7 Money Saving Tips for Christmas 2022 in Ireland

  • By: Walter Dunphy ACCA
  • Date: September 22, 2022
  • Time to read: 6 min.

Christmas 2022 in Ireland is going to be like no other, the country is gripped in a cost of living crisis that is putting everyone under severe pressure to make ends meet. The best thing you can do to ease your worries is to make a plan as early as possibly and stick to it.

In this blog post, I will be going through 7 different tips you can implement to try and ease a bit of financial pressure the Christmas holidays bring.

Sell Unwanted Clutter

Who here is a hoarder? I think we are all a little bit guilty from time to time of hanging on to things we no longer use. Instead of waiting until next year to do the Spring clean, why not move it forward to before Christmas?

With the likes of Facebook Marketplace and Done Deal, it has become very easy for people to offload items they no longer need such as that bicycle in the shed you never use, or those old laptops and phones picking up dust in your drawer.

All of these items have value and could be used to help you bridge the gap and make your Christmas far more affordable.

Automate your savings

If you are reading this post a few months before Christmas then you still have time to make a savings plan. The biggest hurdle of making a savings plan is getting into the habit of putting the money aside.

If you are one of those people who cannot keep to a plan then maybe you should use some AI tools that will help you save automatically without even having to think about it. Two that come to mind that are readily available in Ireland are Revolut Vaults and Plum.

Revolut Vault:

The vast majority of people in Ireland now use Revolut as a secondary bank. One great feature they have on the mobile app is the Revolut Vault. The Vault allows you to create a separate place where you can store your savings so you are less likely to dip into them for your every day expenses.

With the Vault feature, you can set a goal of how much you want to save and the deadline you want to have the money by. As well as setting up automatic weekly transfers, you can use a another trick of rounding up all your card payments to the nearest whole number and putting the spare change into the Vault. This is a clever way of building up the fund without even realising.

Plum:

Another app you can use to help build your saving pot is Plum. Plum links up with your main bank account on a read-only basis and analyses all of your transactions. Based on this the AI will determine a suitable amount of money that can be set aside as savings every week.

The money will be moved across to your Plum pocket automatically so you won’t even notice yourself moving closer to your saving goals.

Start a festive side hustle to earn extra income

Sometimes it is easier to try and make some extra money rather than cut back on what you already spend. There are many side hustles you could do to earn a few extra bob over the holiday period.

First of all, Christmas in Ireland is a time of non-stop nights out on the town with packed pubs. It is hard to get a taxi home at normal times, never mind over Christmas. If you have a car you could use this as an opportunity to say to your friends and family that you are willing to do some taxi runs to pick them up at the end of the night (for a small fee of course).

Some other ideas could be; house-sitting, babysitting, dog-sitting, putting up lights for elderly neighbours and collecting Christmas trees when the holidays are over and bringing them to the dump.

Regift

It may be not something you want to advertise to all your friends but regifting could be a way to help you quickly save some money. I have received countless Lynx sets, enough to keep me smelling good until 2027. Stuff like this could easily be regifted if needs be.

Manage home energy

Ireland is facing a huge energy crisis going into the Winter month and households are expecting energy bills to skyrocket. Although, it will be very unlikely you will be able to bring your bills lower than they were this time last year, everyone will be looking for ways to limit how high their bills go over the winter months.

According to Bord Gais, reducing your thermostat by 1 degree can save you 10% on your energy bills. As well as this you could use other techniques such as only turning on heavy power using appliances such as dishwashers and washing machines outside of peak hours and unplugging devices when they are fully charged.

While this alone will not likely ease the pressure this Christmas, trying to combine as many little saving tips as you can together can make a big impact.

Get Creative

Simple items such as cards and wrapping paper can be needlessly pricey when you are already spending most of your budget on the actual gifts. In areas such as this, you can try and be creative by getting the help from your kids to design a homemade card or wrapping paper (it might even keep them quite for a couple of hours).

If you just don’t have the money to be buying gifts then you can think outside the box, maybe there are things you can do for your loved ones that they would appreciate more than a physical gift. Do you have a skill that you could sit with them for a couple of hours to help them learn?

Avoid getting into short term debt

Short term debt is the most expensive, for example most credit cards in Ireland have a shockingly high APR rate of 22.1- 22.9%.

If you end up borrowing at these rates you are just putting off the pain until January when you may be under even more pressure to make ends meet and now you are also trying to pay off an amount that is excessively higher than what you paid originally for the gifts. It can be a slippery slope.

It is completely understandable how this can happen, families want to give their kids everything on Santa’s list and see them happy on Christmas morning, but there may be more avenues that you can exhaust before borrowing from a financial institution.

Could you buy it second-hand? Would a family member be able to lend you the money interest-free for a short period until you are more financially comfortable? Have you claimed all your tax reliefs back from Revenue? When was the last time you got a raise?

Buy early

This is probably one of the most obvious ones but maybe one that only the very organised among us take advantage of. The earlier you buy, often the more time you have to shop for better deals. If you have all your ducks in a row by November you may be able to save yourself a lot of money by picking up items in the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales.

Lastly, if you are experiencing distress over your financial situation at any time, there are many free services that you can avail of that will help you get some sound advice on how to get back on track. MABS (Money Advice and Budgeting Service) have a helpline for those in need, don’t underestimate the power of reaching out for help.

Disclaimer: This blog post is purely for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as financial advice.

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