Top tips to spend less at Christmas are 10 a penny but that did not stop us asking readers to share their wisdom.
Last week we asked users of the platform formerly known as Twitter for their single best idea for saving a few bob over the season to spend lolly and the answers flowed more freely than bucks fizz on a boozy Christmas morning.
While some were wiser than three men carrying gold, frankincense and myrrh, some drew their inspiration from a geezer called Ebenezer.
“Lock all the house doors and windows and throw away the keys?” suggested Tony Clayton-Lea, a name you might well recognise from the pages of this newspaper.
RM Block
“Stop buying gifts for adults. We all have enough stuff,” said Úna Ní Ifearnáin. She might well be right but it doesn’t chime with our Christmas spirit.
“Wait till 2pm Christmas Eve” to shop, advised Niall Kelly, and while that might well work for him, the very idea brings us out in hives.
“If you receive presents early and you have to give presents to others later, regift some of them instead of spending money on buying other presents,” wrote John Toohey.
“Secret Santa for the adults,” suggested Claire Fitzsimons. “Everyone gets one present, set a limit for the spend. Works well in my family.”
“Give and welcome gift vouchers – they usually double in value during the post-Christmas sales,” said Angela Holohan. We are not terribly fond of vouchers ourselves but we can’t fault her logic.
We could fault the logic of Pat Cassidy, who also had vouchers on his mind. “Print off made-up vouchers for friends that lose and never use vouchers then pay for the item experience when they finally get around to booking! Saves so much hassle,” he suggested.
“For years a friend and I have saved a sum of money every week in the post office, which we withdraw at the beginning of December,” wrote Paula Courtney with a wisdom that might serve you well next year but is of limited use for Christmas 2025. “Present-wise this year, I’m organising gift bags with usable items, eg seasonal jams and chutneys, candles [and] nice chocolates. I’m buying a little every week.”
Orna Richella reminded us to “check out the best-before dates when you are buying food for the period. And check what is freezable. Otherwise there will be a glut followed by famine.”
She is definitely not wrong on that score. Several years ago when Pricewatch was charged with the big Christmas food shop – just days after the youngest of the Pricewatch family was somewhat unexpectedly born – we managed to buy a turkey, a ham and most of the trimmings that had a use-by date of December 24th.
And staying with food, Keith Grant said people who are getting a boned and rolled turkey should not “bother getting a full bird boned and rolled. Just buy the boneless breast (otherwise known as crown) it’ll work out significantly cheaper in the long run and most people don’t like the leg meat anyway.”
“You don’t need matching PJs for an Instagram photo,” said Hazel Carty, while for Ger Jones the key to a more frugal Christmas is to “budget spending, use cash, leave cards at home. Amazingly, when you count out notes instead of ‘tapping’ it focuses the mind on what ‘stuff’ costs”.
So they are the tips from readers, some are good and some are miserable – and, yes, we are looking at you, Tony Clayton-Lea.
For our part, we have some money-saving notions of our own.
- Perfect is the enemy of fun at Christmas. Every year we are all told across multiple channels how to find the perfect gift and cook the perfect sprouts and make the perfect home and wear the perfect clothes. Perfect does not exist and chasing it leads too many of us to spend too much on stuff we don’t need.
- Don’t go crazy in the supermarket on December 23rd. You are not shopping ahead of a nuclear winter. You do not need two trolleys piled high with food. The shops will open again on December 26th and 27th – and some will be open on Christmas Day. If you hit the supermarket on the Tuesday before Christmas Day – which is on a Thursday – you are really only shopping for four or five days. Make a list of what you need and stick to the list.
- You probably don’t need a massive ham – 2kg tops – but a bigger turkey is better value. The bone structure of a 8kg turkey and an 4kg one are pretty similar, so the larger one has a much higher proportion of meat.
- Get most of your presents bought this week. If you leave it late you will put yourself under huge stress and end up spending more than you want or have to settle for bad presents. We are sceptical about the deals on offer for Cyber Monday but if you can get stuff at a discount now that will cost more in two weeks you may as well do it.
- When buying presents, make like Santa and make a list of who you need to buy for. Get the most expensive and the most important present first – it will ease your stress levels no end.
- If at all possible, do not use a credit card this festive season. The interest rates are scandalously high and you will be still paying off what you spend this month next June. If you are strapped, consider a credit union loan. Interest rates will be less than half what you are charged by your credit-card company. Were you to borrow €1,500 from a credit union this week you would have it cleared by this time next year at a cost of around €30 a week. We are not advocating getting into debt for Christmas but if you are going to borrow, make sure you borrow at the lowest rate.
- Chill out about the presents you get. If we all just relaxed on that score it would make the whole palaver so much easier.
- Regift the bejaysus out of Christmas and do it with no shame. It is eco-friendly and economical. But please try not to give someone a gift they gave to you.
- The middle aisles of Lidl and Aldi are great for stocking fillers, and they do a mean line in sparkling wines too.
- Don’t bother spending loads of money on wines “because it is Christmas”, and anything over €20 should be avoided.
