Christmas Shopping Tips For People Who Wish They Were Organised

I know you don’t want to hear it, but Christmas is coming. If you’re trying to ignore it for a little bit longer, then I admire you, but you should definitely bookmark this page.

When I was a struggling single mum, I used to start my shopping in May, buying one item at a time so that my daughter didn’t have to miss out. This also enabled me to budget for friends and family gifts too, without feeling too financially wiped out.

This level of organisation soon fell by the wayside when I had a slightly more manageable amount of money. I start thinking about Christmas in October, I start deciding what to buy in November then I completely empty my bank on the booty about two weeks before Christmas. It’s a far less organised method, but it works better than not planning at all.

If you’ve managed to read this far, I sense you are disorganised too. I’m going to assume that you, like me, have all the best intentions when you first start seeing those ‘six months ’til Christmas’ memes on Facebook. I’ll also assume it doesn’t take long before you slip back into your non-list-making-chaos of a life. I’m going to share with you my secrets to an easy Christmas, so grab a cuppa and marvel at my ingenuity.

Don’t Get Your Child to Make a List Until Bedtime on Christmas Eve

‘MADNESS!’ You say? ‘How do you plan?’, I hear you ask!

You’ve read this far, I know you don’t plan either. This is the best kept secret, but it’s worked every year for me. Of course, buy them a couple of things they want, but don’t worry about painstakingly tracking down every item on a list as long as your arm. Instead, buy them things you know they will like plus the couple or so items you know that they definitely want.

Christmas Eve is your time to shine. You don’t want them writing the list on their own (they’ll go wild), you need to make an evening of it (this also doubles as a great tactic to stop them running around like crazy people, giddy with Christmas).

Set them up at a table with some plain paper, pencils, pencil crayons, and glitter (if you’re feeling it). Depending on your child’s age, there will be some penmanship you’ll be responsible for but even for older children you should draw a border that’s about an inch thick and some faint lines for the list to be written on. Get your child to decorate the border with Christmassy things while you write the list down for them to copy (if they’re old enough, otherwise just write it for them on the ‘official list’ paper they’re making).

This is where you get them! They are excited and you have hopefully distracted them a little with their task of decorating the letter, they are in a very suggestible state, and now your work begins. Vaguely describe the things you have already bought your child so that they figure out what you’re talking about and claim to want it.

For example, say you’ve bought a doll that eats and cries, you need to say something along the lines of, “wouldn’t it be nice if you had something that was like a real baby?” presumably, if you’ve bought something like this, your kid will be into it so they’ll probably start chatting excitedly about the prospect of something that eats and cries and may even know the official toy name from watching an advert. Put it on the list and repeat for the rest of the Christmas items.

Christmas morning will be really magical because your child will have everything from their list, without you having to spend millions (or have to fight someone in Toys R Us for the last singing Ariel on the shelf).

I can’t promise how long this technique will work for but my daughter is nearly 8 and I’m planning on using it again this year.

Online Department Stores are Your Best Friend

Department stores are a godsend because they have everything! I find them useful for buying the presents for most of the adults on your list, although they do tend to sell toys as well. Also, if you spend enough in one sitting, the delivery is usually free, so you’ll save a bit of money too.

The thing I like best about online department stores is the fact that they’re online. I only really like physical shopping if I’m buying stuff for me (and even then, it’s a push). I’m very glad for the freedom of staying up until midnight, waiting for payday to hit and spending the 30 minutes it takes for my hair masque to work to get all of my shopping done. It’s far better than braving actual shops over the festive period.

A lot of these places will offer some sort of credit too, which although I’m not suggesting that getting into debt is the solution to Christmas budgeting, it is a solution!

I must confess, I’ve never set foot inside a John Lewis (my town is only little and doesn’t have one) but I do use them most years for buying for my Auntie and my Mum. Also I swoon over their Christmas decorations (especially the ones I can in no way afford). Again, they offer a credit service, but this one seems to be a kind of Mastercard that you can use in other places too and earn rewards.

Don’t Overthink the Presents for the Awkward People in Your Life

Everyone knows someone who is not only picky, but also has everything they could possibly want. These people can be hard to buy for because they leave you wracking your brains.

What if I told you there was a way to half your effort? Wouldn’t it be nice to simplify the buying process? Let me tell you the secret to achieving this. Listen carefully and remember what I say.

STOP OVERTHINKING IT!

You are definitely wasting your time. These people are not as hard to buy for as you think!

My first go-to gift for these hard nuts to crack is the trusty magazine subscription. There are magazines for almost every interest now, take it from someone who buys loads of crochet magazines (who knew there was so much that could be written about crochet ever month!). Think of an interest this person has, there’ll be a magazine for it, I promise.

My next suggestion is get them something they never knew they wanted. Etsy is a treasure trove of stuff you never knew you wanted. I sell on Etsy and pretty much all the money I make goes on buying more stuff from Etsy. I warn you, it’s a bit of a rabbit hole and you might lose hours of your life on there. There’s also a load of shops that do personalised gifts so if all else fails, you can buy your Uncle Colin a mug that says ‘Colins are cool’ on it.

If you still have absolutely no idea what to buy, The Present Finder has lots of good ideas, as well as helpful headings like ‘Gifts for Teenage Girls’, and we all know what mystical beasts they can be!.

So now if  you don’t know what to buy, it should be because you’re spoilt for choice!

Wrapping in Moderation

People seem to hate wrapping. I think those people are mad because I actually love it but I am starved of time so this method works for me. Bulk buy wrapping paper before you even have any presents to wrap. As you start getting presents, wrap them as they come. If you’ve had a massive delivery of presents then commit to wrapping one or two a day. It’s a manageable way to do things but won’t get too boring too soon if you hate it.

If you have a child, you can also rope them into prettifying your package. Getting them to add ribbons and bows halves your workload. It also doubles up as an excuse for if you’re terrible at wrapping, “forgive the quality of the wrapping, the children helped me”.

Try and get cashback where possible

I joined Top Cashback today and I’m gutted about how much cashback I’ve been missing out on (on Just Eat alone!). It’s free to join and if you know where you’re planning on shopping, you can search the site before you buy to see if you can get cashback on it. It’s a perfect time to join because it’s approaching the time of year where you are likely to be doing the most spending.

There’s also a crazy section to the site where you get cashback for surveys and competitions, they are literally giving money away!

That’s the extent of my Christmas shopping tips for now, do you have any Christmas hacks? Please tell me in the comments because I feel that I really do need to know!

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