AD: How to do Christmas on a budget

AD: This post is an advertorial with The Nottingham, but all words and tips on how to smash out Christmas on a budget are all my own.

Let’s get real for a moment, Christmas can be expensive, but it doesn’t have to be. I’ve teamed up with The Nottingham to give you all the tips on how to do Christmas on a budget. So grab a hot chocolate, shake ya jingle bells and cosy up. Let’s get to it.

Make your own decorations

I have been making my own decorations for years, and thanks to my mum I’ve had lots of practice and I intend to pass these tips onto my children. Here are a few of the easiest make-your-own decorations instructions:

• Orange slices: Simply slice up an orange in 1-2cm slices, wipe off the excess juice, place on a metal cooling rack and pop in the oven for 3 hours on 120c (turn them regularly, roughly every 30 minutes). Once cool, use a needle and thread to create loops to hang them with.
• Twig ornaments: This one is brilliant with children. First of all, go for a walk and collect a load of twigs. Once home, arrange them into star shapes or Christmas trees and use a glue gun or string to piece together. Let them set and loop through some string to hang them off your tree. Bonus points if you use red/green twine around the twigs.
• Salt dough decorations: I’ve made salt dough plenty of times with my children, and Christmas will be no exception. Simply Google salt dough recipes, and you’ll find you can use basic kitchen ingredients (flour, salt & water) to create clay-like decorations that you can either leave natural coloured or paint! Easy peasy, although it does help if you have a load of cookie cutters.
• Twig vase: My new favourite for this year. The other day I literally went for a wander on my daily walk and grabbed a couple of large twigs that I had an idea for. I took them home with the intention to spray them white or silver but loved the natural wood feel. Simply pop a couple in a vase and decorate with a few baubles (or make your own paper snowflake decorations) and hang from each sprig. It can look incredibly effective and guess what? You’ve spent only your time.

Shop around for the best price

Seems obvious doesn’t it? Shopping online can really work wonders in giving you a little bit more stretch to your budget says The Nottingham. Consider how easy it is to Google a product and find a number of different costs, delivery dates and much more. Best of all, during 2020, this is the safest and most convenient way to do it, all from your sofa… or bed.

Reuse/Repurpose ANYTHING

I highly recommend making more conscious choices when buying Christmas decorations. Ask yourself, can I reuse this and how? For example, a few years ago I purchased two plain pine garlands. I figured each year I could decorate them differently and move them around my house to reflect my theme of the year. This year was no exception. The pine garlands were stripped of the cinnamon sticks, red berries and gold ornaments I’d used in my previous year and replaced by wrapping artificial eucalyptus around them (then usually sits in a jar on my dining table), pine cones from my daily walk, wooden decorations I’d bought for crafting and placed around my door for a change!

 

Limit Christmas Gifting

This year has been particularly difficult for people’s finances, and I’ve largely been following these tips on how to make December pay last till January (it’ll be a first trust me), but one major thing I’ve taken away from it is to budget more. The Nottingham commissioned some research* which found that from over 1,000 people surveyed, the estimated value of reduced expenditure for Christmas 2020 is around £2.3 billion! Plus, 37% of people are planning to spend less on gifts. Me included, it seems. I made an agreement with my sister this year that’d we’d only buy presents for the children as now there are more children in the family and this will save us all a fortune. Another agreement was not to go too mad for the children, as they’re all under the age of 4 it seems prevalent to buy them things they really need or things they can keep for a long time.

Save Money on your Christmas ‘Feast’

Every year, tonnes of food is bought in excess for Christmas dinner and it has me wondering if it’s all really necessary? Of course we want it to be special but what if we implement small tips to lessen the burden on the purse and save on food waste? If you do have leftovers, why not plan some leftover meals too? Turkey curry is a go-to for most of my friends.

What ways do you ensure that you do Christmas on a budget?

Violet x

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*The adult population of the UK is 52 million people. Consumer Intelligence interviewed 1,009 people across the UK.  They represented the demographic profile of the UK.