Christmas IOU Generator Create your own IOU to tell family you're waiting till the sales
Christmas is the year's costliest shopping time, January sales the cheapest. If you're buying a big-ticket item (plasma TV, PS3), fight back with our specially designed IOU.
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More thrifty Christmas tips
The last-minute Christmas shopping stampede is here, and retailers hope that you’ll ignore the price tags and race for the tills. Yet there are sackfuls of ways to smash the cost of Christmas. Here are a few tricks – see Christmas MoneySaving 2011 for a full guide.
Time to ban Christmas presents?
Now’s the moment to consider giving this Christmas. This isn’t about gifts from parents or to grandchildren, but the ever-widening glut of friends, extended family and colleagues. Christmas isn’t a retail festival, we need to end obliged giving and think more about what given, to who and why.
If you’re yelling over your wrapping paper “what about the joy of giving?” remember gift-giving creates an obligation on recipients to give-back, whether they can afford it or not. For some, the gift of “not obliging you to buy for me” is actually better. Read Scrooge McLewis's full Ban Xmas gifts blog.
Plus why not make a No Unnecessary Present Pact (NUPP) with friends now or at least agree to a Secret Santa or £5 to £10 cap on gifts. If you’re scared to broach this taboo subject, our free Nupp Tool generates the email for you, showing recipients you’re not alone.
It’s not all about the perfect Christmas
Too many people ask: ‘What will make it totally perfect?’ Then they attack the shops in a festive gift-grab, only later questioning their finances. Instead, start with the question: ‘What can I afford to spend on Christmas?’ and work out the best day you can have on that budget.
Free video message from Santa
If your child would love Saint Nick to say hello, visit portablenorthpole.tv/home to create a personalised video message – good for kids big and small, naughty and nice. Just put in a few personal details and Santa will give bespoke words of wisdom.
Downshift your turkey!
Don’t feel you need to buy posh brands for Christmas. For
one ITV1 programme, Martin organised two identical parties for 20
nurses. For one, the tree, drinks and food were all higher level
brands. The other, one brand level lower – ie, if the higher
brand was ‘finest’, the lower was ‘normal’, and if the higher
brand was ‘normal,’ the lower was own-brand.
The guests were
blind to which was which, and actually voted that they liked
the cheaper stuff better. So don’t give in to retail snobbery – see Supermarketing Shopping for more on the downshift challenge. It’s
also worth trying Mysupermarket.com which compares the cost
of your big shop at Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Ocado and Asda online.
Instantly search the best shopping comparison sites
The web often smacks the
high street’s bottom on price. To find the cheapest web retailer, use
a shopbot. These
shopping comparison sites
find where your chosen CD,
book, game, electronics or
owt else is cheapest. Our Megashopbot.com tool auto-searches the best for each category.
The top festive fivers ideas
Every few years we run a contest for the best sub-£5 gift ideas, so if you need inspiration, scan all the past years' winners, including a dinner date for a fiver, sand art brownies (£3), the perfect (gingerbread) man (£2), vinyl record bowls (£4) and edible art. Full list in the Festive Fiver Ideas guide.
More ways to teach kids about money
Explaining to kids why waiting for Christmas presents saves is great financial education. Here are some more ways to teach kids about money. These are just the tip of the iceberg – see Financial Education resources for a full list.
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Teach them a company’s job is to make money
Explain that when you go into a supermarket there are always sweets by the tills, just in case kids have forgotten to ask their parents for some already.
In fact it’s also worth playing a game with your kids in the supermarket. Challenge them to spot all the different ways the supermarket tries to persuade and get people to spend more money. They should enjoy the challenge, but also it’ll be educational. -
Free Teen Cash Class booklet
Martin did a 1-day MoneySaving crash course for a class of 15-year-olds a few years ago for ITV1. They went home and saved their parents £5,000+ - so we turned it into the Teen Cash Class Parents booklet.
The booklet includes exercises, discussions and resource sheets for lesson plans on credit cards, loyalty, impulse-buying etc. -
MoneySaving Tips for Newsround’s nine-year-olds
BBC Childrens’ news programme Newsround did a story about money education in schools and asked Martin for MoneySaving Tips for its audience (target age nine-years-old).
The aim was tips that aren’t just useable now, but a good way to think about money forever. Read Martin's blog. -
Boost your kids' savings
It's possible for children to earn up to 6% in the top savings accounts - yet many have cash in dismally paying accounts, not just depriving them of interest but the chance to learn the valuable lesson that your money can work for you. See Children's Savings for the top paying accounts.
Why not look through the best buys together, explaining accounts pros and cons (if you're unsure see interest rates for beginners) and make the decision together. -
Check Junior Isa & Child Trust Fund rates
The new ISA for kids has launched. They work similarly to adult ISA and are tax-free wrappers for all under-18s born either before 1 Sept ’02 or after 2 Jan ’11. Unlike Child Trust Funds the Government doesn’t add cash.
Don’t go all gooey – not every child’s eligible, and even if they are, it’s not right for all. See a full guide to Junior Isas.
