If you’re still panicking about presents – whether that’s because the big day is almost upon us, or because your budget is teeny – then there’s good news… I’ve added trillions of new Christmas gifts under £10 to Keep Christmas Cheap!

OK, that’s a little bit of an exaggeration… I’ve actually added about 40 or so.  They’re all fab though, personally selected by me from a variety of online stores.

I’m particularly impressed by the USB heated slippers from findmeagift.com – so impressed, in fact, that I’ve ordered a pair for a young lady I know who sits up all night playing Sims in a cold, cold house… nope, it’s not me, but you’re getting warmer…

Hope you’ll enjoy the latest batch of site updates, and I’ll let you know when the site’s updated again.  Until then, keep it cheap!

Debs x

If, like me, you’ve still not finished your Christmas shopping yet, then you’ll be pleased to know that you can get discounts on your Christmas shopping by visiting Keep Christmas Cheap.

This morning I’ve added some new discount codes to the existing list; if you’re looking for toys and gadgets you can get 5% off at GadgetePoint and ToysGamesGifts, and if you want to buy high street fragrances without paying high street prices, pop over to Fragrance Zone and get 5% off their already low prices.

To get the links and the discount voucher codes, please visit our shopping discount codes page.

Consumers spending less on presents and buying fewer luxury foods

02 December 2008, Caernarfon, Gwynedd

A survey has revealed that consumers will spend, on average, £600 less on celebrating Christmas this year than they did in 2007, saving money by buying fewer luxury foods and spending less on Christmas presents.

The survey, conducted by Keep Christmas Cheap (www.keepchristmascheap.co.uk), revealed that while respondents don’t necessarily foresee major financial problems in these final few weeks before Christmas, they’re tightening their belts to avoid problems later.

• 41% of respondents will spend £10-£20 per gift – compared to 29.1% in 2007
• The majority of respondents (20%) will spend a total of £300-£400 celebrating Christmas in 2008, compared to 10.9% spending the same in 2007
• In 2007 30.9% of respondents spent more than £1,000 on their festive celebrations; in 2008, only 14.5% said they would spend this much
• 23.6% will save money this Christmas by buying fewer convenience foods, such as ready-prepared vegetables and ready-made gravy
• 40% will buy fewer luxury foods, for example tins of sweets, nuts and crisps
• 25.5% will spend less on alcohol
• 32.7% said they would buy cheaper gifts, while 27.3% said they would buy fewer presents.

However, there’s good news for ‘budget’ supermarkets like Aldi and Lidl, and for cashback websites; 10.9% said they would use them to save cash, while 24% said they’d look out for special offers and cashback schemes online.

“I’m not at all surprised that people are spending less this Christmas,” said Keep Christmas Cheap’s developer, Debs Williams, of Caernarfon in North Wales. “Many of us have had a tough year, and even those that are doing OK are cautious about overspending, preferring to squirrel away what they can in preparation for the coming year, which might be even tougher.”

Mum-of-one Williams, 39, is herself no stranger to financial difficulty. “Keep Christmas Cheap came from my own worries about being unable to afford Christmas this year,” she says. “I was made redundant in February without redundancy pay. There were no job opportunities for marketing professionals in my local area, so I decided to take the plunge and start my own business, providing marketing services to businesses who don’t want to employ a full time marketing manager.”

But while the business – debbidoo Ltd (www.debbidoo.com) – has done reasonably well for a new business that had no investment to kick-start it, Williams started panicking in mid-October when she realised her small salary wasn’t going to cover Christmas.

“I was very stressed,” she admits. “I lost my Nan last Christmas so it’s a difficult time of year, and having no money was an additional worry I didn’t need.”

Working long hours and worrying about Christmas took their toll on her health, and she developed a viral throat problem brought on, according to her GP, by stress.

“My doctor was great,” she says. “He reassured me that I was doing everything I could, and said that being stressed about Christmas – on top of my obsessive working – was making me ill. He suggested I tackle my money worries by doing something positive.”

