Here is How to Save a Ton This Christmas!

admin | December 21, 2013

Christmas gifts. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There is probably nobody under the sun who won’t love to be a little spendthrift during the festivities! But once all the festivities are over, do you always go through some financial hangover? If yes, you don’t need to be that much worried, really, because there are indeed some smart ways to avoid the pain. Although the season is absolutely being joyful the costs of Christmas can actually leave you with a hole in your savings or a painful stack of unpaid bills. But this nowhere means that you won’t celebrate Christmas or the New Year’s Party. What you need to do is to plan the entire process strategically and here are some unique tips for doing that smoothly –

Plan Ahead – With now only a few days remaining to the party, the planning ship must have sailed much before. And even if you haven’t or didn’t get the time for doing the same, don’t be frustrated; you can still plan and save a lot on those costly foods and gifts. Set yourself a strict budget, write down all the gifts that you have to buy for all the friends and relatives, and most importantly, allocate funds for each before you go on for the shopping.
Trim your present list – If you are going mad looking at the list of people for whom you need to buy gifts, sit with your family members and friends and broach the subject of presents. Try to convince some of your friends about not exchanging any gifts this Christmas or consider setting a price limit for the family gifts, particularly the ones that will purchase for the adults. Alternatively, you can set a ‘Children only’ rule and strictly follow it and do things like arranging secret Santa. Set a maximum price for each gift well in advance, and thus, you can save a lot on the gift costs.
Make the most of the gift vouchers – Look for some elusive gift vouchers at home. As studies have shown a huge percentage of gift cards and vouchers left unused, every year. Make sure you make the most of any rewards that you have earned on any loyalty cards. See if you can covert the points into vouchers instead of cashing them in at the time of billing. Again most retailers run special promotions in the run-up to Christmas to bump up your points. Also consider taking some personal loans from agencies like cashloans.eu or other organizations.
Switch your supermarket – Buying the vegetables and other packaged foods can be extremely costly during the festive season. So, try to make the most of the supermarket discounts. Apart from the cut-price party foods, the supermarkets also stock good quality festive delicacies like gingerbread treats. But make sure you don’t buy too much foods that will remain unused after the party ends, and you have to trash all those excess products, bought from your hard-earned money. Consider planning all the meals and delicacies for the guests in order to avoid wastes.

Author’s Bio – Jacks is a popular author and is associated with a number of reputed blogs since the last 10 years. His areas of interest include personal finance, debt management, insurance etc.