Playpennies

I recently read an article in the Economist that talked about how recent research has shown that people value things they make far more than they do shop-bought tat. The research was fascinating. They cited the case of instant cake mixes. When these were first launched the sales were dismal. Why? Because people didn’t feel like the cakes gave them any value, that they hadn’t really earned anything by making them.

So, what did the cake mix companies do? They changed the recipe to “add an egg” and the cake mixes flew off the shelves. While the article goes into far more detail on the where’s and why’s of how we value things we do and make ourselves, I have just stolen one simple idea – don’t spend this year, save and make it yourself.

Here are some ideas that I’ve come up with, that I’ve gleaned from other smart and sassy parents, and that I’ve uncovered with judicious research.

Here we are, the second day of the new year. Perhaps you're thinking of working off all that food you ate over the holidays. Or maybe you're thinking of getting fit this year. I always think about that one. With emphasis on the word 'think'.

But it is also a time to take stock, now that the hustle and haste of the Christmas holiday is over. No more rushing about buying gifts or snapping up bargains to last you the year in the sales. My next door neighbour has bought all the presents she might need for birthdays and so forth already. Now there's a woman who's far more prepared than I am.

What if you impulse bought something you shouldn't have? Or you got an unwanted gift? Or maybe you bought or were given something that was faulty? What exactly are your rights? Read on to find out.

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So, how was your Christmas Day? Was it stunning? I really hope so. It has been a really busy and interesting year so far and, with only a few days left until 2012, I wish you the loveliest week ever. Ok, that’s the nice bit done, now I am going to come over all mercenary again by talking about unwanted Christmas gifts.

While we all appreciate the sentiment behind our Christmas gifts, sometimes the giver just gets it completely wrong. This isn’t their fault really (unless they are an angry sibling who sent you coal on purpose) so we all smile and say thank you. But space is always at a premium at home and we don’t want a cupboard full of weird Christmas items taking up valuable storage.

So, here are some great ideas on how you can get rid of your unwanted Christmas gifts and clear out that dodgy cupboard.

It is Monday, the 26th of December. Boxing Day. And that means only one thing. The sales have started!

Brave the thronging crowds as you're jostled every which way, standing in long queues and trying to figure out what is left on jumbled shelves and racks? Not on your nelly. I have far too many traumatic childhood memories of shops on this day of the year for that. My mum's family believed in getting all the crackers, cards and wrapping paper for next year's Christmas on Boxing day.

I'm shuddering just thinking of it.

Thank goodness for the internet. Seriously. I'm sitting here kissing my screen right at this moment. I can do all my shopping sat at the dining table with a tin of Quality Street on one side and a big pop of freshly brewed coffee on the other. From the smells and sizzles wafting out of the kitchen my husband is making bacon sandwiches for lunch. Who would want to leave this?

According to the internet trade body IMRG, we were going to spend £550 million on Christmas Day and Boxing Day online this year. It will be interesting to see if reality meets the expectations. Apparently many stores started their sales early online, on Christmas Eve, taking advantage of the lack of opening hours on the internet.

Our sister site, HUKD, has a brilliant Boxing Day Dashboard, where you can see all the latest and best deals available at a glance. Be quick though, they won't last long!

Read on to find out about some of the sales you won't want to miss, all of which are either just starting today or with newly added items/stock. The focus is on treats for mum, and for dad too. I'm betting that the chances are, you don't tend to buy nice things for yourself. Well in the sales, you can do just that, guilt free.

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You may think I’m being a tad mercenary here telling you to get yourself ready for the January sales when Christmas hasn’t even arrived yet. But, let me tell you, the sales are looking set to start on Christmas Day this year and if you aren’t ready and waiting, you could lose out on that awesome deal on that stunning coat you’ve been drooling over for months.

Want to do a little something different for your Christmas dinner? I've not got a big budget to spend on Christmas this year, and it feels a bit mean to give a small inexpensive present. But one way to make the gift special is to turn it into a home made cracker. That's what I've decided to do. Partly to be able to give all my guests a little something, but also because this year we have a new dining table. So I've decided to dress my dinner table for a change. It is possible I've been spending a bit too much time on Kirstie Alsopp's website though.

It also occurred to me that home made crackers would make a brilliant gift for my son to give to his teachers. I really must remember that for next year!