It was about this time that one of Williams’ clients also started mentioning Christmas money worries, asking how she could do more to market her business without significantly increasing her marketing budget.

“It was like a light bulb going on in my head,” says Williams. “Realising that small businesses are hurting just as much as consumers triggered the idea for ‘ridiculously cheap advertising’, a key feature of Keep Christmas Cheap. Advertisers pay a one-off fee of £10 per page, so they can target consumers looking for Christmas bargains without paying a fortune in advertising fees.”

Williams took less than three weeks to develop the concept for Keep Christmas Cheap and to design and build the website, initially advertising some of her clients’ products for free so that there would be enough content to attract visitors.

“Far from reducing my workload, like my GP suggested, I actually worked harder during those three weeks than I had before,” Williams admits, “but this time there was no stress, only excitement. The response from my clients, friends, family and business associates has been amazing; they’ve all been so enthusiastic, and their enthusiasm and support has really kept me going.”

Since going live on 28 October, keepchristmascheap.co.uk has attracted nearly 1,900 unique visitors who have visited the site more than 2,000 times and viewed over 8,150 pages. “Lack of funds has meant I’ve not been able to launch the site with the sort of fanfare I would’ve liked,” Williams says, “but considering I spend just £1.50 per day to advertise the site, I think 2,000 visits in the space of a few weeks is a tremendous achievement. The average number of daily visitors has increased from 50-odd a couple of weeks ago to over 100 a day and rising. There are a lot of consumers who want to save money this Christmas.”

The Cost of Christmas 2008 survey reveals that over 40% of respondents will spend £10-£20 per gift this Christmas, and this, says Williams, is also evident from Keep Christmas Cheap’s visitor statistics. “All the gifts featured on Keep Christmas Cheap can be bought or made for less than £20, but I’ve noticed that the majority of people visiting the site’s Christmas Gifts category head straight for the “Gifts under £10” section,” she says. “Organic search sends 37% of the site’s traffic, and 34% of those visits result from search terms relating to gifts for under £10.”

If there’s one piece of advice Williams would offer to people struggling to make ends meet this Christmas, it’s to be honest. “Don’t place unnecessary pressure on yourself if you don’t think you can afford to spend much this Christmas,” she says. “Be honest with your friends and family, and tell them that you can’t afford to spend much on them. I was dreading telling my family that I couldn’t afford expensive presents this year, but when I finally plucked up the courage, not only were they really supportive and understanding, but it turned out a few of my friends and relatives are also worried about money. We agreed to limit our spending – or cut out gifts completely this year – and concentrate on the peace and goodwill rather than the commercialism. It’s a great relief, and now I’m actually looking forward to Christmas rather than dreading it like I was a few weeks ago.”

-ENDS-

Notes to editors:

To download the full survey results in PDF form, please visit www.keepchristmascheap.co.uk/cost-of-christmas-2008.html

For further information, please contact Debs Williams at debbidoo Ltd:

christmas@debbidoo.com
02921 25 26 26
Skype: debbidoo.ltd

Posted in Promoting Keep Christmas Cheap Tagged: christmas news, christmas spending, christmas survey, cost of christmas, Keep Christmas Cheap ]]> https://keepchristmascheap.wordpress.com/2008/12/02/average-cost-of-christmas-drops/feed/ 0 debbidoo https://keepchristmascheap.wordpress.com/2008/11/28/gifts-in-the-under-5-category-doubled/ https://keepchristmascheap.wordpress.com/2008/11/28/gifts-in-the-under-5-category-doubled/#respond Fri, 28 Nov 2008 00:27:50 +0000 http://keepchristmascheap.wordpress.com/?p=82 Continue reading →]]> Tarran-tarrah! The Gifts Under £5 category at Keep Christmas Cheap now contains twice as many cheap Christmas gift ideas as it did this morning.  Woohoo!

