How I Got Christmas For FREE! – CouponMamaUK
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Yes you read that right! This year I have done Christmas for FREE, for my partner, our two children and all the extended family! It has taken most of the year to achieve this, but the huge savings have made it worth while. Christmas is the most expensive and stressful time of the year, especially when you have young children.
The overall cost of Christmas cost us nearly £800 last year, the pressure to keep every one happy and the last-minute rush to buy everything meant we ended up using catalogues. This is never a good idea as the high interest rates are extortionate. This year we set ourselves the challenge of having a debt free and most importantly a stress free Christmas!!
How I got Christmas for FREE!
Leading up to the big day I researched a lot of frugal ways to save money at Christmas without loosing out on quality. Christmas is my favorite time of year so although I wanted to make some savings, cutting corners was not an option.
- I applied for lots of freebies, and recently I also discovered product testing, all the lovely toiletries, cosmetics and other freebies can be used to make Christmas hampers.
- It’s always worth saving up coupons that don’t expire until after Christmas, and also writing to your favorite companies to see if they will send you out coupons. So far I have managed to save up over £100 worth of coupons, this combined with my loyalty cards and cash-back will mean I can feed everyone for free.
- This year alone I have earned over £150 from cashback apps, half of it goes towards groceries for Christmas day and the other half goes towards gifts and decorations. Cashback apps can be used in all the major supermarkets and are much more convenient than coupons.
- Entering competitions throughout the year may not seem worth while, however a lot of the social network giveaways have low entries so you have a higher chance of winning yourself some amazing prizes. I managed to Win over £250 worth of toys and other items in competitions am using them as gifts. Follow my page for regular updates and competitions.
- Save nice Christmas cards and reuse them to make festive gift tags, perfect for a rainy day activity with the kids.
Christmas Dinner And Snacks
Getting my Christmas Dinner and snacks for free was pretty easy if I’m honest and anyone could do this! Cashback apps can earn you a fair amount of cash.The £150 I had saved up using these amazing apps all year, covered most of our food shop including my Turkey and all the trimmings!
Combine your coupons with in-store deals and cash-back to bag yourself some freebies! You can also Sign up to websites such as BzzAgent they offer free product testing.
Not only do you get given free things you can also earn a huge amount of club-card points by completing small tasks such as writing short reviews or sharing on social networks. Save up these points as Tesco double them up at the end of the year so you can make a huge saving or even get items for free!
Boxing Day
It has always been a tradition in my family to get together on Boxing day, we play games and enjoy a huge variety of foods. Being very frugal I hate waste so use this opportunity to use up all the left over food from Christmas day. Most people prefer a lazy day on Boxing day but if you are as addicted to finding a bargain as me this is the day the sales start!
Handmade Gifts And Decorations
To make the most of the rainy days the Great British weather brings us, we have spent a lot of time making handmade gifts, decorations and cards with the kids. I absolutely love Pinterest there are so many unique Christmas ideas and most of them are so simple to make. When it comes to Christmas cards The Royal Mail offer free stamps for completing a survey so you could use these to post off your cards off to distant family and friends . The NSPCC also offer a free personalised letter from Santa that both my children have loved!
Most people appreciate the time and effort that you put into making something by hand especially the older generation.We made quite a lot in the lead up to Christmas but my all time favorite and most fun has got to be the salt dough! We used this to make gifts and decorations , it made a huge mess but the kids loved it!
Recipe for salt dough
- 250g (9oz) plain flour
- 275g (10oz) table salt
- 250ml (9fl oz) water
- Cookie cutters
- Paint (acrylic paints work well)
- Glue
- Glitter
- Ribbon
Step one
Put the dry ingredients into the mixing bowl. Add water bit by bit, mix into a soft dough then knead for 10 mins. Leave the dough to stand for around 20 mins before using it.
Step two
Cover two large baking trays with grease-proof paper
Flour the work surface and roll out to a thickness of 5mm–1cm. Use your cookie cutters to cut out shapes. While the dough is still soft, make a hole in each shape to allow for a ribbon for hanging. Or if you want to make the hand print in the image then now is the time to add your child’s imprint.
Step three
Put the shapes onto the baking trays and dry in a very cool oven (110°C/225°F/Gas Mark ¼ ) for 2–3 hours until they are completely dried out. If you are frugal like me and want to save on gas/electric leave the dough to dry naturally, this can take 48 hours for them to dry but it will save you money.
Decorate your shapes. Once your shapes are completely cool you can use any paint, glitter and glue to make them look festive. Acrylic paints work well and they give a nice smooth finish.
FREE Christmas Activities
In the lead up to Christmas family outings can be very expensive and even a 5 minute visit to Santa can set you back around £5! But don’t fret there are ways you can enjoy the festivities without dipping into your purse. For example school fates are a great place to visit Santa and most of the time it’s free!
FREE Coca-Cola Christmas truck event
Holidays are coming! The famous coca-cola truck is traveling all over the UK Stopping off at hundreds of locations make sure you click here to read more and to find out if it’s coming to a town near you!
Free Christmas carols and Switch on of the lights.
Most towns, cities ect host a special event where they turn on all there Christmas lights. Our town has done this every year and also offer free mince pies and mulled wine. Some places even have celebrities switch on their lights!
FREE Christmas activity pack
Free printable Christmas Activities to keep the kids entertained over Christmas from pine cone baubles to a Christmas scavenger hunt. Be sure to wrap up warm!
For more event freebies in the lead up to Christmas be sure to follow CouponMamaUK on Facebook.
The best time of year to get cards,wrapping paper and anything Christmasy is just after the big day so make sure you stock up for next year! For all the latest deals and sales be sure to follow my Facebook page where I will be posting regular updates on all the best savings to be had in these
