It’s finally dawned on you that Christmas is quickly approaching and you’ve not saved a penny! It’s not too late to put aside your pennies for that extra gift, or be super smug and start planning for next year’s Christmas budget.
Here’s some of our top tips:
Write a list
Write down everyone who you need to buy for. This will ensure that you budget correctly and that you don’t miss anyone out!
Take another look. Do you need to buy for someone you worked with 10 years ago and never see?
There comes a time with friends and family when you find you’re exchanging presents unnecessarily – wasting money and probably adding to landfill. Try just buying for the kids, or a secret santa with the adults.the kids.
Set a budget
Think about how much you are happy spending on each person and stick to the amount you’ve set. No more “bits”.
Work out how much you need to save
Total it up (obviously we use a spreadsheet) and, if doing this in January, divide it by 12. That’s how much you need to save from now until Christmas. How are you going to do this?
Save the money
Banks and apps have created easy ways to save money, without realising you’re doing it! Perfect for those people who find it really hard to save.
We recommend Starling saving spaces. If you use Starling for your bank account you can set up saving spaces. You can have different saving spaces for various different things. For example, you may choose to have one for Tax, Christmas and Holiday. This then differentiates what you’re saving for and how much you need to save for each. It’s the perfect way of saving money. I’m sure other other banks also offer this service but as a user of Starling we can highly recommend them.
Saving tip 1: Set up your Starling space to automatically add money as you spend. You can round up your transactions to the nearest pound or nearest £10 etc. You set the amount according to your requirement. An example of this is you spend £10.29 at your local shop, you’ve set your Starling saving space to round up your transactions to the nearest pound. 71p will automatically be added to your savings space. The amount soon adds up!
Saving tip 2: Put money aside when you don’t spend! Do you need ANOTHER Pumpkin Spiced Latte? Save the cup and your wallet, transfer that money into your savings instead. Two Pumpkin Spiced Lattes a week for 4 weeks soon adds up to £40!
Saving tip 3: Cut out all the “unnecessaries”. Confession time – Kathryn has an inflatable Father Christmas outside her house. Save the environment, save your electric bill, and whack the money in your savings pot.
Saving tip 4: Ditch the cards and wrapping paper. In the Frimond house, we all create a strict acceptable Christmas present list with a budget. Deviate from the list at your peril! This means, we all have an idea of what we are getting. It might be a big bah humbug but some family members have even left the presents in the postage packaging. If you aren’t as weird as us, you can also invest in reusable wrapping paper, or reuse last years! It probably comes as no surprise that we also don’t send Christmas cards – ping and email to your friends, save the nice card for grandma.
Saving tip 5: Reduce, reuse, recycle. We all have “thoughtful” gifts hiding in the back of the cupboard we have never used. Get it wrapped up and given to a co-worker! One man’s trash is another man’s treasure! Alternatively, head to your local market or charity shop and see what you can find. For children’s toys we favour Facebook marketplace for bargains.
If you’re thinking ahead to next year’s Christmas spending then maybe it’s a good idea to get saving now. You can take the amount you have in mind to spend, divide it by how long you have to spend and save that amount each month. Set up the standing order to go into your savings account each month so that you don’t miss it.
Worried about savings in your business? Lots of business owners have sleepless nights worrying about tax bills, payroll and supplier invoices. If you want to have a deep dive into your cashflow, then set up a discovery call.
