Planning for a Budget-Friendly Family Christmas

When you have a family, Christmas can be either the most enjoyable part of the year or the most stressful. We want to cherish the time with our kids, but what with buying gifts, organizing childcare over the holidays and stocking the pantry, stressing over money can easily get in the way of the fun.

If you have a big family, you’ll soon learn the importance of planning for the festive season. Not only will staying organized keep your stress levels to a minimum, but it will also help you save money, too. Here are some top tips for a budget-friendly family Christmas.

Start Early

It’s never too early to start planning for Christmas. If you’re guilty of leaving it to the last minute, set yourself a goal next year of saving just a little money every month. It’s always smart to hit the January sales, too. Wrapping paper, cards and gift items are usually reduced at the start of the year, so get stocked up.

The sooner you start, the more money you will save. That said, you could start right now and still have time to prepare, just check out this last minute checklist. You may not have a lot of money to spend, but if you can buy gifts and food items you can freeze, you won’t have so much to do come December. Make yourself a checklist and see if there’s anything you can tick off this month.

Buy Useful Gifts for Your Kids

Instead of filling your kids’ stockings with plastic junk they’ll be bored with by January, buy things they actually need. For babies who don’t understand about gifts yet, you can stock up on clothing and other essentials so they will have something to open. For preschoolers and above, puzzles and games are great gift ideas because they’re both fun and educational, plus, you can do them together as a family. For example, this foam floor puzzle is excellent value for money, and your young kids will love the eye-catching underwater design.

Limit Gifts for Friends and Family

If the purse strings are tight, settle on just one special gift per person rather than multiple items that the recipient might not want. It doesn’t have to be expensive either, as you can find gifts for under $30 online to suit every taste. If you can’t afford to buy gifts for friends and family because you’re focusing on your kids, then be honest about it – your loved-ones will understand.

Don’t Pretend It’s Not Happening

When you know Christmas is just around the corner, it’s tempting to shy away from it until the last possible minute – out of sight, out of mind, right? This mindset isn’t helpful, however, and it only makes the necessary planning and shopping more stressful as the day approaches.

Avoid those Christmas queues and get started now. Come Christmas Eve, and instead of doing a mad dash around the shops, you could be relaxing with a drink in hand, once the kids are in bed of course!

10 Fun Halloween Traditions and Greening Your Halloween

Please enjoy my article about 10 Halloween Traditions you'll want to try with your own kids, followed by the link to Greening Your Halloween! 

Don’t you just love Halloween?! It’s exciting (dressing up and sugar!) and scary (trick-or-treating in the dark!) … and a little bit gross (pumpkin goo!). My parents started Halloween traditions with me, and my mom still calls every year to make sure we know when the Charlie Brown Halloween show is on. Like me, I’m sure you enjoy discovering new traditions with your own kids, like “booing” and going to a Trunk or Treat. Read on for 10 Halloween tradition ideas, and don’t forget to take lots of spooky pictures!

Trunk or Treat 2012

The Heart of the Home: Creating the Kitchen of Your Dreams

The kitchen is the heart of the home, and with it being such a well-used room it’s no wonder there’s so much emphasis placed on it from a home decor point of view. Whether you want to make your life more functional or you want to boost the value of your home for when you sell it either now or later down the line, renovating the kitchen is a smart move. Here are some of the ways you can update the space.

source

Clear Out The Old and Decide on the Layout

First things first is to clear out the old to make way for the new. Turn off the plumbing and electrics and remove all of the old appliances, units, and worktops. Now is the time to decide on the layout too, if you want to go open plan or make the space larger it’s a case of removing or moving walls around. You could go with fully open plan, or perhaps an archway if the wall you want to remove is load-bearing and therefore difficult/ expensive to move.

Swagbucks "Three for Fall"

If you haven't tried Swagbucks before, you can get a bonus $3 for signing up during October as part of their Three for Fall promotion. Swagbucks is a rewards site where you earn points (called SB) for things you're probably doing online already, like searching, watching videos, discovering deals, and taking surveys. Then you take those points and exchange them for gift cards to places like Amazon, Starbucks, Walmart, Target, or PayPal cash. 

When you sign up through me this month, you can earn a $3 bonus! Here's how: 

1. Sign up using this link 

2. Earn 300 SB total before 11/1/17. You'll get a $3 (300 SB) bonus for it! 

3. If you want even more bonuses, you'll get a $10 (1000 SB rebate) bonus for making your first shop purchase! That's in addition to the SB you earn for every dollar you spend. 

That's it. It's super easy, and Swagbucks is for real. I use it myself, and I've earned 97,221 Swagbucks, which translates into almost $1,000 :-)

Swagbucks Halloween Sale

Now that Halloween is almost here, Swagbucks has increased cash back at a big group of their Halloween-related stores, so you can earn cash back while getting costumes, decorations, and more for the end of the month. Just click here to see the deals, and sign up for Swagbucks (if you haven't already) to start earning cash back in the form of SB points, which you can exchange for gift cards or PayPal cash. 



The sale is going through October 31st, and if you sign up through me, you'll get a 1,000 SB rebate ($10) after your first shopping purchase through Swagbucks!