Christmas is less than 100 days away and the money Saving Expert, Martin Lewis, has issued a list of 16 do-nows to help with your Christmas preparation and to ease the stress and costs of the holidays.
The pieces of advice are varied on sensible mindsets and practices, to gaining free money, Martin has you covered. Even if you don’t follow all the gems of knowledge that he shares, there could be something in here that’ll help make your money go further this Christmas.
His first and most practical bit of advice is to not set your expectations too high and lust for the perfect Christmas. Instead, be sensible and budget and work out what you can afford so as not to have a ‘a New Year financial hangover’. Another tip was to just start saving along with that budget.
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Another piece of advice in the same vein is to start planning the shopping list now and get stuff when they are on offer, way in advance. To know when things are at their cheapest, Martin says to keep an eye on the MSE Deals page but also recommends shopping price-comparison sites, price drop reminder sites and abandoning the shopping basket.
Many people would not get physical presents but gift vouchers, Martin warns that when doing this to be careful the shop does not go bust and to check expiry dates on them. Going further, Martin said you should also ban unnecessary present buying by talking to the extended list of friends, colleagues, classmates and family to ‘release each other from the obligation of buying’.
Some things can give you an extra bit of financial aid for Christmas. Martin says to use supermarket saving stamp schemes, Book travel tickets now, and make the most of cashback schemes like on Amex. You can also get a £30 Amazon voucher by doing quick online activities at Swagbucks, or get a free £175 by changing your current account to First Direct.
Then there is the option to also take stock of what is already in your house and start selling that to make some extra cash and clear the house up a bit. A classic bit of Martin Lewis advice and something he has been plugging a lot recently is to stock up on stamps before the price rises on October 7, so you’re ready for those Christmas cards you will be sending.
The final bit of advice from the Money Saving Guru is to not borrow for Christmas, ‘but if you will, at least ensure it’s at 0 per cent’. Stuff like ‘buy now, pay later’ with payments over a certain amount of months is still debt so just make sure you can make the payments when committing to these sorts of plans.
With all these top tips, hopefully, you can make this Christmas cost-effective and still amazing.
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