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The rampant consumerism at this time of the year can really get you down. Well it gets me down at any rate. I've been looking increasingly over the last few years at alternatives that aren't going to cost the Earth, literally.

Wrapping paper is one key item that I resent spending money on. OK, so it isn't exactly a huge expense. You can pick up a couple of cheap rolls of paper for less than a quid. It will be really thin, mind, and rip easily. But still it is fairly cheap, especially when you consider it is simply going to get ripped right off.

But it is all such a waste. Then there are the Christmas cards. And decorations.

So what else can you do? Here's some ideas, a few of which you and the kids can have fun doing together if you like. It also teaches them about recycling, and ways they can make good use of everything.

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We here at PlayPennies HQ spend our days hunting for deals, bargains, PlayPennies exclusives and reviews so that you can make informed (and cheap!) buying decisions. So I decided to find out exactly how Luschka, Lynley, Emma, Sarah and I saved money this Christmas.

My first victim was Lynley. I asked her what she’d bought this Christmas for her family thanks to PlayPennies deals she’d seen and whether or not she thought she’d saved any money. Her response was instantaneous, “I’ve bought stacks of stuff, to be honest. So much, in fact, that I can’t even remember all of it.”

As you know, I dove into the murky waters of Christmas cake making a month back and have been feeding no less than six Christmas cakes ever since. Yes, six. Everybody wanted one. I did try to explain that I had never made them before and that they were high risk but nobody seemed to mind.

So, after patiently feeding my cakes for four weeks it was time to wrap them in marzipan and icing and make them look fabulous. However, this task really worried me because I am not very good at that sort of thing and often the instructions on websites don’t really tell you everything you need to know. And they didn’t…

First off, nab some readymade icing from your nearest retail store. You can make your own, of course, but I honestly don’t have the time or inclination for such a sticky endeavour. For those of you that really, really want to make your own icing this is a great recipe right here.

You’ll also need some marzipan, a rolling pin, apricot jam, baking paper, icing sugar, a knife, a pastry brush, and some coloured icing or decorations. And some brandy.

Looking for something techy or gadgety for Christmas this year? Well I am at any rate. And I'm not talking about just the kids here but the whole family. Oh yes, isn't it about time we looked at some toys for mums and dads too?

There's something about flashy lights, and whizzy graphics, and things that go 'ting'. Or apps. Now apps are great although you can't wrap them and put them under the tree. At least it is one less bit of clutter to have around the house!

Here's a selection of some of the top tech Christmas presents to inspire you. I've looked for hot and trending toys or gadgets for all the family, from mum and dad, through teens to tots.

Also, I've not included toys that we've covered a bit here on PlayPennies, like the Fijit Friends. Or tablet PC toys, the Leapfrog LeapPad Explorer and the vTech Innotab. Personally I'm not sold on them, the tablet PC toys I mean. It sounds like the Innotab runs through batteries fairly quickly. But they definitely sound better than some of those toy laptops I've tried in the past that have just dreadful screens!

I can’t believe I am about to say this…It’s only two weeks to Christmas (give or take a day or two) and the time to place online orders or post Christmas cards is here. If you don’t get those items in the post, then the could very well be lurking in the cold depths of a post office come Christmas Day. To help us all in the fight for the perfect Christmas, I’ve gone out to find the Christmas posting deadlines so you can get everything done in time.

I did a Santa box last year, instead of a stocking or Santa sack, but the principle is the same. This was a sturdy, silver covered present box that I'd bought at WH Smiths, I think. Inside it was filled with all his stocking filler presents, individually wrapped. The advantage of the box (and why I thought of it) was that all the little bits could be popped back in there to keep from getting lost in the unwrapping frenzy.

Last year on PlayPennies we talked about the amount of money we would spend on the stocking fillers. Most people seemed to have a budget of around £20, and felt they were good at sticking to this. The cannier spenders made the money go as far as possible by snapping up bargains.

So here's the top ten hottest toys for children, and by hottest I mean cheapest, that are still in stock. I trawled through the pages of bargains that are posted on our sister site HUKD to find these for you. Read on for cheap stocking filler ideas.

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Lynley did a fabulous post at the end of October that outlined some of the leading toy categories for Christmas 2011 and many of those items are still sitting on the Must Have Christmas 2011 hot list still. However, there have been some new additions for kids and parents that are well worth taking a look at as we inch ever closer to the big day.

