For a few reasons, you might be able to spot one above. We put it up this weekend. I know, it's not even December! But still it's fun isn't it. I've also set up my Christmas playlist and have been listening to that pretty much none stop.
Love the waitresses:
Anyway back to the topic at hand MONEY.
At this time of year we all start thinking of gifts. Well some of us do, the rest have been thinking about them ALL YEAR!
That's right, I set my budget for this Christmas back when the snow was falling last January. So I'm not exactly sure how realistic it will be.
What I do know is I put a measly £15 - 20 a head into the budget. Too tight? I don't think so!!!
Let's see what we can do.
Well as it turns out I'm not the only one in the family thinking frugally. We were invited round to my in-laws (to be), after a lovely meal with the family we got round to talking about what the plans were for Christmas. Sometimes we go to them, or my parents or we have them to us.
Anyway they have been a little down on their luck this year, with some injuries causing them to take extended sick leave and various changes of jobs also between the family members. So it turns out that they have decided instead of buying everyone gifts they are going to do Secret Santa. Which means instead of me and my partner buying for the whole family, we've been secretly nominated to buy for just two of them.
To cap it off they have imposed a spending limit of £25 per person. This has helped immensely! So instead of 4 presents at ~£20 each, its now £50 total.
I think this is a fab idea, not only does it help cut down on all the over enthusiastic consumerism surrounding Christmas, but no one is left out AND because each person is only buying one gift they can concentrate on making it the BEST GIFT EVER!
So I was all set to go shopping. Had a few other errands to do which just about made taking the car a respectable decision.
Spoke to my sister on the way in for gift ideas for her, she said she wants me to go halves with my brother on a DAB radio, she knew how much the one she wanted was and still insisted on it.
YES! Finally frugality has come to the forefront of everyone's thinking. It's been one of the cores of my thinking for over a year now. How I wish i could have found it earlier.
Any way. Back to buying thoughtful gifts and wishing well.
On a broadening your mind note before I go, Charles Dickens a Christmas Carol is currently free on amazon for kindle / kindle apps. So get out that ereader / smartphone and get some reading done. It's surprisingly short but massively heart warming!
Update: For those without kindle/ smartphone you can get a christmas carol in various formats on project gutenberg, including an audio version. Both are free downloads, that Gutenberg project is totally mega and I would definitely say it's worth having a look through. Can't hurt if it's free can it?!
Stay well ("and know me better man!")
Dom
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