Christmas presents galore…

Sunday 23rd November, 2008 - £7,408.16 in debt…

Have you started your Christmas shopping yet? Are you one of those people who starts unfeasibly early, telling all their friends about the bargain jumper you found for your mum which, by the way, she’s going to absolutely adore? Or are you one of those people who listens to their friends’ stories of early purchases while secretly wanting to bash them over the head with a hammer?

Unfortunately for my finances (and my friends), I fall into the latter group. Although I love getting excited about Christmas - sometimes as early as September - I can never quite bring myself to start buying stuff, and have been known to enjoy the odd Christmas Eve panic. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear I was a disorganised mess.

Of course, this year will be different. I can no longer rely on my credit cards to bail me out if I leave it too late to grab a bargain. So are there any half-decent bargains around right now? Hmmmm…

The WHSmith Christmas gift sale

WHSmith is offering money off loads of tacky rubbish you’d never normally buy for your arch nemesis, let alone your friends and family. Perfect for Christmas then. They’re advertising it as an ‘up to half price’ sale but, frankly, I’d still shop around if I were you because Smith’s isn’t exactly Poundland, sale prices or no sale prices.

Curry’s £10 voucher offer

Yes, Curry’s is offering you a £10 gift card with every games console, sat nav, camera, camcorder or iPod (nano, classic or touch). Lucky you. I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that you’ll probably pay at least £10 over the odds at Curry’s though, and you’ve still got time to order your camera, camcorder or what-have-you from a reputable, cheap online source such as www.eBuyer.com

And by the way, if you must shop at Curry’s and get your gift card, you have to redeem it between December 5th and 24th, and it can’t be used against online purchases.

Boots 3 for 2 ‘Mix and Match’ gifts

With all the horrifying inevitability of our slow march towards the grave, Boots is yet again wheeling out the annual 3 for 2 ‘Mix and Match’ offer on gifts. Hooray. Why any sane person would want to celebrate the festive season with a five-piece set of ‘classic’ make-up brushes is beyond me, so I’m sure you can do better than this.

So the answer is no: there are no half-decent bargains around at the moment. But, if we get this rumoured 2.5% cut in VAT, and the resulting savings are passed on to shoppers and not just soaked up by retailers, then there’s a chance we’ll see a few good deals over the next couple of weeks. Keep ‘em peeled, readers.

  Where does Santa buy his wrapping?

Wednesday 19th November, 2008 - £7,408.16 in debt…

Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Da-aaad, happy birthday to you! Congratulations on reaching your 59th year, Dad - here’s a cheapo present I picked up in the Argos sale, wrapped in paper that cost 25 percent of the value of the gift itself…

Why can I never find half-decent wrapping paper that doesn’t cost a stupid, stupid amount of money? I even got the most recent stuff from Tesco, which you’d think would charge a reasonable price, but no: nearly £2 a roll. And, as Christmas approaches, this will become a real problem for me. Well, not compared to real problems, but still. It’s worth moaning about, is what I’m saying.

So, I guess I’m after some tips. I want to either (a) find somewhere that does cheap but amazing giftwrap (and Christmas cards if possible, as I spend a fortune on those things as well), or (b) find a way of making or customising my own, without it looking like I’ve just bribed a child to scribble on a bit of paper with glitter glue.

Any pointers, people? I’m relying on you…

 ’Tis the season of good will!

Tuesday 14th October, 2008 - £7,899.83 in debt…

It’s Christmas time - there’s no need to be afraid.

Well, it’s not quite, but the keys to managing your money are in preparation and budgeting, so there’s nothing wrong with getting excited two months early. That’s my excuse, anyway.

So what can we do at this early stage to make Christmas a bit more bearable, money-wise? This is what we can do:

     1.  Start your shopping early, but don’t start buying presents yet. Make a list of all the other stuff you’ll need - food that will keep, wrapping paper, decorations, etc - and buy it when you see a good deal. This will prevent panic-buying at a later stage. If you start on presents now, you’re likely to change your mind between now and December, and you might find it’s too late (or too much hassle) to get your money back.

