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083: Cost Savvy Christmas
2.7k Plays1 year ago
Discover smart strategies for a memorable and meaningful holiday season without breaking the bank.
Mia and Dinah talk about celebrating Christmas given the high cost of living and how people can enjoy a low cost Christmas with some clever hacks. They discuss:
- Setting a Budget
- Cost-Saving Strategies for Buying Gifts
- Budget-Friendly Holiday Meals:
- Travel Hacks for the Holidays:
For the full shownotes, head to Life Admin Life Hacks - https://shorturl.at/duyG1
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Transcript
Introduction to Life Admin Life Hacks
00:00:00
Speaker
This is Life Admin Life Hacks, a podcast that gives you techniques, tips and tools to tackle your life admin more efficiently, to save your time, your money and improve your household harmony.
00:00:12
Speaker
I'm Dinero Roberts, an operations manager who loves travelling over Christmas to make the most of those extra public holidays and change things up. This year we're off to Tassie. I'm Mia Northrop, a researcher and writer who for the first time ever will be having a cozy low-key Christmas with just my nuclear family because the rest of my family is away.
How to Enjoy Christmas on a Budget
00:00:31
Speaker
In this episode we're diving into smart strategies for creating a memorable and meaningful holiday season without breaking the bank.
00:00:38
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Life Admin Life Hacks. This episode we're getting festive and frugal. This time of year can be magical and also financially challenging especially given the rising cost of living. If your money situation is tighter than it's been in the past then we trust you'll leave us with some new ideas about how to approach Christmas this year and be optimistic that you're going to be able to enjoy a special meal on Christmas Day and give presents to your loved ones. For those of you who aren't feeling the pinch you'll be equipped with suggestions for family and friends who are.
00:01:07
Speaker
So in this episode, we'll talk about cost-saving strategies for buying gifts, planning a special meal and for holiday travel. This episode is brought to you by our Get Ready for Christmas Checklists. Head to lifeadminlifehacks.com and download our Get Ready for Christmas Checklist to help pace you through the activities and tasks you'd like to do to prepare for the silly season. And if you're hosting Christmas lunch or dinner on a big day, lean on this list to help minimise your stress and maximise your joy.
00:01:35
Speaker
Now Mia, we have done a few different episodes over the years related to Christmas. We've got episode 21, preparing for Christmas and actually also you could dive into episode 16, which is about simplifying gift giving. We probably all want to avoid episode 37, planning a Corona Christmas to avoid those flashbacks. But this year, as Mia said, with interest rates and costs of living as they are, we wanted to focus on how Christmas doesn't have to be an expensive blowout.
00:02:04
Speaker
Yeah. And I guess the number one thing is to go in with a budget for the holidays.
Budgeting and Saving for Gifts
00:02:09
Speaker
You want to set yourself some realistic spending limits. So it's important if you're in a partnership to discuss a budget, looking at your financial situation and deciding, you know, how much are we going to spend on gifts? How much are we going to spend on decorations and food and, you know, any of the special events that are leading up to Christmas? So, man, how do you set aside like what's the format you use to set your Christmas budget?
00:02:33
Speaker
Yeah, so we have a big Excel spreadsheet and we list all the people that we're buying gifts for. So there's a section for the kids and it has a section for the gifts that we're going to give them, the gifts they're going to give each other. And we have some guesses of what Santa might be bringing. And so we can see, okay, for the gifts that we're buying and they're giving each other, we sort of set a number. And then we list all the family members and things like teachers,
00:03:00
Speaker
helpers that we're also going to give gifts for. And we sort of say, oh, let's again, we put aside a number to each of those people. We track it that way. So we track, we sort of set a limit of how much we're going to spend. And then we also track who's buying what and the status of the purchase. Has it been bought? Where are we at with that, getting that gift in the door? So your focus is budgeting for gifts. And I guess mine is too, and it's actual purpose. It's really
00:03:26
Speaker
Focusing on planning out what the gifts are gonna be and I used to always do that but in more recent years I've added kind of the budget and I really just helped like get my head around how much we were actually spending and then help me I guess set some more some probably more better boundaries around.