To start with the trend for virtual pets is still going strong with the likes of FurReal Cookie sitting at the top spot for Christmas buys. We recently reviewed Cookie and didn’t think he was that great so so here is our look at the top 12 trending Christmas gifts for 2011...

You might already be feeling the strain, the tugs on the purse strings that announce the imminent arrival of Christmas. As you read this feature, there is just over a month to go until the big day.

To be honest, I'm not as well prepared as I was last year. I had already got most of my son's stocking filler presents by now, and had bought family presents as early as August. I'd also already started stocking up on non-perishable essentials from September. Such as tin foil for cooking, spices for the Christmas baking, and even wrapping paper.

So far this year, I only have a few items. I just haven't had the energy or the time to devote to it this year. Perhaps what I need is a way of forcing myself to at least put the money aside so that no matter what, I'll at least have the cash or the vouchers to go shopping with if not the actual items themselves.

It is too late to start now for this Christmas, but now is a good time to be thinking about joining one of these for Christmas 2012.

Christmas is now less than six weeks away and this year I decided to make my own Christmas cake for the very first time. The thing is, you can end up spending quite a lot of money on a shop-bought Christmas cake and you aren’t guaranteed that it is going to taste very nice.

I have done a bit of research into how expensive Christmas cakes are this year and they can range from as much as £5 for just a cake topper to £75 for a homemade cake from Notonthehighstreet.com. That’s a lot of money for something that’s going to get eaten! So, I have gone and hunted for cheap and cheerful Christmas cake recipes, actually made them, and then compared how much they cost to make versus the shops.

Christmas should be about indulgence, spending a little bit more, treating yourself and your family. But it shouldn't be about getting yourself in debt or leaving yourself broke and without a brass farthing on January 2nd. With three weeks till payday.

So there's a balance to be had in there, a middle ground where you can achieve the former without ending up with the latter as well. As always I'm following in the footsteps of cannier parents here, PlayPennies mums and dads who've learnt their lessons the hard way. And now they're sharing with me, and you, so we don't have to!

If you're after a cheaper Christmas this year, there here's what you should be doing now in late November to get ready.

Christmas is approaching fast with under two months to go until the big day and, with all the belt tightening going on, there are many ways you can whip your home into festive shape without spending a lot of money. Here are some simple ideas for decorating the home this Christmas. 

I was probably the world's most clueless mother, but it never really occurred to me that baby would need playtime. More, I mean, than a rattle. Sure, I knew that my son would want to throw a few bricks around, and gum a toy giraffe, when he was starting to sit up and explore his world. But the fact that at two months he'd want to do some entertaining on his own was a surprise.

We spent two weeks staying at my sister's where he had two slightly older cousins - my son was two months old, one nephew was a year old and the other was two years old. And that was more than enough really. I could just prop him securely on the sofa and he would happily spend a half hour or so just watching the older boys running around the room.

If you don't have older siblings or other children to hand, then there's a few other popular ways of letting your baby explore his or her world on their own. Baby bouncer chairs, baby bouncers, baby walkers and play pens. What are the pros and cons of each? What do they do? Are they right for your baby? And for you? Here I'll try to answer some of those questions based on my own experience, that of our PlayPennies parents, and the vast amount of knowledge that's available out there on the good old internet.

Christmas is less than two months away now and if you haven’t already bought all your Christmas gifts, then now is the time to start planning and sorting them out, especially if you are thinking of making them yourself. Leaving it any longer will just leave you frazzled.

This year I am on a huge mission to really cut enormous Christmas corners without making it look like I have. So, no big, shiny gadgets or fat gift vouchers and expensive bath treats from my family this year but I want the gifts to still be cool. You know, so people don’t open the present and go, “Oh yay, homemade scratchy socks…” And here are five recipes, ideas and thoughts that won’t cost a lot to make and will turn into yummy and lovely Christmas gifts.

Winter has popped its head around the corner and is inching across the ground. The nights are drawing in and the wind has a bit of a bite. What better time to learn how to make soup and to whip up cheap and cheerful recipes that can be eaten for lunch or frozen for a cold and snowy day.

A classic soup is, of course, tomato soup. Tomatoes have been proven to have preventative power over cancer and are high in Vitamin A, Vitamin C, calcium, potassium and Lycopene. And, one of the best ways of eating it is in a lovely, fresh soup. I went and hunted for a recipe that tasted good and didn’t cost a bomb.