Four easy ways to save money this Christmas

Christmas may be the season of joy and goodwill, but it is also the season of spending. Often our enthusiasm for being festive outpaces our bank balances.

However, there are some simple ways to save some money without taking the enjoyment out of the season. Some of these may even make your Christmas even better.

Here are four simple ideas to curtail your Christmas budget:

1. Make your own crackers

Who isn’t tired of paying up for expensive crackers with the same gifts, the party hats that make you sweat, and the same lame jokes every year? (What’s Santa’s favourite pizza? One that’s deep pan, crisp and even.)

Making your own crackers might sound like an awful effort, but it can really be quite simple and extremely cost effective. A number of craft shops sell the cracker bodies that just need to be folded into shape, together with the ‘snaps’ that deliver the necessary bang when they are pulled. (You could download the template from the internet and cut some patterned cardboard or wrapping paper yourself, but this would be a lot more time consuming.)

Easy, cheap and always popular fillings, include luxury chocolate balls, mini soaps or lip gloss. Tiny bottles of whisky or liqueur also go down well, depending on the company.

Making Christmas crackers can also be a fun activity for your children to keep them busy for a few hours during the holidays. And that is priceless.

2. Make your own gifts

Depending on the size of your family, Christmas gift shopping can easily bite a big chunk out of your budget. It could also mean spending hours at crowded malls dodging speeding trolleys and cosmetics salespeople.

A far more relaxing and cost-effective option is to make gifts yourself, and it’s quite possible to do this tastefully. Baking biscuits and making jam are old favourites, but there are other options too.

You can make up your own mini hampers by ordering small hand-crafted pottery dishes online and filling them with personalised treats like artisanal chocolate and home-made confectionery. Wrap these up in cellophane and you have gifts that everyone will love.

3. Order your drinks online

Christmas almost demands good wine or even some top class South African brandy, and who doesn’t deserve a drink after a long year of hard work? But just popping down to your local off-license and filling a trolley is not always the best idea.

Firstly, you can’t be sure of getting the best prices, and secondly you’re likely to grab more than you really need just because it’s there and you’re in a festive mood.

Ordering drinks online can be a lot cheaper as you can looks for specials at the many local online stores available. You can also be unemotional about how much you actually need when the bottles aren’t staring you in the face.

Some shops also allow you to collect, which means there is no delivery fee. And that’s more money you can keep in your pocket.

4. Don’t try to feed everyone yourself

If you’re hosting the family Christmas dinner, you will inevitably face the temptation of providing everything. After all, that’s what good hosts do.

There is however nothing wrong with asking everyone to chip in. You may want to do the main dishes yourself, but a salad here and a dessert there will not only save you time in the kitchen, but also get everyone involved in the meal and spread around some of the cost.

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