treat. It comes from the heart and is only a few dollars to make something really really special. Here are some great ideas to try:
- Nuts and Bolts Crunchy Snack Mix
- Homemade Irish Cream
- Tim Tam Balls
- Rocky Road
- Traditional Rum Balls
- Christmas Fruit Mince Piecaken
Also, check out our Food Gifts section on our website for more great ideas!
How much can you save? About $75 – $100
Rent Out Your Party Dresses
If you are lucky enough to have some beautiful clothing in your wardrobe, you could clean up here! Coming into the Silly Season, many of us will be going to Christmas Parties and celebrating with our friends and family. That means that many of us will be looking for a new outfit to wear.
So not only do you save money by renting a dress instead of buying it – you can make money if you rent out your own clothing for others!
Check out our article on ‘Where to Rent a Ball Gown or Designer Outfit’ for all the Australian outlets that do this!
How much can you save? Easily up to $200.00 depending on what you would usually spend on a Christmas outfit.
Put a Monetary Limit on Kid’s Christmas Presents
This is one that I tell you all about but rarely do myself (smack smack). I usually allocate about a $200.00 budget for each child for gifts for Christmas, but then I find something else that I think they might like, and the gifts start stacking up.
If you can (and I know it is hard), try and make a budget for the kids and stick with it – they don’t need more STUFF. Not to take my own advice…..
How much can you save? If I used my own figures, I could have saved $400.00 in July for the kids’ birthdays..
Save All the Gold Coins You Receive Between Now and Christmas
Or $5 notes – just set a goal and keep every single gold coin or $5 note you receive in day-to-day life. Put it in a money box or somewhere where you won’t be tempted to spend it. This is a nifty way of saving money without ‘saving money.
Another great idea is to get an empty 2-litre bottle of soft drink. Wash it out – and fill it with $2 coins. Once full – that bottle will be worth a huge $1500!!!!!
Just by adding up everything you can save over $3000!!!!! I could certainly do with $3K before Christmas!
