Making Cents: Making a list and checking it twice is essential to saving money at Christmas
FOOD and drink form a key part of the Christmas celebrations and households can spend serious money arranging suitably festive feasts for families and friends. But with a little planning and forethought, a very merry Christmas can be had on a reasonable budget.
Dubliner Caitríona Redmond lost her job at the height of the recession, and has since rebuilt a new career working from home as a food writer who specialises in wholesome family food on a budget, making her the perfect person to ask for tips on thrifty holiday shopping.
Her first piece of advice: “Make your list & check it twice - if it’s good enough for Santa, it’s good enough for you”.
As always, planning is key. Write out everything you want and need for your Christmas cooking, but check your cupboard before you hit the shops. How many of us have half-empty bags and jars of little-used ingredients clogging up our shelves? Know exactly what you have to avoid unnecessary duplication.
Caitríona also suggests being realistic at the planning stage about what exactly gets eaten.
“Be brutal,” she advises. “If there are items that you rarely eat or you always have in the cupboard for months afterward then scrap them and don’t buy.”
You may feel mince pies or Brussels sprouts are an integral part of Christmas. But if no-one in the house actually likes them and they end up joining torn wrapping paper in the bin in January, cross them off your list.
According to Caitríona, you’re still not ready to hit the shops though.
“Make sure you have storage space so you’re not falling over a turkey and the ham doesn’t take up all the fridge.”
This can work out as a double saving. Before you stuff your freezer with treats, you need to create space. So why not spend the next couple of weeks eating as much as possible from your freezer and store cupboards? As well as making room, you can add any savings from your weekly grocery shop to the Christmas budget.
Plan to buy your food and drink over several weeks to spread the cost. Things like boxes of sweets and biscuits can be bought weeks ahead of time, as can any meat that you are buying frozen or to freeze yourself. The special offers will vary from week to week in supermarkets so keep an eye out and nab what you need while it is reduced. It can be hard to keep tabs on the offerings, but luckily Caitríona does just that on her website Wholesomeireland.com. Check it out to get a round-up of each week’s special offers from all the big retailers.
Don’t stay loyal to brand names just for the sake of it. Aldi and Lidl have impressive ranges of Christmas food and drink at budget prices. When your family and guests are tucking into cheeses, chocolate biscuits and sparkling wine, where they were bought won’t care where the goodies were bought.
Now is also the time to make use of any vouchers you have and take advantage of special offers that come with your loyalty cards. Dunnes Stores are offering customers €10 off the next €50 shop every time time they spend €50 and Tesco accepts some coupons from its competitors.
And when you do go shopping?
“Go without kids,” Caitríona advises. “That way there are no attacks of the ‘gimme-gimme’ to push you to spend more money.
“Many hands make light work. Sometimes one of my sisters and I do the big shop together and each push a trolley through the supermarket side by side. It makes the shop easier for us and we have a bit of a laugh too.”
If you are looking to expand your repertoire of Christmas recipes, Irish Country Living columnist Nessa Robins produced an e-book last year called Nessa’s Christmas Kitchen. Packed with recipes for Irish festive treats like potato cakes with smoked Irish salmon, it can be downloaded for free from Nessasfamilykitchen.blogspot.ie.
DEAL OF THE WEEK
Lidl have had their decorations and Christmas food on the shelves since last month, but from this week they also have a wide range of toys on sale.
From Thursday, November 19, they have a selection of sturdy wooden toys equally likely to please younger children and provoke nostalgia in the adult buying them.
A lovely doll’s house (€34.99) and train set (€19.99) are among the bigger items, and they also have puzzles, trucks and play sets starting at €4.99.
On the same day they also have a Star Wars range in their specials, with action figures for sale at €14.99 and a light-saber or model starship for €29.99.
Budding young carpenters would be thrilled to get their hands on the DIY work bench, complete with a set of plastic tools, for €34.99.
In addition, they are offering many popular items, such as doll styling heads, children’s laptops, remote-control helicopters and Barbies at competitive prices.
If Santa is on a budget he should send his elves to Lidl quickly, before they sell out.
And for any young musicians in the family, a range of instruments go on sale there a week later, on November 26.
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