     2.  Talk to friends and family about Christmas decorations before you start buying new ones. You’ll probably find they don’t use everything they’ve got every year, so you can rummage through their leftovers or even have a complete swap.

     3.  If you can trust yourself with it, and you’re currently debt-free, apply for a cashback credit card before you start spending. These can give you as much as 5 percent back on whatever you spend, but pay your balance as soon as the bill comes in or you’ll be charged interest.

     4.  When you do start gift-shopping, do it online and compare prices using sites like Kelkoo and Pricerunner. Equally, using MySupermarket to compare prices from four major supermarkets will save you money on your Christmas groceries.

     5.  If you haven’t got them already, apply for as many loyalty cards as you can handle. Hand them over when you stock up on Christmas food and presents, and spend the points later. Most supermarkets have them, as do Waterstone’s and Boots. Watch out for Boots ‘double points’ days.

     6.  According to the news, there’s some sort of global financial armageddon looming. If I hadn’t had to switch over for Neighbours, I’d be able to tell you more, but suffice to say that everyone will be tightening their belts this year. There is now no shame in buying presents from Ebay or TK Maxx, or going to pound shops for stocking fillers.

     7.  If you know anyone who’d appreciate some sort of greenery for Christmas, now’s the time to get some pots and compost from a garden centre and take some cuttings from your own plants (or your neighbour’s garden, but don’t tell them I said that). With the right care and attention, they’ll be small but beautiful by December.

     8.  The more people you can talk to about your debt, the better. Make agreements with as many people as possible that you won’t be exchanging gifts this year, or that they’ll only be small tokens for the sake of unwrapping something. If you don’t want to confess your debt, blame the credit crunch.

     9.  If you’re likely to be buying presents from Amazon, sign up for Amazon Prime first, which will give you free first-class delivery for a month. Don’t forget to cancel before the month is up.

Keep checking this blog for more ideas as the time looms, but if you’re looking for ‘bah humbug - I’m not spending anything on Christmas this year - boo hoo, I hate it all’, you won’t find it here. I love Christmas and I’m not going to let thousands of pounds worth of debt stop me enjoying it. Bring it on.

  I have to confess…

Friday 26th September, 2008 - £7,926.83 in debt…

Harumph. It’s getting towards the end of the month and I haven’t paid anything off. I suppose it’s confession time.

There’s something I haven’t told you, trusted reader. I’ve only been to my temping job for two days in the last… what is it? Six weeks? Something like that. I was hoping not to have to mention it, but here I go. You see, ever since my teens I’ve had problems with my back - it just doesn’t stand up to the normal rigours of everyday life, and it can’t really cope with full-time office work. This is why freelancing was such a good idea. I should have quit while I was ahead.

Anyway, my boss has been incredibly lovely and understanding about the whole thing and I’m going to see him next week to work out a plan whereby I can do lots of work from home.

But that doesn’t help with this month’s money situation. Because I’ve been freelancing a fair amount and doing AQA work on the side, I’ve still got money coming in, but it will be another couple of weeks before I see it. Because of petrol costs, food shopping and a fat cat who needs to be vaccinated against various catty diseases, I’ve even had to start using my Tesco credit card again. The shame.

Luckily, there have been a couple of months recently where I’ve paid off a lot more than the intended £470, so I’m not crying into my Sainsbury’s Basics Fruit ‘n’ Fibre just yet. Even if I have to give up the temping job, I’m still going to be earning money from home so I’m just going to have to manage my money a bit better from now on. 

It will be a new chapter in my life and my debt-paying-off experience: getting rid of almost £8,000 of debt without a weekly income. I’ll tell you what: if I had to worry about Christmas looming and paying for a foreign holiday, I might be a bit worried. Oh, hang on…