Christmas
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How To Choose A Secret Santa Gift For Someone You Don’t Know
Secret Santa gifts are an excellent idea for large groups of friends. They prevent people from overspending and reduce the stress of buying for many people or even forgetting to buy for others. The idea is, everyone puts their name into a hat, and then everyone takes turns to pull out a name, and then they have to buy a Christmas gift for that person without revealing who they’ve got. This is now often done via email and apps too for ease and to avoid people from picking their names and having to choose again. Unfortunately, unless you know everyone well in a group, you may end up having to…
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Christmas Gift Ideas for 4 Year Olds with Etsy
All links in this post are affiliate links which mean I earn a small percentage of any sales made at no extra cost to you, the reader I have written lots of times in the past about my love for Etsy – in fact, I even have my own shop there. More and more I am making a real effort to shop small. I know myself the thrill whenever someone places an order with me, and I love the idea of giving someone else that thrill too. My daughter is now 4 and I am am trying to move away from buying everything from Amazon. So here are a few…
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10 Ways to Have a Frugal Christmas
The last few months have been very expensive (a new boiler being only one of many huge unexpected expenses) and we have found ourselves in the position where our savings have been depleted and our credit card debt has risen. As such, we are looking to be even more thrifty this year and have a frugal Christmas. Here are some things we will be doing to cut our spending this year compared to previous years: Secret Santa We have agreed with some of our family that we will do Secret Santa gifts for the grown ups, that means that each adult is responsible for buying only one gift, with a…
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Celebrate Baby’s First Christmas… on a Budget
Christmas is such an exciting time, especially when it’s your first one as a parent. When you are looking at how to celebrate baby’s first Christmas, it’s easy to get carried away by the pressure to spend spend spend, especially in this era of social media where sometimes it can feel like everyone apart from you has taken their child to an expensive Breakfast with Santa, put together pricey personalised Christmas Eve boxes or even jetted off to Lapland! If you are as lucky as we are, relatives will love to spoil your child with gifts so I always try as a parent to focus more on making things special,…
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Christmas Tag Post
Many thanks to Jo at A Rose Tinted World for tagging me in this (created by Nicole) – finally getting round to filling in my answers! 1. Do you prefer giving or receiving gifts? It’s got to be giving. I love choosing gifts for people (see my gift guides, which I loved compiling: for grandparents, for new parents and eco-friendly gifts) and each year it comes as a surprise to me that I might actually get something myself. Now that I have kids, nothing beats watching them unwrap their presents. 2. Do you make and stick to New Year’s resolutions? No and no. I love setting goals for myself but in…
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Eco-Friendly Etsy Christmas Gift Guide
Let’s face it, as a society we produce far too much single-use plastic, much of which is not recycled and thus ends up in landfill and our oceans. Thankfully in recent times there has been a shift towards more eco-friendly products but I think we can all agree that there is still so much that we as individuals can be doing. This year, when choosing gifts for friends and family, I have included several eco-friendly gifts. I have found that Etsy is an absolute treasure trove of such products – what’s more, by buying from Etsy you are supporting small sellers so with each purchase you are making someone’s day.…
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Christmas Gift Ideas for Grandparents
Welcome to the second installment of my Christmas gift guides: gift ideas for Grandparents (see my previous post about gift ideas for new parents). I hope the below gives you some inspiration as to what to buy for Grandparents (whether they are yours or your kids’) – I find them very hard to buy for. Magazine subscription Personally I have a Style at Home subscription and for me it’s always a lovely treat when the magazine comes through my door each month. The great thing about magazine subscriptions is that there is something to suit everyone. The site that has never let me down is Magazines Direct. A magazine subscription is…
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Christmas Gift Ideas for New Parents
This is the first in a series of Christmas gift guides for those categories of people that are tricky to buy for. First up, I will be offering up some suggestions for gift ideas for new parents. It’s hard to know what to buy new mums and dads – maybe in previous years you might have bought them a voucher for their favourite restaurant but let’s face it, their life is dramatically different now. Here are some suggestions: Netflix With a young baby, parents will be spending a lot of time sitting down on the sofa, feeding and snuggling their bundle of joy. One of the things I was grateful…
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Things You Should Be Doing NOW to Save Money this Christmas (Free Printable)
Have you started a Christmas gift list yet? Yes, you probably think I am crazy. After all, there are are still over 5 months until Christmas. However, I am great believer that taking small steps towards getting ready for the festive season earlier in the year takes a huge amount of pressure off in December, plus you will also save tons of money by not having to panic buy at high prices. The biggest expenditure at Christmas is always presents. It’s important not to go into debt to pay for Christmas – after all, it’s only one day. Here are the things I am already doing now in terms of…