00:03:42
Speaker
what's a reasonable amount to spend for people because I think it is easy to get carried away. So having a gift tracking spreadsheet that also sets a budget for gifts is a huge win for most people. In terms of like decorations, flowers, we don't have a budget for those things. We don't, I don't know, I think I've bought them.
00:04:03
Speaker
We've made so many over the years. The kids made things at school. I've kind of collect things ad hoc. I often buy decorations in the sales after Christmas because suddenly you walk into stores and they're all half price. And I'm like, oh, that was cute. I'll pop that in a way for next year. And I don't tend to go to nuts with decorations in the house. So that's pretty minimal. The food aspect is often we do host lunch.
00:04:29
Speaker
Well, actually, most family members want to bring something. They're like, what can we bring? So we spread it around that way. They might ask people to contribute to the alcohol or do a dessert or bring a side or whatever it might be. And so we spread the cost of the meal around that way. But we don't actually pull together a budget of how much we're going to spend.
00:04:46
Speaker
We're not buying $300 hams. I can tell you that. Yeah. I mean, we haven't, we haven't done that either. And I think if you share the load between all the people who are coming to the event, that in general, it's pretty easy to keep that under control. But yeah, definitely gifts is the area that's been the biggest challenge for us. Yeah. One of the interesting things is looking at how people pay for Christmas. Like a lot of people just funding this from their savings.
00:05:12
Speaker
or they might use their credit card or they might lean on buy now, pay later schemes. Probably, you know, we're not massive fans of buy now, pay later because they can be risky and get you into debt. So we are suggesting we'd be to look for alternative, more affordable items to buy. But one thing I was curious about was the Christmas clubs. Have you heard of these Christmas club accounts that you can set up? Yeah, I mean, I think that it was like quite a thing a long time ago around when people had savings accounts and they went into the bank.
00:05:43
Speaker
And you could have a Christmas Club account that gave you bonus interest if you didn't withdraw the money until December. So I think that that's kind of how they used to work. But I think they've become a bit more modern these days. Yeah. So the idea of a Christmas Club account is that you have a bank account set up.
00:05:58
Speaker
where you are making regular deposits throughout the year. And you can't actually touch the funds until November. Most of them, there's either a penalty if you withdraw the funds earlier. So you're kind of locking away the money and building on it slowly. And then at the first of November, you're able to get the funds and you've got this kitty that you can spend. So there's quite a few banks that offer these specific types of accounts.
00:06:21
Speaker
You could set up your own savings account and just set up a weekly or fortnightly or monthly automatic transfer. So you don't have to deal with any early withdrawal fees or other transaction fees. And sometimes these accounts don't have the best interest rates. Sometimes the interest is calculated daily, but they only pay the interest quarterly or even annually. So you're not getting that benefit of the compounding. But if you could find something that has a competitive interest rate and it's calculated daily and paid monthly and doesn't have all those
00:06:50
Speaker
account keeping and transaction fees, then it could be good because the obstacle of not being able to withdraw it is what might take you on the straight and narrow. So if you think I would be tempted to dip into an account if it was just a regular savings account, obviously with these you can't. So if you find, you know, this year or you found in the past that the budget is a recurring issue for you and you might like to consider this for next year.
00:07:17
Speaker
I also noticed that Maya was a department store Maya. They have a Christmas club and what they do for every hundred dollars you put in there, they'll give you a $10 Maya gift card. But the thing is that, you know, all the savings and bonuses you get are only supplied as gift cards. So you'd want to be doing all your Christmas shopping at Maya, but it's pretty generous. It's like a 10%, you know, interest rate really. But obviously it restricts your spending options.
00:07:44
Speaker
research what's out there for you in terms of your local department stores or banks if you think these kinds of schemes would be useful. Another thing you can do is think about saving up other reward schemes, sort of dollars or gift vouchers.
00:07:56
Speaker
If you shop at Woolworths, you could think about saving up your Woolworths reward dollars through the year to use in the December period when you know perhaps you need to have some more money to spend elsewhere on gifts or you might be spending more on your groceries for that week. Or think about storing up other gift cards that you might be able to get during the year from credit card schemes or other schemes and then using them in December when you know you're going to be spending more. Yeah, nice one.
