subject: Looking To Save Money Before Christmas? Your Home Luxuries Don't Have To Face The Cut [print this page] The time of year that everyone enjoys, Christmas can, for many, also be a time that leaves people feeling down and deflated.
Not because of the fact that they haven't had a good time over the festive period or they didn't get the presents that they hoped they would, it's very often due to the fact that they've been left in somewhat of a financial mess.
Whilst some people begin to put money aside for Christmas early in the year, it's no surprise that a lot of people don't even start to think about the financial implications of Christmas until October or November.
And whilst leaving your Christmas financial planning to this time of year will no doubt make you feel a whole lot more festive, it's also likely to leave you with an empty wallet and either a large overdraft or a substantial credit card bill - or both.
For the people who wait until the weeks before Christmas, it often means that they have to start sacrificing a number of their regular outgoings, simply so that they can begin to reduce how much money they'll have to borrow.
Of the things to be cut back on, home luxuries are very often the first to go, as they aren't, for anyone, counted as necessary outgoings.
However, this is a drastic measure to take, as with just a bit of planning, you can remove the need to cut the luxury from your life completely and can instead simply pay less, allowing you to enjoy Christmas without seeing a detrimental effect on your finances and the following information explains how you can cut back on three home luxuries.
1. TV - most people up and down the UK have a television that they watch regularly. Whilst the standard BBC 1, BBC 2, ITV 1, Channel 4 and Channel 5 are all free to watch, it's the additional channels that come through satellite or cable television packages that cost money.
If you're considering cutting back on your satellite or cable television subscription, thinking that you'll go without for a few months, it's strongly recommended that you look at what channels you actually watch, as there's a good chance a large portion of them are available for free either through a free set-top box or via the channel's online service.
2. Broadband - now seen by many as a necessity in any home, broadband is something that has so many different uses, it's difficult to know how you could live without it.
Therefore, rather than swapping to an old dial up connection for a few months, look at how much you pay and consider changing because as of November 2010, you can subscribe to broadband in some areas of the United Kingdom for less than five pounds a month.
3. Food bills - the majority of families splash out on food and drink during the festive period and it can put somewhat of a dampener on your Christmas celebrations if you don't have the opportunity to eat and drink what you want.
The most important point you can keep in mind here is that just because something costs more money, it doesn't mean that it's going to be of a higher quality - a lot of the time, the supermarket's own brand is just as good, if not better.
And if you're unsure of this, an article in the Daily Mail on 4 June 2010 explained that 48 percent of people who earned between 25,000 pounds and 50,000 pounds in the UK would opt for a supermarket's own brand if available, even though they could easily afford to choose something more costly.
