We all know how January can be difficult due to all the expenses of the last days of December to have a joyful and merry Christmas, buy the gifts, do the long distance calls or offer a variety of good food to guests and family members for the Christmas Eve dinner.

But no worries, with the below tips you will be able to save a lot and continue being happy even with your January financial balance.

1. Plan everything

You may think that this is so obvious and logical that you even get to wonder why we placed it as a useful advice. Well, we did, because it actually is. Some people tend to ignore how important planning ahead is. It will help you be prepared, use all coupons and promotional offers out there and save a lot without risking to pay high prices and buy everything you need at the very last moment.

2. You can do lots of things yourself

When it comes to decorating the house, remember about all those craftworks you used to do together with your mom and dad when you were little. All that knowledge could come in very handy now. You can spend just a little money on paper and other crafting materials and become a kid while creating sparkling decorative starts and flowers for your home or Christmas tree. Doing so, you can create joyful playtime moments for your kids too and at the same time save a lot of money.

You can prepare some greeting cards or do the gift-wrapping yourself too. Parents and relatives always appreciate the time and efforts you placed on preparing something for them.

3. Spread your shopping

To avoid buying everything during one month and risking to go crazy on December, try to do separate shopping sessions even months ahead and put everything in the freezer. While for the gifts, you can anytime buy them online or even directly in the local shops if you don’t expect further seasonal sales on them.

4. Nothing’s more precious than good memories

Do not underestimate the ability of a child to appreciate good and joyful time spent together in the family. Rather than buying expensive gifts or trying to organize expensive trips to Disneyland, you can look up the local events that include Santa and other seasonal activities and offer that kind of entertainment to your children. Skiing, making the snow angels on the backyard, building up Frosty or doing the Christmas tree together will always remain in their hearts and minds.

On the same principal, you can decide to print out family photographs or gift stamped t-shirts to your family members. It will definitely put a bigger smile on their faces than bringing some expensive staff from the shopping center.

5. It can’t be Christmas if you don’t cover up in blankets

Remember those sweet romantic movie scenes where she is wearing woolen socks and covered in thick blankets when he knocks on her door to wish her Merry Christmas? Well, you can somehow try to reproduce the same feeling of coziness and also save at the same time. You have to buy gifts to family members, so why not woolen socks or blankets? This way they will all feel like exactly that movie scene and you will also save on electricity bills until spring.

Pack up your entire family! Y’all are headed out to a restaurant where your little ones can eat for FREE! Some restaurant offers may vary according to location, so make sure to call ahead and double check with your neighborhood chain before heading out the door!

1) Bennigan’s

Children 12 and under eat free, but only on Tuesdays, and specifically with the purchase of an adult meal.

2) Cici’s Pizza

Cici’s Pizza buffet offer free meals to kids who are three and under.

3) Chick-fil-A

On Tuesdays, kids eat for free! This offer only applies to purchases of adults combos meals, and only from 5:30-7:30 p.m.

4) Denny’s

Children 10 years old and under eat free at Denny’s on Tuesdays from 4-10 p.m.

5) Firehouse Subs

With the purchase of an adult combo, your kids can eat for free. Make sure to check with your local Firehouse for specific dates and times.

6) Golden Corral

Children three and younger have free meals every day. Some locations even offer kids 10 and under free meals on Mondays.

7) Hooters

Sundays, kids eat for free between 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.

8) IHOP

From 4-8 p.m, kids 12 and under eat for free with the purchase of an adult meal.  You’ll need to check with your local IHOP for specific days.

9) IKEA

Kids eat for free on Tuesdays. You can purchase up to two children’s meals with each adult meal you buy.

10) Pizza Hut

Here is yet another “kids eat free on Tuesdays” place when an adult eats at the buffet.

11) Red Robin

Kids 10 and younger eat for free on Mondays.

12) Ruby Tuesday

Kids eat free on Tuesdays from 5 p.m. till closing with the purchase of an adult entree.

13) Texas Roadhouse

Kids 12 and under eat for free on Mondays and Tuesdays, depending on location.

14) Uno Pizzeria & Grill

Kids can eat for free on Tuesdays here with the purchase of an adult entree.

No this is not the good act done out of goodwill. If you don’t know what a favour is don’t feel bad about it even I didn’t knew what they were before I got married. They are the small or mini boxes of gifts or chocolates that are placed on every table at the wedding reception for the guests. They cost about £2.5-£3 per piece.
Multiply the above cost by 250 guests and the amount goes up by £600-£750. That’s a lot for just wedding favors. But what can you do to give the guests a heartfelt gift without going broke? If you search the internet there are a lot of wonderful ideas, you can find something you like from there. Pintrest is a good place to look.