00:08:23
Speaker
have rules around, I guess for most people the gifts is the main expense at Christmas. Do you have rules about how much for each child or how many gifts or the dollar amount? How do you decide what is enough? Yeah, so I don't have hard and fast rules. I do think it does depend on
00:08:40
Speaker
Partly the budget that we have for that year. So I guess how we're tracking financially and I guess to a certain extent making it feel Fairish like I definitely don't have like that I'm exactly spending the same amount on both of my children But I do I guess really try and be focusing on buying things that I know that they need but maybe have a sort of a bit of a luxury the slightly better set of headphones and perhaps I would have otherwise bought them or things like that, so I
00:09:08
Speaker
are probably more focused on making sure that the gifts are truly needed rather than just buying for the sake of buying. What about you Mia? Yeah, no we don't really have, we have like we want a couple of things in a stocking, we want a couple of things in a sack. You want it to look
00:09:24
Speaker
the stuff in there. So I don't like the terms, what is it, stocking stuffers? It's just like crap to put in there. To try and avoid just plastic fantastic to stuff out the stocking. If we have, if we get to that sort of level of desperation is the wrong word, but if we need some inspiration, like we put in food, we put in, because kids are like,
00:09:47
Speaker
If there's a little chocolate bar over there or some kind of contraband food that we don't eat often or they have a favorite thing, that is what we put in there. But, you know, there's different rules out there. There's like the three gift rule. The three gift rule cites the wise men's offering to Jesus. So that's the gold, frankincense and mare. And it's the idea that if it was good enough for the saviour of the world, that it should be good enough for your children to get three gifts.
00:10:12
Speaker
And there's the rule of four. So there's the idea that you give children something they want, something they need, something to wear, and something to read. I like the fact that that rhymes. And then there's other variations of the rule of 10, where you take that rule of four, but then you also have something to wear on your feet, something to make, something to do, something to play as a family, something to give to others, and something to do for others.
00:10:38
Speaker
It's interesting the idea of you having categories, which I've talked about before with gift giving episodes, like give yourself some boundaries or some rules or some categories that you can work towards. Yeah. And so I do think coming back to the money side of things, interestingly, we did a bit of research in terms of what other people spend just to kind of, you know, I guess look at what might be reasonable. So I think Canstar Blue
00:11:03
Speaker
did a survey and they said that people with children 13 to 18 tend to spend $336 per child for the 13 to 18 age group and about $250 per child for younger kids. But in the US, I think there was another study that said people budget around 220. I mean, if you calculate that US dollars, that's very soon.
00:11:26
Speaker
So I think that's kind of interesting, but I definitely don't think you need to spend that much particularly when the kids are younger. I would just say that 30%, around 30% just have a maximum of 100 bucks. It's like, yeah, it's keeping sensible.
00:11:41
Speaker
So it's interesting to understand, I don't know, for some of you listening, you might be going, Jesus, that's ridiculous. That is way too much. And some people might be thinking, hmm, eyebrow raise. We're going way over that. I'm going to just scale back a bit. But, you know, you have to do what makes sense to your family and your kids and what they need and want. I like the idea of sort of resetting some expectations. There's always something pretty practical.
00:12:05
Speaker
We do often have things that are related to clothes, especially if it's summer here, it's usually the start of summer holidays. And so if someone needs a new pair of songs or new bathers or whatever it be, that's part of the Christmas thing. Sometimes it's things they're going to get anyway. Yeah, I think that I really think almost from that beginning of November, kind of anything they need, if it can wait.
00:12:28
Speaker
six to eight weeks, then it's going to be wrapped up and put under the tree to create that feeling of festiveness, but it doesn't need to actually be things that we wouldn't have otherwise bought anyway. What do you do about decorations? Do you make a lot of your own decorations?
DIY Christmas Decorations and Gifts
00:12:43
Speaker
Are you reusing decorations year on year?
00:12:46
Speaker
Yeah, definitely reusing decorations year on year. I have got a sort of tradition of buying a Christmas decoration whenever I travel somewhere. So we have lots of decorations for the tree. And I also have a friend who lives overseas and every year we exchange a Christmas decoration. That's our kind of Christmas gift tradition. So that means we're just slowly accumulating. So I've got more than enough for the tree, to be honest. And I guess it depends on what we're doing, how much effort I'll go to around the house.
