Best Ways To Save Up A Budget For Christmas Shopping

Sorry not sorry – in my eyes, it’s never too early to start thinking about Christmas! Especially in our current economic climate, where Brits are struggling to afford to purchase food and essentials due to the cost of living crisis. Statistics have shown that when it comes to us Brits, we spend an absolutely staggering amount of money during the month of December. Studies have shown that, on average, we spend a whopping £740 more during December. The majority of this money goes on festive items, presents, Christmas food, and partywear. 

With all these expenses to consider, it’s always incredibly helpful to have a budget for your Christmas shopping, as well as some extra savings in the pot. There are some great ways to make saving up a Christmas budget easy and relatively pain-free when it comes to your monthly expenses. 

Here are Coffee and Life, we want to ensure we share all the tips and tricks that we can to make sure our readers don’t feel the need to put themselves into a position of financial hardship during the festive period. As such, we’ve put together these tips on the best ways to save up a budget for Christmas shopping.

1 The best way to save up a Christmas budget is to start putting money aside as early as possible.

If you want to have a comfortable sum of money saved for your Christmas spending, it’s always better to start saving sooner, rather than later. 

It stands to reason that the sooner you start saving money for your Christmas budget, the longer you will have to ensure you have a good amount of money put aside for your Christmas spending. 

There are plenty of brilliant savings challenges that can help you to put away money for Christmas, starting from the very beginning of the year. These savings challenges are designed to help you to put away small amounts of cash each week or month. These can be really beneficial for those who want to start saving up for Christmas as soon as possible but are still feeling the pinch from the previous year’s festivities. 

2 One of the best ways to save up for Christmas is to make the most of AI savings apps and your online banking features.

Apps are brilliant, and as we know, these days there’s an app for everything! I absolutely love using AI Savings Apps to help me to pop away small amounts of cash each week into various pockets, and fortunately, there are plenty of FCA approved apps that are completely free for you to sign up to. 

Most AI Savings Apps work by analysing your weekly expenditure and then calculating how much money could be taken from your current account without causing you any issues. These apps work by taking a tiny amount each week and putting the money into a virtual pot. In apps such as Plum, you can create several pots for various different savings. This means you can divide your savings between several different pots, including Christmas, dentists, the opticians, holiday funds, and anything else that you may need to save up for. Many online banks also offer this feature, such as Monzo.

3 Another way to save money for Christmas is to use leftover gift cards to top up your budget. 

We’ve all received gift cards for shops that either don’t interest us, or we just don’t get around to using them. Instead of leaving them to expire, add these gift card balances to your Christmas budget! Essentially, gift cards are just free cash, so you could either use these to purchase gifts for loved ones, or you could regift the card itself. Remember though that gift cards have expiry dates, so always check these before heading to the shops! 

4 Take advantage of survey sites and apps.

I love survey sites, I can’t even begin to deny it. I will admit that websites such as Swagbucks do sometimes frustrate me, however, if you have a few spare minutes in the evening, joining survey sites is a great way to add a little extra money to your Christmas pot.

Personally, I love Prolific as this site uses predetermined demographic information to find surveys suitable for you, which means you’ll never get screened out of a survey halfway through. I use survey websites such as Swagbucks, Prolific, and YouGov. I also scan all my receipts using the Storewards and Shoppix apps to gain a little extra cash, which I then cash out as Amazon vouchers. 

If you are interested in joining Swagbucks, please consider using this referral link.

Please never feel like you have to put yourself into debt at Christmas.

It’s really not always easy to build up a Christmas budget, which is why I have shared these tips with you. During the festive season, people often feel a huge amount of pressure to deliver and sometimes this can cause us to take out more credit than we would usually consider, or even continue to add to our debts. If you are struggling with debt, please do not feel like you need to jeopardise your financial future by spending money you don’t have in order to please others. Instead, try talking to your friends and family and explaining your situation to them, because, at the end of the day, Christmas is about making memories and enjoying spending time with the people you love.