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6 super easy ways to save money over Christmas

A 2015 Gallup poll found that Americans were planning to spend an average of $830 on Christmas gifts. That’s just gifts. When you factor in food, decorations and parties, that figure is likely over $1,000.

In short: Christmas is super expensive. Luckily, we’ve found a few ways to save money this holiday season…


Buy second hand gifts (or make your own)

Second hand gifts are cheaper, environmentally friendly and often as good as new.

Here’s a simple exercise: take your present list, search for each item new and preowned, and then compare the difference. The amount you could save will shock you.

For example, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (one of the season’s hottest games) costs $59.99 new in some stores. We found it preowned for as little as $30 – pretty much half price.

Alternatively, use your skills to make a gift. If you can draw, sketch someone a portrait. You could make jewellery, or write someone a letter. As long as you put the effort in, people will appreciate it!


Cut out the small spends

Most of us spend small amounts of money every day out of habit. If you break those habits, you could save a lot of money in a short space of time.

Let’s say you spend $5 on lunch every day. If you stop buying lunch and make it from home, you’ll save $70. If you spend $4 on a cup of coffee, cutting it out will save you another $56. That’s $126 saved just by making your own lunch and coffee!

You should cut out the big, unnecessary expenses too, of course. Before you buy anything, question if you really need it.


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Ask people what they want

A 2015 study by Shorr Packaging estimated that a ridiculous $19.4 billion of unwanted gifts would be returned last year. The actual figure may be even higher.

One simple action could have prevented most, if not all, of those returns: people asking each other what they want.

Okay, so it’s nice to get a surprise every now and again. But surprises can be bad too – and expensive. Ask your nearest and dearest what they want to make sure you’re spending as efficiently as possible.


Invite people round for dinner (and split the cost!)

The Christmas meal is one of the biggest expenses of the holiday season, with a ton of food and drink to pay for.

An easy way to cut that cost is invite people for dinner and ask them to contribute. You’ll all save a little money, although you will probably have to cook…


Don’t give gifts

Believe it or not, 1 in 10 families don’t exchange gifts at Christmas. In this fascinating MarketWatch article, Michelle Morton of North Carolina explains why:

 “…it was stressful and expensive getting all those gifts, when none of us really needed any of it. In order to stop the madness, our Christmas became about being able to spend time with family”.

Doesn’t that sound great? Of course, it’s not as simple as that. You can’t just stop giving gifts.

Instead, ask a few close friends and family you can be relatively sure won’t get offended if they’d consider not exchanging gifts this year. You might be surprised by their response.


Sell your unwanted stuff

Selling stuff you don’t need any more is a great way to raise extra cash quickly, and there are a ton of places to sell stuff too.

For example, with Decluttr (that’s us…), you can sell your unwanted DVDs, old CDs, sell Games, sell Books online and Tech, send it for FREE and we’ll pay you the day after your stuff arrives!


Want to make some extra cash before Christmas? Give Decluttr a try! Here’s how it works…

Start Selling

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