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Christmas Bargain Hunting: Tips From A Dad

CHRISTMAS BARGAIN HUNTING:
TIPS FROM A DAD
 
 
 
Christmas is just around the corner and will be here before you know it. My wife and I, like a lot of families, find Christmas to be a ridiculously expensive time of year. However, does Christmas need to be as expensive as it can be? I genuinely believe that you can have a great Christmas without spending thousands and thousands of pounds. In this post I am going to share with you my Christmas Bargain Hunting tips which I believe will help to make Christmas a little easier on your wallet. Here goes...
 
1) Start Early: This one is an obvious one but a one that not many people do. I always start getting presents in for the twins around August. The reason for this is that many shops are starting to get prepared for Christmas so they are clearing room on their shelves. This is a great time to pick up some bargains from some of the bigger supermarket chains and retail outlets. Here are some examples of bargains I obtained at the end of Summer this year (for various Children in the family):
 
  • Argos - Paw Patrol Air Rescue figures with accessories reduced from £7.99 to £4.99 each
  • Sainsbury's - Grow and Play Police HQ reduced from £15 to £3.75
  • Wilko - Doodle Books reduced from £2.99 to 20p and Bic Twistable Colouring Pencils reduced from £2.99 to 75p
  • B&M Bargains - Disney Tsum Tsum Pyramid Game reduced from £9.99 to £3.00
What would have cost £68.91 at full price ended up costing £28.61 which is a saving of £40.30.
 
But you could start even earlier...like two days after Christmas! Every year we buy our Mam's a new Christmas decoration as they both like to receive them. Last year I visited the Hallmark Outlet on December 27th and I was able to get two Winter Wonderland Tea Light Holders and two Christmas Votive Ornaments for the grand total of £5.50 instead of £39.96 so I saved £34.46.
 
2) Combined Offers: This can be a tricky one to find but when you do find it you are on to a winner. I recently visited my local Sainsbury's to buy some coffee and I came away with the coffee and a whole range of panda themed stationary. As I have twins I bought two of each of a pencil case; colouring case filled with felt tips, crayons and paint; tape; paperclips; erasers; stickers; a tin full of post-it style notes and colouring books. They were reduced by 75%, some items had further reductions (the erasers were reduced from £3.00 to 30p) and they were all on 3 for 2. What should have cost £48.00 at full price ended up costing me £9.14 so a saving of £38.86. I will bundle these up in to a set each for the twins and they will be delighted with them.  
 
3) Reduced Labels Are Your Friend: Where I live I have access to all of the big supermarkets - Asda, Sainsbury's, Morrisons and Tesco. Quite often supermarkets will reduce items if they are making space for new items and quite often there are some crazy deals to be had if you can find them. The best way to do this is to find the "Reduced Labels" or "Clearance Labels" and to investigate them. You can do this online but I find it much better to visit the store as they often have things that are reduced locally and that aren't in stock online. A lot of retail outlets also have things in stock that aren't online such as Smyths or B&M Bargains. A few things I picked up recently include:
 
  • Tesco - A Wooden Train Set reduced from £10.00 to £3.00 and a Wooden Train Station (that attaches to the train set) reduced from £6.00 to £2.00.
  • Smyths - Twozies Friend Pack (containing 6 twozies) reduced from £7.99 to £3.00
  • Sainsbury's - A shirt which was £7.50 reduced to £3.75 (and on the day I bought it they had an additional 25% off so ended up being £2.81)
In total this should have been £39.48 (I bought two packs of Twozies) but cost £13.81 so a saving of £25.67.
 
4) Team Up With Others: Just last week Smyths had a deal on where you saved £10 for every £50 you spent. I teamed up with the twins to take advantage of this deal. Let me explain...so, the twins had earned £5.00 each off me as a reward for good behaviour. They wanted to go to Smyths to spend this and they had £2.00 each from the Tooth Fairy to add to this. They chose to spend their £7.00 on Twozies as there was a pack of 12 twozies in the clearance section reduced from £14.99 to £7.00 each. By getting Kate to distract them I was able to get them an Enchantimals figure each, a Car Carrying Truck for Ruby (it is the one thing she has asked for), another Car Carrying Truck for my Godson (they were £9.99 each but in the usual "2 for £15" range) and a couple of Playmobil Friends blind bags. This scanned through at £50.96 then with the offer was £40.96. The twins were using £14 of their money so it cost me £26.96 and essentially meant that I got the Car Carry Truck for my Godson for FREE!  
 
