The true cost of Christmas with Park Christmas Savings
** This is a collaborative post with Park Christmas Savings. All words and opinions are my own **
As a family of six, with a teenager whose Christmas list is expensive, and three younger children whose lists are extensive, budgeting for Christmas is so important! In previous years we have found ourselves leaving it all until the last minute, having a mad panic come December, and having to scramble together the money from credit cards and our overdrafts which ultimately, has a knock on effect on our budgeting for the coming year. This year we started planning with Park Christmas Savings who have been helping families, just like ours, for over fifty years.
For those who aren’t familiar with Park Christmas Savings, it’s a super easy plan where you basically decide how much you need to set aside for Christmas, choose your gift cards and vouchers and then pay a manageable amount each week or month! Simple! You can pay via direct debit which is what we do, or via online or telephone banking, the Park app, a standing order, at the post office and many more convenient ways.
The great thing about the Park Christmas Savings plan is that you then get to choose your gift cards from a huge range of high street shops, supermarkets, dining out or experiences. You can then give those vouchers to your loved ones as gifts which we found was great this year for popping in a Christmas card to family members we couldn’t see, or you can use those vouchers to buy the gifts from your children’s wish lists and your Christmas food shop. I found it so much less stressful to know everything was covered and with everything else us Mum’s have to get done at Christmas, it was one less worry!
As with all savings plans, it’s sometimes a case of over budgeting or under budgeting, and I know that for us this year we definitely did a little of both. I’ve been totting up just how much we spent on Christmas as well as the things we completely forgot about too! So how much did we spend?
Food
This year was a little different for us as usually, although we spend Christmas Day at home but visit family members on Boxing Day and are out and about with the kids so spending less time at home. This year, with us spending the entire Christmas period at home we soon realised that we were going through a lot of extra food and although my Mum delivered Christmas dinner, all of the other bits such as the extra snacks, the cheeses, the meat, chocolates, puddings….not to mention the alcohol, soon added up!
Estimated spend: £200
Actual spend: £250
Christmas party preparations
Usually at Christmas we will all have some form of Christmas party to attend, for the children their annual Christmas party at school, and for Gaz and I a night out with friends, a meal with the school mums and a drink for the lads in the local pub. I always book to have my hair done just before Christmas, sometimes even my nails, and the children will all have pre-Christmas hair cuts ready to look their best for the big day itself.
This year, with Lancashire being in Tier 3 long before the national lockdown was announced, our pubs, restaurants and non-essential shops were closed, gatherings banned and hair appointments cancelled, which was so sad but actually saved us a lot of money! The only purchases we made were new Christmas jumpers for Eva, Megan and Harry as they had outgrown theirs this year.
Estimated spend: £300
Actual spend: £20
Christmas presents
Christmas presents is most definitely the area where we spend the most at Christmas and I think anyone with teenagers will understand when I say that the older they get, the more expensive they become! Gaz and I buy very little for each other at Christmas, just a token gift to open from the children on Christmas morning for their sake more than ours, and as a family we only buy for our parents and money for nieces and nephews. We are also highly fortunate that in our line of work we often receive review products which can be put away throughout the year for Christmas which does lower the cost of our Christmas expenses.
This year, having had a really difficult time of it in lock down, I am more than guilty of going a little over board when it comes to our own children and I make no excuses for that. They have been absolute warriors dealing with the impact of lockdown and it was the most amazing feeling in the world to give them the most magical Christmas possible. I would love to be one of those parent who had a strict budget per child and had some self restraint when it came to buying more for them but I’m just not and I doubt I ever will be. So it’s no surprise that every year I estimate a budget and every year I go way over it!
Estimated spend: £600
Actual spend: £800
Extras
Allowing yourself a budget for all of the extras is so important and something I always forget to include. Things like the Christmas decorations, perhaps a real tree, lighting, new ornaments and wreaths. Then there’s the Christmas Eve boxes, the movies, the odd take away when you’re just completely sick of cooking! When you add it all up, although it isn’t a huge amount in the grand scheme of Christmas, it can still be enough to tip you over your budget!
Estimated spend: £50
Actual spend: £40
The grand total
Having estimated £1350 for our Christmas expenses we were delighted to have managed to save that throughout the year on our Park Christmas Savings plan and it was a huge weight lifted to be able to buy everything we needed with our vouchers come December. Our actual spend came out at £1310 which meant we had miraculously under-budgeted although I think this was entirely down to a huge chunk of our social plans being thwarted by the pandemic!
Estimated spend: £1150
Actual spend: £1110
We will definitely be doing the Park Christmas Savings plan again this year and can’t recommend it enough to others. To find out more and sign up you can visit the website here.