There’s gifts for kids, gifts for the home, gifts for him, gifts for her and gifts that would be great for either men or women. You know the sort of thing – those daft gadgets that would be suitable for just about anybody…

I’ve added gifts from some really cool online stores, including Toysgamesgifts, Bouncy Happy People, Character Online and Supershoppa, to name but a few.  Gifts include some lovely character toys including Scooby Doo and Peppa Pig, as well as some nifty gadgets for the young at heart.

I think my favourite gift under £5 of those that I added today has to be the bottle top ashtray.  It’s one of those daft inventions that just make me smile like a loony, and I’ve already decided who I’m buying it for.  Well, it’s a toss-up between that and the beer belt :)  I’m sure the friend in question will be just as happy with either… and at less than a fiver each, I might go to town and buy him both!

Happy shopping!

I’ve gathered voucher codes for some great discounts against your online Christmas shopping, including a whopping 15% off at online toy store Character Online and 10% off iRiver products at Advanced MP3 Players.

To get the codes, all you need to do is pop over to our new shopping discount codes page, click any links that interest you, and add the relevant discount code at the checkout when you’ve finished shopping.  Couldn’t be easier!

Happy shopping!

Perhaps you have a favourite Christmas drink recipe you’d like to tell people about – for example punch or eggnog – or maybe you’ve invented a really special stuffing for your Christmas turkey that you’d be happy to share with our readers.  Or maybe you’re a veggie or a vegan and would like to share your favourite meat-free recipes with visitors to Keep Christmas Cheap.

If you have a Christmas food or drink idea that you’d like to share, please pop over to Keep Christmas Cheap and submit your tip.

But I’ve more than made up for it today, by adding simply TONS of new stocking fillers to Keep Christmas Cheap; the stocking fillers category has more than doubled in size today, and there’s more to come!

Today I’ve added some fantastic toys that cost less than £2, from online retailers Tridias, Toy Day and Bouncy Happy People.  Think of me as your personal Christmas shopper… I sniff out all the cheapest Christmas products and then hand them over to you for browsing.  It’s a lot of work – each page of Keep Christmas Cheap is hand built, there’s nothing automatic about it – but boy, is it fun…

Happy shopping!

Just finished an intense day of adding loads more Christmas gifts to Keep Christmas Cheap.  This time it’s jewellery by Pia Jewellery, who stock beautiful, unusual jewellery that I’ve not seen anywhere else before…

You’ll find these products in the Christmas gifts under £20, Christmas gifts under £15 and Christmas gifts under £10 categories.  Check it out!

My favourite products in this section are the balloon headwear items – they’re hilarious!  I can just imagine my hubby wearing one of these while we eat Christmas dinner… ho ho ho!

Yvonne submitted some cracking tips:

• Make your own stained glass windows
• Sweets in socks as a stocking filler
• Festive serving dishes
• Airtight gift boxes

I’m particularly impressed by the sweets in socks idea; personally, I think retailers really get it wrong when they advertise “stocking fillers” at £5 and £10 a pop… that’s far too expensive for a stocking filler!  At those prices, to give someone a decent-sized stocking would cost well over a hundred quid!  I’ve always thought stocking fillers should cost under £2 if possible, under £3 maximum, and that’s why the stocking fillers category at Keep Christmas Cheap only contains things you can buy or make for less than £2 each.

By the way, if the stocking fillers category seems a little short on ideas at the moment, fear not – I’ll be adding more over the next few days.  It’s worth bookmarking* Keep Christmas Cheap as there are site updates literally every day in these last few weeks before Christmas.  To find out what those site updates are, try subscribing to this blog, as I post here every time I update the main website.  To do this, scroll to the bottom of the right-hand column of any page on this blog and click on “subscribe in a reader” if you use a feed reader, or “subscribe by email” if you don’t.  Our feeds are powered by Feedburner, so they’re safe and spam-free.

* To bookmark Keep Christmas Cheap in your browser:

1. Visit http://www.keepchristmascheap.co.uk
2. If you use Internet Explorer or Firefox, press CTRL+D at the same time; this will add the page to your favourites
3. Whenever you want to visit Keep Christmas Cheap, open your Favourites folder and select “Keep Christmas Cheap”