Christmas Savings!!

As we get closer to Christmas, shopping addictions start take over, if your like myself you love to shop, until you drop!! Personally I like to save and spend a little bit of my money, but at this time of year it's a little less spending and more saving. I thought that I would give you a few tips on how to start saving for Christmas, so that you don't have to worry when it comes to buying presents!! I have five main tips that will hopefully help you to start saving!!

Tip 1: The Spare Change
So my first tip is all about your spare change. I am defiantly someone that throws spare change in to my hand bag all of the time and I suppose that it's sort of a bad thing. I have started to get out of this bad habit now and I have started to put all of my spare change that I find in the bottom of my bag in to a little glass jar. I think that this is a really good idea because all of your pennies do add up, I would suggest getting a little jar of your own to keep all of your change in so that you can start saving, keep it in a place where you will remember to actually put your change in it!! Although pennies only add up to a small amount its a quick way to save a few pounds!!

Tip 2: Seasonal Jobs
My next piece of advice is to get a seasonal job. This isn't suitable for everyone depending on your age, because it can be quite difficult. A good seasonal job is to babysit, if you have any neighbours or family members with young children, Christmas is one of the busiest times of the year when more people like to go out to party's. You could offer to babysit for a small amount of money and you could find your self getting a regular babysitting job!! Another thing is too go to your local cafes to see if they have any seasonal work. A lot of small businesses are easier to get jobs at, during the Christmas season as they are a lot busier and you don't have to waste your time filling out application forms for a job with a big company. However saying that, if you are old enough to get a part time job you can give in your CV and work throughout December, a lot of places need staff during this busy season and so I would recommend applying if you want a bit of extra cash and you have some free weekends!!

Tip 3: Saving/Spending Account
Moving on to your bank account next, if you do have a job you should consider setting up a saving and spending account. This is a great way to balance out your money. I have currently set up my own spending and saving accounts and I think it is going to be really beneficial to me. If you have a job you should consider putting half of your money in to your savings account for your future and keeping the other half in a spending account so that you can still spend a little money if you want too. I'm not saying that you must defiantly do this but if you want to keep money for a rainy day or just don't know what to do with it, you should consider a saving account. This is also great for Christmas as you can put some money aside in one account so that you don't spend it all at once!!

Tip 4: Present Preparations
Next is present preparations, this is my advice about how you could organise your Christmas list. I for one like to consider my budget and how much I am going to spend on each person. I found this really good app which I think will come in useful for everyone this Christmas season. It is free from the app store and it is called 'Manage Christmas - Christmas Gift List' (the icon is a white present with a red background), it allows you to enter your budget, list all of the people you are going to buy presents for and how much you are going to spend on them, as well as showing you gift ideas and telling you if your over or under budget!!! This is honestly one of the best apps I have downloaded, its great for when you are out and about, so that you can check your list to see what you have brought. I defiantly recommend you download this if you are wanting to be prepared this Christmas!!!

Tip 5: Buying Presents
Last but not least is buying presents. Last year I brought all of my presents really early on in December which is great for if you like to be organised. However after buying all of my presents, a week later they were all reduced in price!! This meant that I could have saved a lot of money. This year I am going to wait a little longer, the best way to buy presents is too get gift guides from shops that you want to get presents from. This helps you to think about your budget and where you need to visit. I would suggest waiting for shops special offers, for example Boots have an offer of the week throughout the whole of December and they have already done some in November!! The prices of products are completely slashed and they become so much more affordable. So what I am really trying to say here is that don't immediately buy presents if you see them because at some point they might be on a discount and you wont want to regret spending lots of money. However don't leave your shopping until the last few days before Christmas!!!

I hope that this post will come in useful for you at some point during the festive season!! Thank you so much for reading and don't forget to come back on Wednesday!!

Bryony xx

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