84 sleeps til Reindl Christmas - Money Matters (festive budgeting)

Before I start I just want to make it known that I won't be posting any amounts on this subject. Whether you spend $250 on Christmas or $2,500 it doesn't matter to anyone except you and your family. I want to make sure everyone is clear that we each try to stick to a budget that fits us as we each belong to a different demographic, culture and income bracket. That said there are very few people I know that will actually budget for Christmas and even fewer that are actually able to stick to it!

Last year I had a budget as financially we were in a difficult situation and there was literally no way to spend any extra on Christmas without taking food from our children's mouths or fuel out of our car. From memory I do recall being a little sneaky and as we approached mid-November I would purposely shop for groceries as frugally as possible so I could stash a bit more towards presents and the likes. This year although we still have not won lotto (yet) we do have more money to spend than we did last Christmas. So I sat down this week and wrote down every possible Christmas-related expense that could possibly apply to us. 

The next step was to go through each item on my budget and fill in the 'budgeted amount' with how much I would LIKE to spend on that item. Once that was done I grabbed a calculator to total my budget, wanna know what it equaled..? Too much! I then went back through and crossed out any amount I could, to replace it with a figure that seamed more reasonable. Just by doing this I halved the amount that I had budgeted. 

The Reindl man and I have been in discussions over the past week about how to pay for Christmas. Eg he thinks me paying $36 for a king size santa bedspread is ridiculous and isn't happy to spend "Family money" to pay for items that 'I want'. So we have agreed that items such as Santa presents, kids presents, alcohol and food for his family's Christmas Day gathering shall come out of the family budget. Anything else that he sees as 'unnecessary' (class gifts, charity donation, santa photos, elf items and the like) comes out of my own weekly allowance. I'm happy with that agreement as I feel like I'd be better at sticking to the budget that way. 

Each week I've been purchasing Coles prepaid gift MasterCards to assist with the purchases that will be coming up soon. They don't need to be registered or activated, once purchased they can be used straight away and are available in $50 and $100 amounts. The cost of the card includes a $5 card purchase fee (so total price is $55/$105) but the best part is that  you can get flybuys both on the purchase of the card and when you make purchases with the card at stores that accept flybuys. 

Flybuys is something I've grown EXTRA fond of lately with learning about coupon stacking, the 'We <3 flybuys' Facebook community and the upcoming 'points for packing' offer. I've always used flybuys as a way to buy more at Xmas time than I would usually be able to, but this year I've gone a bit flybuys mad. My meal planning is even based around meal planning! 

"Mum what's for lunch?"

"Two minute noodles with asparagus and paprika"

"I wish flybuys would give Mum better bonus point offers!" 

Well it hasn't gotten that bad... but still. So not only will flybuys help me with buying an extra toy or two for the kids for Christmas but it will also help me purchase something cool for the Kmart wishing tree and to pay for all the perishable items that will accompany the non-perishable items that I've been collecting in my DIY food hamper. It just helps make Christmas a more enjoyable and less stressful time. 

Using a budget and store rewards cards will help you progress through the silly season with ease and tact. 

100 days til Reindl Christmas 2017 - Tips for an easy festive season

Every year I'm the girl wandering the aisles in target in September, asking staff when the Christmas decorations are going to be stocked. Yup I'm that annoying person that's dying to put their Christmas tree up as soon as Halloween is over. I'm reminding my family in august that "there's only "x" pay days until Christmas. Not to mention the eleventeen lists I have going for Christmas food, elf on the shelf activities and presents to be brought.

I'll share with you guys a few tips I have for keeping sane during the silly season; some of my own and some that I've picked up from fellow bloggers as my family has grown. My first one is to do with stock piling the food in preparation for all the visitors that tend to pop over around Christmas. It comes from a fellow Christmas mum and blogger Bec Edwards from Mum plus four. 

This week Bec posted about making a list of all the treat foods your family would like around Christmas time and putting $5 per week aside to buy these things while your doing your groceries. When you get home you put your Xmas treat food separate to all the other family food in a large and durable storage container. That way it's all ready for when Christmas time rolls around and you can do all your Christmas baking. Plus you'll have snacks ready for when you all sit down to watch Christmas movies. You can read all about her hamper building here on her Facebook post. 

So this weekend I went out and brought a 50L tub and put my $5 worth in (jelly, custard, milk and pasta). During the same day I realised my pantry was a complete shambles so while reorganising the shelves I took anything off the shelf that I had brought over a month ago and added it to my DIY hamper. Obviously if it's been there a whole month I'm not going to miss it, and would you believe there was so much there I actually had entire meals to be added mo my hamper! So pleased with my stash! 

Other than food, the other expense that can really trouble families around Christmas time is presents. Every year during the toy sales I say I should put on a layby, I never do, and then come christmas time I panic that we have no money and very few presents. This year I actually managed to put on a Big W toy sale layby with all the kids big presents. And then this week I've put on another layby with all the kids stocking fillers. I keep track of all the presents with an app that I downloaded called "santas bag". It keeps track of how much the present is, who it's for, a picture of the item, and what store it's from. There's even an option to add if it needs to be brought/ has been ordered/ been wrapped/ etc. I love it!

Another tip from fellow blogger and admin of all the Mum pages (Christmas mums, party mums, wedding mums, home and organising mums, just to name a few) Mandy Gambier from my lovely little nest was to put things on Sleigh-by. Due to me having my children 98% of the time, I don't get a chance to go shopping alone. So when I went to the shops with my 3.5yr and 18mo and they saw all of these cool towels, bath toys and art supplies I had to give an explanation. Luckily I'd earlier read madys tip so told the girls that the stuff was all being taken out the back and the elves were going to fly it up to santa in the North Pole. If santa decided they had been good enough, he might bring some of it with him when he visits on Christmas Eve. 

So another element of Christmas that is brcoming more popular is the 'elf on the shelf', we've been running this for four years but I suddenly realised the other day that there's a mild chance we may be on vacation from mid December until the day before Christmas Eve. So after a quick Pinterest session I found Hallie Noves blog Life in random bits and her post traveling with elf on the shelf gives two options for vacationing families. You can either pre take all the photos of the elf antics and say the elf is sending them to you, or take the elf with you and you have a whole new destination to play with the elf! 

Have fun progressing through the Christmas season with me!