How to Save $3K By Christmas Day
How to Save $3K Before Christmas Day
There is already Christmas decorations and Christmas Food available in the supermarkets – yep it is frightening, Christmas is just around the corner – AND I CAN’T WAIT!!!! The only huge problem with Christmas is that it is so freaking expensive. Every year I’m totally broke before Christmas Day comes around – but not this year! This year, I’m saving $3000.00 before December 25th – and this is how I’m going to do it – and if you want to save that much cash – you can too.
All these ideas are totally achievable for everyone. Let’s do it and not put Christmas on the credit card this year.
Set Up a Raiz Account
Raiz is the new name for the App Acorns, and it is an App I have used for the last couple of years. What it does is connect to your bank account – and you can easily allocate a set amount to come out of your bank account every day, and it gets placed into an online savings account that is also invested in the Stock Market. At the moment I have that set on $7.50 – and you would be surprised at just how fast this grows – especially when you forget about it for a few months. You can pull the money out at any stage.
Raiz also will round up all your purchases to the nearest dollar, and will put those cents into your online account – and then invest it in the stockmarket.
How much does this save?
90 Days Until Christmas x $7.50 per day savings = $675 by Christmas!
Grab the RAIZ App Here!
Start Buying Christmas Gifts on Sale NOW
Don’t leave all the gift buying until the last few weeks of Christmas when it is mental at the shopping centres. Instead, write a list of all the items you plan on buying for your family, and start doing online shopping right now! Not only could you save up to 20% by shopping online, most of the time when you sign up to newsletters, you can get $20 off your first order or free shipping – and you don’t even have to leave the house!
Here are some great places to buy online gifts:
Ozsale Catch of the Day Yellow Octopus Check out the Shopping Section on Stay at Home Mum How much does this save?
Depends on your spend, but even conservatively by shopping online for two kids, two parents and a partner, you could save $400!
More great tips on saving money online: You can even use the layby Apps such as Afterpay or Zippay if you are good at budgeting over four payments. See if you can find discount codes before hitting the ‘Pay’ button to get an item even cheaper!
Start Saving Shopping Points
Grab a rewards card for your local Supermarket – and instead of cashing in the shopping points as you shop – save them up. I use the Woolworths Rewards card – and save up all my shopping savings for use at Christmas time. I’ve usually got a couple of hundred dollars in there to use!
To save the money rather than spend it – you just need to log into your Woolworths Rewards account and select the savings method you want to use.
How much does this save?
A conservative figure would be $100
Sign up to Shopback and Get $ Back from Your Woolies Shop
I signed up to Shopback last week, I’d never heard of it before. You log into the App and choose who you want to shop with, and you get a percentage of your shop (up to 30%) – back – cash in hand!
They have shops listed such as:
Woolworths Asos eBay Groupon Booking.com Catch
Plus if you refer your mates – you get $5!
How much does this save?
One lady made $600 in four months….. I suppose it depends on your spending, but it doesn’t cost you anything to join and try it!
Buy a $5 Gift Card Every Time You Do the Grocery Shopping
Every time you go through the checkout, ask them to add a $5 or $10 gift card to the total. Grab that gift card and put it away – this is a great way of paying for the really large grocery shop that all of us have to do before Santa comes!
How much does this save?
If you put away $5 worth of gift cards every week between now and Christmas Day – you would have $70.
Do Your Shopping Online Instead of In-Store
The sheer beauty of doing your shopping online is that you know exactly how much you are spending and you can’t be ‘persuaded’ to just throw more items into your shopping bag. Plus you can do in your pyjamas and there is no wear and tear on your car.
Great for budgeting!
How much does this save?
Your sanity! So it’s worth it!
Pop over to Woolworths Online
Get the Kids to Use Their Own Money for Gifts
My kids are way too little to work – so usually for their father’s birthday or Christmas, I buy gifts from the boys to their Dad. Not this year. I have made them clean out their room and do chores to earn their own money. A few hints include:
They have sold back their old video games for $$ They washed and dried their old lego and sold it on Ebay for $15/kilo I started allocating the allowance for extra chores (which is handy coming up to Christmas) – so they are sweeping verandahs, watering plants, helping Dad do the mowing, taking the rubbish to the burning pile for a few dollars per day. I have also ordered them a Spriggy’s card – but I haven’t started using it yet – stay tuned. How much does this save?
About $80 – $100
Ditch the Household Crap and Spring Clean Like a Crazy Person
It is Spring – so Spring Cleaning should be high on the agenda. Getting rid of all the STUFF feels amazing – but don’t just ditch it – sell it for Christmas. Items like old bookcases, televisions, mobile phones, DVD’s and toys always go really well. Here are some great ideas on ways to sell them for maximum profit!