00:13:15
Speaker
Actually, I find that you can use foliage from the garden and with a little bit of red ribbon or a few red baubles added to, you know, we're lucky to have a holly bush in our backyard, although the berries come out in winter. So it's just the green greenery that makes a beautiful table decoration, also makes a great wreath for the front door with a few red ribbons tied to it.
00:13:38
Speaker
I'm definitely a believer that kind of, you know, some subtle foliage with some red ribbon is I'm definitely not the person I know some people who like have the fully coordinated debt, you know, they go for a theme each year. That is not me. It is a nice opportunity to just tap into
00:13:54
Speaker
the season and find what's around. We've made wreaths in the past. Tripped a willow tree or got eucalyptus and luckily at this time of year the bottle brush in Australia comes out which is bright red. We'll shove some bottle brush in there. We'll find some gum nuts.
00:14:10
Speaker
We might paint them gold or not, and they are basically our baubles. And it's fun. It's sort of acknowledging the season. It's festive. Yeah, I'm a big fan of that kind of, you know, and I do a lot of crafting, but in terms of Christmas decorations, I'm quite happy to make handmade ornaments and reeds and centerpieces. It's a bit of creativity and fun. So this is a real time of year where
00:14:33
Speaker
You need to avoid that temptation to be buying new homewares and decorations and tchotchkes, or at least just go to the op shop. You know, there's obviously cheaper options in there if you just have that itch. I do. I must admit when I go into the homeware stores and see whole Christmas dinner sets and things, I just think why and where do you keep it? So, but I mean, I guess everyone you do you, but it is kind of fascinating to me to have a dinner set to use on one day of the year.
00:15:00
Speaker
Yeah, you really have to love Christmas to go there and have some storage. Yeah. OK, obviously a lot of shopping is going to be happening online. There are discounts to be had. We are on the verge of some of the big global sales. Black Friday sales, 24th of November. The Cyber Monday sale, the 27th of November. These are opportunities to pounce.
00:15:22
Speaker
The idea is to get your gift list done now, everybody, so that when these dates come up, you can just buy your preferred items at a discount and not be just buying random bargains.
00:15:33
Speaker
Yeah, I think that is the trick really is to making sure that you have really thought it through because I think if you haven't thought it through, you either miss the opportunity and because the things you actually decide you're going to buy later have been on sale and or you buy the wrong things because you're just doing it randomly. So making sure you've got that list and your budget sorted.
00:15:53
Speaker
so that you don't accidentally overspend before you even hit December. Yeah. So keep an eye out for the sales that are happening now and prepare, have that list ready to go so you can spot the bargains. The other thing that's super popular are those cashback apps.
00:16:07
Speaker
We know there's lots of coupon codes at websites out there. I think everyone's familiar with them. But the cashback apps, the cashback sites often have either an app or a browser extension that help you save money when you're shopping online. And they generally pretty much all work in a similar way in that each time you make a purchase with retailers linked to the site, the platform receives a commission on the sale.
00:16:32
Speaker
And then part of this commission is returned to you, the shopper, as a cashback payment. So usually you'll sign up for the cashback account. It's free. You get the money back usually by PayPal, or you might have to give your bank account details and they transfer it into your bank account.
00:16:47
Speaker
And then once you've made the purchase via the cashback site or the app, you start getting actual cash back. You have to shop with the app. If you shop directly with the retailer, you won't get the cash back. But if you've got the browser extension, then it will notify you, hello, we give cash back for this retailer, come and shop through us. And that triggers you to go there.
00:17:10
Speaker
Is this something that you've explored, Diane? No, and I guess I'm just at that season of life where I'm actually really just about saving time rather than saving money and much more focus on making sure I buy the right thing. But I guess it's something I should explore if it's like minimal effort is probably something I could do in my next hour of power. Explore, add the browser extension, get the money back. So adding to my to-do list now.
