Save Christmas

You may have noticed a theme to my recent posts, that's right Christmas has arrived in my house!!




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:

(not the official video)

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

5 things to get your significant other for Christmas

So continuing the 5 things series, let's get all Christmassy. I have the fire turned on, I am in my dressing gown. So let's all snuggle up together and think of lovely gifts that can be enjoyed by that special person in your life.

Obviously I am not going to encourage you to increase the gruesome level of consumerism that is already upon us, these will be more esoteric gifts. Ones to stimulate their brains rather than to satisfy a passing whim.


1. Encourage their passion. 

There is nothing better than someone getting on your side and thinking about what you really want. So if your significant other (SO) loves to read, or paint or whatever, encourage it. Positive progress is always good.

2. Help them make a change. 

Is your partner stuck in a job they hate? Still smoking 20 a day and getting a bad cough? Maybe they can't bring themselves to ask for a pay rise or simply tell that idiot in the office to shut the fuck up. Help them, a small gesture of goodwill like telling them you believe in them and that you know they have it in them to make that change can be all the encouragement they need. 

3. Inspire them to save money

I believe saving money is the cornerstone to leading a well lived life. It brings with it freedom, freedom from consumerism, freedom from debt and freedom to spend money actively. This will help them to relieve stresses caused by money niggles (interest charges on credit cards) and give them a better nights sleep. Making them a happier and more positive person.

4. Encourage work on a side hustle

As I mentioned above saving brings freedom with it. Having a side hustle can give you extra money and provide that longed for purpose that your day job doesn't fulfil. Maybe someday you'll earn enough from this side income to quit the day job and take it up full time. Or it may just come as a nice little add on to the usual paycheque helping to pay for lifes emergencies / indulgences. 

5. Tell them the goals that you want to achieve with them.

Sometimes sharing with your SO the things you would like to do with them can be the best thing of all. Always wanted to see Uluru? How much better would it be with her/him right by your side. Creating memories for you to share til your grey and old. If your grey and old already you can always tell the grand-kids!

I hope this helps you realise that the best part of Christmas giving isn't really the gifts. It's really down to the love that you try to embody in presents. You don't really want to give gifts, you just want to see the look on their face as they open it.