Buy a $10 stall at your local markets and plonk everything on a tarp – sell per item Use Gumtree or Ebay to list the better quality or higher value products. List items on your local Facebook Buy Swap and Sell Pages
Great items to sell include:
Women’s clothing, sunglasses, shoes and unopened makeup items Tools (any age, any condition) DVD’s Old furniture Sporting Equipment How much can you save?
Well, you aren’t so much saving here as making money! Again it would depend on the number of items you can ditch, but a conservative effort would be $500 – $750.
Start a Side Hustle
You know what, many people (crazy I know) HATE the job of putting up Christmas decorations! So why not do that for them – for a fee. This is a great seasonal job you can do that can make you great money if you have a good eye for detail.
Charge around the $100.00 for the standard house (using all their own decorations) – and even ask at your local Supermarket or Corner Store for some commercial work – which could score you upwards of $250.00.
Other great season side-hustles you can try at this time of year include:
Babysitting (all those Christmas parties) Make and Sell Christmas Lolly Sleighs Pamphlet Delivery Christmas Baking and Cooking Organising Christmas Parties Waitressing or Catering Jobs How much can you make?
$100 – $250
More Information? Check out our article ’13 Businesses You Can Start with Less Than $100′ How to Become a Virtual Assistant in Australia 32 Legitimate Ways to Make Money from Your Home
Buy Supermarket Items for Small Gifts
When you think of purchasing a gift for someone, you are usually looking at the $20 mark plus all the rest. But sometimes it is just the gesture that means the most. In our family we buy a heap of blocks of chocolate from the supermarket and wrap it up as a small last minute gift. Around Christmas time we can pick them up for as little as $3 each – the saves up to $17 per gift! Adds up if you are buying a heap of really small gifts.
Other Supermarket Items that make great small gifts include:
Christmas themed biscuit tins Cadbury Scorched Almonds (who doesn’t love them!) Tea Towels with a chocolate bar wrapped in the middle Magazine in a coffee cup Ditch Coffee and Cake for Tea and Biscuits at Home
Getting coffee with the girls to catch up for the Silly Season is a tradition, we are all busy and it is a habit to meet at the coffee shop to meet up with mates… But seriously – by the time you have a couple of coffees – between the group you could easily blow around the $50.00. Instead, opt for a morning tea at home and make a beautiful Sand Cake with Passionfruit Icing – it will certainly beat anything you can buy at the stores – and it is much nicer – especially in the Spring weather when the kids can go play outside.
How much can you save?
$50 easily!
Bake Gifts Instead of Buying
There are some people that are just impossible to buy for. Think your Grandfather or your Boss’ wife. That’s where the gift of Baking works a treat. It comes from the heart and is only a few dollars to make something really really special. Here are some great ideas to try:
Nuts and Bolts Crunchy Snack Mix Homemade Irish Cream Tim Tam Balls Rocky Road Traditional Rum Balls Christmas Fruit Mince Piecaken
Also, check out our Food Gifts section on our website for more great ideas!
How much could you save?
About $75 – $100
Rent Out Your Party Dresses
If you are lucky enough to have some beautiful clothing in your wardrobe, you could clean up here! Coming into the Silly Season, many of us will be going to Christmas Parties and celebrating with our friends and family. That means that many of us will be looking for a new outfit to wear.
So not only do you save money by renting a dress instead of buying it – you can make money if you rent out your own clothing for others!
Check out our article on ‘Where to Rent a Ball Gown or Designer Outfit’ for all the Australian outlets that do this!
How much can you save?
Easily up to $200.00 depending on what you would usually spend on a Christmas outfit.
Put a Monetary Limit on Kid’s Christmas Presents
This is one that I tell you all about, but rarely do it myself (smack smack). I usually allocate about a $200.00 budget for each child for gifts for Christmas, but then I find something else that I think they might like, and the gifts start stacking up.
If you can (and I know it is hard), try and make a budget for the kids and stick with it – they don’t need more STUFF. No to take my own advice…..
How much can you save?
If I used my own figures, I could have saved $400.00 in July for the kids birthdays…..
Save All the Gold Coins You Receive Between Now and Christmas
Or $5 notes – just set a goal – and keep every single gold coin or $5 note you receive in day to day life. Put it in a money box or a somewhere where you won’t be tempted to spend it. This is a nifty way of saving money without ‘saving money’. Another great idea is to get an empty 2-litre bottle of soft drink – wash it out – and fill it with $2 coins. Once full – that bottle will be worth a huge $1500!!!!!
Just by adding up the following – you can save over $3000!!!!! I could certainly do with $3K before Christmas!
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