00:17:34
Speaker
I've played around with the honey app. That's a popular one here in Australia. There's also cash rewards, shop back and kick back. It is interesting to see which retailers each of them partners with. So depending on where you shop, you might have one or more of these going so you can cover a range of the retailers you tend to use.
00:17:52
Speaker
In New Zealand, there's Kiwi Wallet and Shop Rewards. In the US, a lot of their versions involve scanning your receipts, which I would be like, oh, that's just one step too far. They have ones called Fetch, there's RetailMeNot, which traditionally was around coupons, but it's now got into this cashback space. There's Upside and there's Dosh. And then in the UK, there's TopCashback and Quidco and Kidstart. So if you're curious about these, you might want to go and play around and see if they have the retailers that you like to shop at.
00:18:22
Speaker
because you can get some decent cash back on each purchase. Okay. So should we also just chat about like comparison shopping? Obviously we've talked a lot over the seasons around comparison shopping, but I do think particularly if you're making a bigger purchase for a gift, putting some discipline around that comparison shopping exercise can be important to make sure you really save on the big ticket items.
00:18:46
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, look, at Christmas time, I kind of, I just comparison shop everything. Like, you know, usually we're talking about comparison shopping, electricity, car insurance. But if I'm going to be flocking out for, I don't know, some crazy cosmetic that my daughter must have for her skin right now, then I will be shopping around to find the best price on that. And also looking at the shipping strategies, you know, if I can
00:19:11
Speaker
I'll be trying to do online shopping earlier in the piece so that I can just get the standard delivery and not have to pay for Express Post. But yeah, I am just Googling the item and I'm looking at, I'll look at three sites that come back and I'll go and just find the best site in terms of price and shipping. And yeah, for pretty much anything over like, I don't know, 50 bucks, like comparison shopping at all. This is kind of how I shop now.
00:19:37
Speaker
And I can remember when the kids were younger and I was buying more on the toys kind of size. I would really focus on doing that sort of comparison shopping exercise, but across like the five or six toys I was going to buy perhaps, and then going, okay, actually on balance, it's better to buy them all from Target.
00:19:54
Speaker
and do click and collect rather than you know maybe i can say five dollars if i buy that one from kmart and you know whatever but actually i do a little bit of a spreadsheet and compare the prices and then as you say try and shop early so that then particularly for those kinds of gifts
00:20:10
Speaker
Sometimes you have that indecision of I might get a better price or I might go on sale or whatever, then you don't buy and then you can't find it. And that is the worst, the absolute worst. So I do think sometimes it's like do the exercise at that point in time and then execute so that you've got it there. And in some of those stores, you can still do lay-by. So if you want to buy in November,
00:20:30
Speaker
You don't have to pay for the whole lot straight away. You can lock in that price, pay a deposit and then go and pick the gift up closer to Christmas, which also saves the risk of the children discovering it in the house somewhere. I have lots of hiding places in this house. No idea. Let's talk about, you know, gifting as well, you know, with your wider family or maybe you are giving with friends, maybe you're doing things at work.
00:20:58
Speaker
You know, this is where the Kris Kringle, the secret Santa comes to the fore. If you're, especially in your family, if you have in the past or bought presents for each other and this year you're like, we, this is, that can't happen. You know, now is the time to have it, have the chat and say, look, let's do a Kris Kringle this year. For those of you who, you know, have family members suggesting they have a Kris Kringle and you're like, Oh,
00:21:21
Speaker
That's a drag. I want to get lots of presents. Just keep in mind that it might be financially tough for others out there and not every family is comfortable in having these open discussions about what's going on with money, but just to be sensitive to that idea. We've always done Kris Kringle with our extended family because we've got a lot of cousins. There's a lot of cousins now. I think one of the other things I've seen is like, let's not buy gifts for the adults. Let's just focus on the kids and make it a special time for them.
00:21:48
Speaker
And I do think it's a really good time to like set a specified budget too of how much each going to spend on your kids and have that conversation or even have that conversation with maybe with a friend who for years you've been buying each other's kids presents or each other presents.