DISCLAIMER: Please don't think I took advantage of my children - they were spending this money anyway so I took advantage of an in store offer...without them knowing. 
 
5) Enter Competitions: This one obviously only works if you actually win...but it is definitely worth a shot. Social media is littered with competitions and 95% of them are genuine and not just a way for companies to gather information. Earlier this year my wife entered a competition on "Disney Junior UK" through Facebook and she won a bundle of prizes. This included:
  • A Piglet Tsum Tsum - put away for Ruby for Christmas
  • A Tigger Tsum Tsum - put away for Poppy for Christmas
  • A Frozen Beaker - put away for my niece for Christmas
  • A Mickey Mouse Plush - given to my other niece for her 1st birthday
They all had the price tags left on them and would have cost £18.98 but cost us NOTHING.
 
6) Use Social Media: Social media has many, many advantages and can be a great tool for bargain hunting. Facebook has many group pages you can sign up to such as "Extreme Couponing and Bargains UK" where members post about special offers they have found and share in the group. Just today they have posted about a Barbie Convertible Car and Doll that is on offer in Tesco for £15.00 instead of £30.00. Recently I used this page as my parents wanted to buy Poppy a Playmobil set for Christmas (as she has stated she would like one). Through that group I saw that Asda were selling a Playmobil City Hospital for £30 instead of £65. I compared online and the cheapest I could find was on Amazon for £52. I told my parents and they went and bought this and made a great saving.
 
7) Second Hand Deals: Don't turn your nose up at second hand toys and clothes as quite often they are virtually brand new. Ebay is a great place to find second hand things cheap and, linked in with tip 6, you can quite often find groups local to you on Facebook where people buy and sell used toys and clothes. My mother is the "Ebay Queen" and often finds amazing deals. Just recently she bought a BlueZoo jumper for Ruby with an alpaca on it (she loves alpacas) that Debenhams sell for £28. My Mam paid £1.78 for it. It had hardly been worn and a quick wash and iron later it was practically brand new. My Dad saw a jigsaw that he wanted to get the girls. It sells for £14.99 on their website but he won one on an Ebay auction for £4.90. This is a third of the price and it is in perfect condition...so good that I told him to put it away for Christmas but he insisted they have it immediately as he clearly wanted to complete it himself.
 
8) Visit Local Attractions: This one is not related to presents but to activities. It is quite easy to get sucked in to only doing the best and the biggest things as they are the ones that advertise more and give the impression of being the best of the best. An example...pantomimes. The Theatre Royal in Newcastle is a big theatre venue in the UK which shows great productions. Their pantomime this year is "Peter Pan". To go on Saturday December 16th at 7pm it costs £38.00 a ticket in the stalls so would cost us £152.00 for 4 tickets. Two miles down the road is the People's Theatre which is a 500 seat venue showing non-professional performances. We have gone there for the last 3 years to see their Pantomime. On the same night this year to go and see their production of "Aladdin" it has cost us £47.00. This is £105.00 cheaper than the Theatre Royal. It is always a great show and, more importantly, the twins absolutely love it. You will also be supporting local venues and giving money back to your local economy which is always a good thing in my eyes.
 
And there you go...my tips on how to make Christmas a little bit cheaper for you and your family. Sure, there are things that you can't always get cheaper such as electronics and games consoles but you can quite often find good deals if you shop around online or visit independent retailers in your local community.
 
 
 
There are bargains to be had everywhere...you just need to keep an eye out for them.
 
I hope you found this post useful. Do you have any bargain hunting tips to share? Leave a comment if so. 
 
Until next time...
 
The Twiglet's Dad       

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