Let’s assume you are on a budget. A decent wedding dress would easily set you back a £1,000 so we just can’t go ahead and add £750 to the bill for something many guests will leave behind. What we need is something that will cost a little less.
What you can do is make the mini boxes by hand just like in Arts and Crafts class. You will use ribbons, glitters and stickers. You can invite your friends and have a little pre-wedding get together talk about all the good times you had together, how your life is before the wedding and how it is about to change and gossip you can’t forget gossip you just can’t. And talk about other things like…you know girly stuff…
You won’t even notice how the time passed and you made more than 200 mini boxes and for the treats inside buy them in bulk this way you will get them a little cheaper and it will lower the per unit cost of your favors. Other ideas that I found interesting are listed below:

• Homemade Jams: You can give the guests homemade jams. Just remember to ask you’re your friends and family to give their empty jam jars to you. You can write names of the guests and you’re wedding date on the Jars to give them a personalized look.
• Homemade candles: There are cheap kits available online for candle making. You can distribute the number of candles needed to make among your close friends so that it remains fun and doesn’t become a chore for anyone.
• Shot glasses: There are cheap shot glasses available online and in retail stores. You can buy the simple ones and paint them as you like. Just remember to use glass paint not ordinary paint otherwise things will not go smoothly at your wedding.
• Cupcakes decorated with the names of the guests personally by the bride & groom just ask your future spouse if they are willing to do it.

If you aren’t this creative or you just don’t have the time to do it why not ask a friend. People love to get involved in these types of activities. You will be amazed by how many people are willing to do it.

Can there be a downside to coupons? I thought so when I saw an article saying so. but as I read on, none of the reasons seemed sensible enough that could stop a person from using coupons. Each reason they put forward was easy to prove wrong. Here is what they said and what I had to say to against each reason.

You must buy a newspaper or magazine

First of all newspaper and magazines are not only places to find coupons. Online websites like coupons.com, smartsource.com and redplum.com and even after you minus the per coupon print cost you still save money. As for the magazines and newspapers, friends and family that are not that big of a coupon fan will happily lend you their edition to clip coupons. Offer the local café that you can recycle their old paper weekly. Being proactive can generate many new ideas in your head.

Lots of time is consumed while cutting coupons out

But it is totally worth it! If you estimate the saving you make per coupon $1.44 (in accordance with a survey by MSNBC.com) and the time it takes to cut out a single coupon at one minute, an hour can generate $86.40 for you. Want to know what we accomplished at a store with coupons? Paid just $3.45 in cash for $258.24 worth of stuff.

Coupons offer stuff you don’t really need

Yes that true many times that is the case. But be creative enough to think out of the box. I collected few personal care items that I got for free for a couple of months and made a gift basket out of those. It came in handy when of my friends bought a new home and I had a gift ready just for her that cost me nothing.

Coupons persuade you to spend useful money into unnecessary stuff

Yes but impulse control is the key and coupons are not the only reason you get pushed to your limits into buying unnecessary stuff. The list stretches over to reasons like hungry you, kid throwing a tantrum in public or a tempting ad and much more.

Coupons remain unchanged for long times

I am happy to see the huggies coupon in every single edition. They are my essentials. For the ones that get expired without being used, they can’t talk me out of clipping coupons just because they got expired.

One more point, the UK military families living abroad can use the coupons until after six months after the date of expiration. Check out the provided link here to get the info where to send your expired coupons.

You become coupon addicted

This one is true. When you usually pay less than half on an item when you have a coupon, paying normal price feel like extended.

The shopping trips take more time

Not really. If you plan ahead arrange your coupons according to your shopping list, the systematization will save you from time wastage at the store.

The grocery shopping options have well evolved over time. That means if you are on a budget you have more than one supermarket option to go to. It also means that people are trying new routines for grocery shopping other than a trip every week.

The advice that is given to people that are going through a tight budget period can many times be depressive. A person who works hard as he/she can but still finds it tough to meet the both ends deserves a little sunshine when at least it comes to food and shopping for the food. Luckily there are further options, beyond that depressive advice that are overlooked and are pretty useful for those on a budget. Let’s explore what these options are:

The Mart

The many chains of superstores that have popped up over the few last decades may seem like they have good options to offer you. But their tags are ever so cleverly planned out. In an overflowing variety and quantity of stuff placed around at every superstore or market and at every single outlet it’s hard for you to tell, that the smaller outlet is charging an extra 50p for the same bag of flour or rice than on the larger outlet. The only way to get a bargain out of them is to keep a keen eye at rapid and sudden sales, that’s when the lowest costs are offered. Such sales are generally announced at certain times so you need to pay attention to that point too if you want to reap the max benefits of  a sale.

Old conventional markets

These are good place to find fresh quality of fresh produce at reasonable prices. The only set back is exact prices are not mentioned on every single item so you would have to ask. Verbal bargains work here. A thorough variety of seasonal fruits and vegetables can be found here.

99p Store or Bargain Basement Shop

Not everything you see here will be low cost. But there will be certain items that you can find for a lot cheaper than at any other place. There variety is good too.

Discount chains

Especially when it comes to fresh produce, their prices are lower. For other products you may not find as much of a wide range when it comes to brands but prices are often lesser.

Try other cultures

The immigrants bring with them advantages too. Chinese, Pakistani, Iraqi, Nigerian and West Indian Stores all have pretty good options we’ve never tried before. Their prices are very modest. And you can buy usually larger quantity at once for a fairly low amount.

Wholefood shop

These are small community shops play an important role in the field of direct trade. So the local farmers can drop off their fresh produce, get paid directly and better and the consumer can benefit from the freshness and low prices.

Local Butchers and Seafood Shop

They are not all unhygienic. Bargains are good and upon asking you can get the price limit as well as the tasty and cheap secondary cuts. As far as the fishmongers are concerned, you can cut back on the costing by opting for a less sought after variety.