00:22:05
Speaker
and saying you know what maybe this year we could scale it back or even drop the gifts or you know and just get together and often you might find they're relieved because this tradition is built up over time that you buy gifts for each other and then they feel the pressure and the reciprocation so I think don't be afraid to you know gently bring up that conversation that maybe this year we're going to scale back or drop the gifts.
00:22:27
Speaker
And you can also set a theme. You can also say, look, every this year, why don't we all give it to the books or food or something for the outdoors or games or whatever it might be.
00:22:36
Speaker
again so it feels sort of fair and equivalent and as a set of sex expectations for everybody. We also talk about wish lists a lot. We both have wish lists on our phones that we add to regularly for ourselves and also for our family members so that you are giving people stuff that they genuinely want and need.
00:22:57
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's a huge one, particularly when you're talking about extended families and if, you know, really trying to reduce the environmental impact of Christmas as well as like the cost impact of Christmas by really focusing on making sure that the gifts you're giving and hopefully getting back are things that, you know, aren't going to end up in landfill.
00:23:16
Speaker
So having a system for those gift wish lists that you can readily share and remember who you've told to get what. I think that's the worst is if you accidentally give the same gift suggestion to two people and someone ends up with two of the same things. We have that challenge with grandparents. You have to make it unique otherwise there's duplication.
00:23:38
Speaker
discuss among yourselves. God, I'd love to do. I've done the thank you already. Other thing you can do, and I've done a bit of this over the years, is think about actually making gifts. People love baked goods in particular, but it doesn't have to be all about cooking. It could be experiences, maybe inviting even someone over for dinner, like a little voucher.
00:24:00
Speaker
In the past, my kids have given me vouchers to help around the house, which is kind of sweet. Or, you know, from little kid massages, which lasts for about two minutes. But those sorts of things can be way more meaningful and obviously affordable, thank gifts. And you can jump on Canva, which you can use for free, and you can make some super fancy little homemade gift vouchers these days. I have been getting them for Mother's Day.
00:24:25
Speaker
last couple of years and I you know when the dog needs walking or the dishwasher needs emptying and no one's lifting a finger I'm like going for the voucher in the eyes the gift just keeps on giving yeah I think some of those experience gifts like
00:24:39
Speaker
saying, let's go to the movies or let's do a cooking class or whatever. Sometimes those gifts can be a lot more, they can be meaningful, but also more affordable than things that you can put under a tangible thing, putting under the tree. And another thing you can do if you feel like at this time of year, you've got more time than you've got money is think about personalized gifts. And I think that's been something I've done a lot of now that my digital photo collection is organized.
00:25:03
Speaker
Over the years I've made calendars for the grandparents as a bunch of sites and that is reasonably affordable but something that they absolutely love or even just bought a reasonably cheap photo frame and put a special photo in it can also be a very meaningful gift.
00:25:18
Speaker
Yeah, if you're, you know, my extended family, there are some artists in there and they make beautiful cards. They'll give you a painting. You're like, oh my God, you're getting an actual painting. So if you're arty, if you can, if you're good at stuff like that, then do it. People really appreciate it and clearly comes from the heart. There's beautiful sentiment behind those kinds of gifts. So while we're talking about gifts, Mia, how do you feel about re-gifting? Yeah, we have a big fans.
00:25:48
Speaker
Oh, is it an etiquette? There are do's and don'ts of re-gifting. You want to make sure it's still appropriate for the person and you clearly want to make sure that you're not giving back something that they gave you or that anyone who gave you the gift will be witnessing this exchange. You can backfire. It'd be incredibly embarrassing.
00:26:06
Speaker
But, you know, if you're given a gift that isn't useful for you, if you really don't want it, you know, we talk about the idea that once someone has given you a gift, it has performed its function and things need to be used in the world. It shouldn't go to landfill. It shouldn't sit there in a shelf just unused for its life.
00:26:25
Speaker
Give it to someone who's actually going to appreciate it and benefit from it. So, you know, you consider the recipient's feelings in terms of whether they will actually like it. And yeah, don't give another thought. Yeah, I think you can. I had a book club where every book club
00:26:42
Speaker
Christmas we each gave each other a book we'd read during the year that we'd really loved. So that was kind of like, I think you can also give used items or secondhand things that you've loved and share it. And it can still be a gift. You don't have to feel embarrassed about it. I think that's an area where if it's something you genuinely have enjoyed and you're passing it on and it's meaningful to that person, that's also an option. Yeah. Nice one.
