Christmas on a budget

Christmas on a budget do not have to be boring or sad event. With some savings advice and a little bit of your creativity, you’ll have the Christmas of your dreams. How to start?

Set up the Christmas budget

Think, how much you can afford to spend on Christmas. Do not go over the board. Even, if you can spend a lot, you really do not have to. Save money for different time or overpay your mortgage.

Knowing, how much money you have to spend, you can easier manage them and not be tempted by sudden offers of things you do not need.

Remember that you will have to set up budget for food, gifts, decorations, events, extras.

Plan your meals

It is so easy to buy too much food for Christmas. It ends up with a waste or a few pounds extra after Christmas.

Sit down and plan, what you will eat during Christmas Eve, what will be your menu during Christmas Day, what food you will eat during Boxing Day. It is good to plan a few more days as well. It would be perfect, if you would plan your meals till New Years Eve.

Then you can keep going and save even more money, planning your meals in advance during the whole next year.

Make a list of gifts

If you will know, how many presents you can buy. Then you can check with your budget, how much you can spend for each of them.

There are a few options to organise buying gifts on a budget.

You can also discover ideas, how to save money when you are shopping.

Have Christmas dinner on a budget

It is possible to have a Christmas dinner on a budget. You can really save your money, if you will plan responsibly.

Also, you can make people involved in preparing it. Each guest would be responsible for preparing something or at least getting some snacks or beverage.

Save on Christmas decorations

You will definitely save on Christmas decorations, if you will use the old ones. If you need to really think about the budget, do not buy new decorations, you do not need them. If you can’t help and have to buy something, consider buying from charities or set up a very small budget to get 1-3 new Christmas decorations for this year.

If you have children, they can make new decorations. It is a great way to make them involved into something, while you will be focused doing something else. You can also spend this time helping them. Probably it will be one of their precious memories of their life.

Find, how to make Christmas decorations.

Do not forget that you can decorate your house for free, if you will bring some pretty branches from your garden. It can be almost any branch but spruce or Cornus Alba Siberica are really beautiful. Think about cutting some rose hips or holly bush branches.

You can decorate your house with red apples, lemons, oranges, other food like mince pies, cinnamon sticks, cookies in the jars, bottle of wine. Food can be decorative itself. It is so eco friendly as it can be.

Save on Christmas tree

The best way to save on Christmas tree, is going for the alternative Christmas tree.

Eventually, in a long term the best option is getting the good quality artificial Christmas tree and taking care of it for years. You do not have to buy a new one. Go for the secondhand Christmas tree. So many people love to change them every few years. Some of them do get rid of plastic items from their homes (not bad idea!). Check online and in the local charity shops.

If you always had a real Christmas tree and this time your budget doesn’t let you buy one, there are still options. In the previous years, some shops like IKEA let you get your Christmas trees for certain amount of money but then you could get them back shopping there in January. If you would need to buy there something anyway, this can be an option.

You can buy a small Christmas tree in a pot. Then you can plant it outside. Next year the plant can be a source of your branches to decorate your house for free.

Also, who said that you need a Christmas tree? This tradition started in 16th century.

Make new Christmas traditions

You can set up new Christmas traditions, which will cost you nothing. Or almost nothing.

Have a nice family walk in the woodlands. Walk across the lighten up streets in the evening. Make a hot drink party in your garden. Go together to the nicely decorated garden centre without taking any money or with very a tiny budget.

There is so much more things to do without any money.