{"id":67128,"date":"2023-09-13T20:05:41","date_gmt":"2023-09-13T20:05:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rapidcelnews.com\/?p=67128"},"modified":"2023-09-13T20:05:41","modified_gmt":"2023-09-13T20:05:41","slug":"want-to-be-ready-in-time-for-christmas-start-preparing-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rapidcelnews.com\/lifestyle\/want-to-be-ready-in-time-for-christmas-start-preparing-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Want to be ready in time for Christmas? Start preparing NOW"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>I&#8217;m a money saving expert and here&#8217;s how you can start prepping for Christmas NOW<\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>UK money expert Claer Barrett told This Morning where you can make savings<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>READ MORE:\u00a0Is this the end of the tearjerker John Lewis Christmas advert?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span>If you want to be ready for <\/span><span>Christmas<\/span><span>, the best time to start planning is right now, a money expert has revealed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Speaking on Lorraine, Financial Times&#8217; consumer editor Claer Barrett revealed why &#8211; with 103 days left until the festive day &#8211; it&#8217;s good to get your ducks in a row now.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>&#8216;Like everything in life, if you plan ahead, you can save,&#8217; she told the programme.\u00a0&#8216;We&#8217;re all being squeezed in different ways.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>&#8216;We may not admit it openly in conversation but I think the key thing is we&#8217;re honest about what we can afford this Christmas and we agree the rules of Christmas with friends and family.&#8217;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>She laid out her top tips for making the most of Yuletide prep ahead of time, including frank and open conversations with loved ones and saving-savvy supermarket tips.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/09\/13\/12\/75377419-12512921-Speaking_on_Lorraine_Financial_Times_consumer_editor_Claer_Barre-a-6_1694604129789.jpg\" height=\"453\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Speaking on Lorraine, Financial Times&#8217; consumer editor Claer Barrett (pictured) revealed why &#8211; with 103 days left until the festive day &#8211; it&#8217;s good to get your ducks in a row now<\/p>\n<p><span>1. HAVE THE MONEY CONVERSATION SOONER THAN LATER<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Claer explained that laying out the plans for big and small costs ahead of the holidays is the key to knowing where you&#8217;ll splurge and where you&#8217;ll tighten the purse-strings.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Where are we gonna go, whether we&#8217;re gonna get presents for everyone, concentrate the money on the children&#8230;agree those rules early,&#8217; she said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Because this is the time of year everyone starts saying, &#8220;Well where are we gonna be?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;So make the finances part of that conversation.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>She added that you may be surprised by how comfortable it will be to chat about where you can limit unnecessary spending.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Your friends and relatives are struggling too and they&#8217;ll be relieved that you&#8217;ve brought it up,&#8217; Claer explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/09\/13\/12\/75377417-12512921-If_you_want_to_be_ready_for_Christmas_the_best_time_to_start_pla-a-8_1694604139459.jpg\" height=\"386\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>If you want to be ready for Christmas , the best time to start planning is right now, a money expert has revealed<\/p>\n<p><span>2. START SAVING NOW &#8211; A LITTLE GOES A LONG WAY\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Claer said that, with 14 weeks left to go, there&#8217;s plenty of time to make small but impactful savings.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Look at it in terms of \u00a310 a week,&#8217; she explained. &#8216;If one person did that until Christmas, they&#8217;d have \u00a3140 but if you and your partner committed to save just \u00a310 a week you&#8217;d have nearly \u00a3300 so that&#8217;s more than half of the cost.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>She added you could even put that into a separate savings account, to get interest on it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile she also\u00a0stressed the importance of thinking about the value of your money when budgeting for the Christmas spread.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;The average UK household spent around \u00a3600 on Christmas last year,&#8217; she said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Now, inflation&#8217;s been running close to 10 per cent for most of this year, higher on food, so obviously this year is gonna be a bigger spend for many people &#8211; or you spend the same amount and you get less for your money.<\/p>\n<p>Because of that, when you lay your plan out, think about\u00a0&#8216;what areas could you potentially trim&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p><span>3. GET YOUR STAMPS EARLY\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re a fan of hand-written cards, you better stack up on your stamps, Claer advised &#8211; as first-class ones are about to become more expensive.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;The price of first class stamps is gonna go up again on October 2 by 14 per cent, \u00a31.25,&#8217; she said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;If you buy them before that date you ca still use them&#8230; second class\u00a0 stamps will stay the same 75p.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p><span>4. DON&#8217;T BE AFRAID TO REGIFT\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Claer revealed that as she prepares to gift loved ones for the festive seasons, she has a little &#8216;Christmas box&#8217; where she may pop in odd small items.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But she also said there is no shame in regifting, if the item is still in its packaging and if you think it&#8217;s the perfect pick.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;I think its completely fine,&#8217; she added. &#8216;I do it, don&#8217;t be ashamed.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/femail\/article-12512921\/Im-money-saving-expert-heres-start-prepping-Christmas-NOW.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m a money saving expert and here&#8217;s how you can start prepping for Christmas NOW UK money expert Claer Barrett told This Morning where you can make savings READ MORE:\u00a0Is this the end of the tearjerker John Lewis Christmas advert? If you want to be ready for Christmas, the best time to start planning is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67127,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Want to be ready in time for Christmas? Start preparing NOW - rapidcelnews.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/rapidcelnews.com\/lifestyle\/want-to-be-ready-in-time-for-christmas-start-preparing-now\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Want to be ready in time for Christmas? 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