Hosting a Budget-Friendly Christmas Meal
00:27:05
Speaker
All right. Let's talk about the food because Christmas day, if you're hosting lunch or dinner,
00:27:10
Speaker
depending on how you like to entertain and how you like to eat and how many people are coming over, it can get bigger than Ben Hur and it can be incredibly stressful and expensive, frankly, if you're
00:27:23
Speaker
getting out the prawns and the oysters and going nuts with seafood and the champagne is flowing on. If that's like, okay, you know, let's think about how much this is going to cost. So where would you think people should start in terms of having more of sort of a budget friendly menu? Yeah. So I think that there's a few different options there. One thing is if you are hosting and you're going to the, I guess, having the cost, which is a time cost really of like,
00:27:51
Speaker
all of the organizing and getting the table ready and all of that kind of stuff. And there's other people who are coming who, you know, perhaps might have more cash than you do right now. Then think about, you know, asking them to bring some of the more expensive items because
00:28:05
Speaker
they're getting the benefit of your hospitality. And I think don't be afraid to kind of make some suggestions about the things that they could bring that perhaps maybe more than you could afford to pay. And so I think really dividing things up makes a huge difference. Yeah, it's one of those times people are really happy to contribute.
00:28:22
Speaker
it just makes the whole thing more festive and joyous. There's always people who have their signature dish. If there's someone who makes a knock out trifle, hit them up with a trifle. They want to reel it out. That's my signature dish, by the way. But yes, people are happy to bring whatever is needed usually, spread the joy and the contribution around. I don't think people should hesitate.
00:28:46
Speaker
to ask like that. I think the other really thing is I think it's very easy to go overboard and to buy way more food than you actually can possibly eat in the day. So I think if you've planned out your menu, really think about just focusing on buying how much is actually reasonable to eat in maybe, you know, Christmas Day and Boxing Day.
00:29:06
Speaker
because otherwise the risk is you actually throw food out and food waste is actually one of the biggest ways of you know you know spending unnecessarily I think over this period. That's a really good point Dinah because I don't remember one Christmas where the fridge hasn't been heaving with leftovers afterwards.
00:29:24
Speaker
And it's kind of nice to circle back maybe once, dip into that cauliflower cheese again. But, you know, two days later, it's pretty much all got to go. And yeah, you're throwing a lot out. So have a think about the quantities you actually need and just cook what you need for the day instead of thinking this is going to be three days worth of food. And actually I'm having flashbacks to one Christmas where I had gravy on day two, day three, maybe.
00:29:53
Speaker
gravy you do not keep. That was so ill. I just, oh, yeah, not worth remembering. Gotta get rid of it. But there's also, I guess, the usual tips that we would suggest around shopping in a budget-friendly way, which is, you know, choosing affordable ingredients, which is things that are in season, things that aren't special, looking for the unit costs, being savvy around how you're planning, you know, do your planning so you know your quantity so you won't be wasting. Think about buying things that are in bulk,
00:30:23
Speaker
If you've listened to our masterclass on reducing your cost of living without cutting your costs, we go into so much detail there about reducing your grocery shopping bills generally, avoiding the pre-cut vegetables, avoiding the pre-made custard, all of that stuff is marked up and so much more expensive than just getting the potatoes and chopping them up yourself. I'm not kidding, the custard that's already, get the powder, pour some milk in it. You can employ everyone who's joining the meal to help out in preparation. You don't have to do it all yourself.
00:30:53
Speaker
You can definitely get your kids to be peeling veggies and those sorts of things. So employ some kitchen hands from the guests and you can spend less on things like your veggies and those sorts of things. And you can start buying things now, things that are non-perishable. Like start buying it now to spread the cost over the next couple of, you know, the next two months, essentially.
00:31:13
Speaker
so that it's not this massive peak, this massive spike in December to spread it out over a few months. As long as you've got good hiding spots from your kids, it's the only home. For food, because food in my house just disappears, so I have to hide it in special places if I buy things in advance, because it gets taken away by the teenagers. Maybe the cranberry jelly won't get taken away by the teenagers. No, probably not that.
00:31:39
Speaker
Now, you know, we've talked about all this other giving, giving, giving. You can shift the whole emphasis of Christmas by focusing on charitable giving. Obviously, this is a time when volunteering as a family during the holidays teaches children wonderful things about empathy and giving back. There's, you know, the opportunity to do charitable donations in someone's name as a gift.
00:32:01
Speaker
and choosing organizations that you believe in and that you know they resonate for them. And, you know, giving goats and wells and all of that stuff that's useful in the world when we don't necessarily need, you know, need stuff. Yeah. And I mean, if you're not in a position to be donating items, you can also think about donating your time.
00:32:22
Speaker
either now or through the year, but thinking about highlighting the value of volunteering to really think about giving back to the community. All right. Let's finish with some holiday travel hacks.
Holiday Travel Tips and Post-Christmas Sales
00:32:34
Speaker
This is a big time of year where people are traveling to see family and friends, or they're going away for Christmas, and that can be expensive as well. What do you like to think about here in terms of savings?
00:32:45
Speaker
Well, definitely because I'm a big one to travel over Christmas, I do know that you really must book early. So if you're thinking, listening to this episode now and thinking you're going to book a cheap flight over that, you know, peak holiday period, it's probably a bit too late. So thinking about making sure that you book early, but also I guess being flexible on the dates that you're wanting to travel. One year we actually did fly on Christmas Day because it was way cheaper.
00:33:09
Speaker
probably not the most festive day, but it did actually save us a load of cash. So I think that's a huge one for me. Yeah. And that's where you are also leaning on those loyalty programs. So if you have rewards points or credit card benefits,
00:33:23
Speaker
and help you save money on travel expenses. This is the time to investigate them and deploy them. Another thing that in terms of if I am flying to avoid any sort of excess baggage challenges, I really try and buy online gifts and have them shipped to the destination, particularly for having Christmas with family or friends. And that really reduces the risk of things like baggage, excess baggage, if you're flying on a discount airline, for example, because the shipping's taken care of that for you.
00:33:53
Speaker
And then one of my favorite times of year is after the holidays when all the sales happen. Certainly a time to sweep in and stock up on decorations and like wrapping supplies because all of that is cut ruthlessly. And I think it is one of those things where if you have got some good curated lists, perhaps of household items, you think you might need to get over the next year. It is kind of an opportunistic time.
00:34:18
Speaker
to kind of think about if it's a new set of sheets or towels that you know that you're gonna need to get. But I guess coming back to that same tip that you don't get carried away buying things you don't actually need. So if you're shopping from your list of things that you think you need, then you can pick up some great savings, but make sure you don't get carried away. And I guess the important thing here is that you don't have like a Christmas budget hangover where you're like, oh, what happened? What just happened? What did we do? Why did we do that?
00:34:47
Speaker
So it can be a time for thinking about, okay, let's look at our expenditures and identify some areas for improvement. I do think the other thing that is good to do in the sales is often my kids get gift vouchers for Christmas, particularly from grandparents who might not know what to get. And it's a good opportunity for them to go and make more out of their gift voucher if they're having some sales. So, you know, probably not Boxing Day, which is just a bit too hellish for me, but a few days later.
00:35:16
Speaker
bracing myself for the shopping center and heading in to use those gift vouchers before they get forgotten, because I think that's another big risk and it's such a waste if those gift vouchers go unused. Yeah, absolutely. So maybe I think that's probably given our listeners lots of great tips for Christmas. What do you reckon our top three hacks are? Set some boundaries and categories for yourself when it comes to gift giving, either with setting budgets or setting types of gifts. So you've got some limits to work with them.
00:35:44
Speaker
And don't be afraid to have conversations with your family and friends about setting some boundaries or maybe even skipping gift giving for this year. When it comes to the meal, spread the love, spread the joy, spread the contributions and only cook what you actually need for the day, not for three days worth of leftovers. Thanks for listening. Show notes for this episode are available at lifeandminlifehacks.com. And if you're a fan,
00:36:10
Speaker
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