Christmas is just four weeks away!! I’m not quite sure how that happened but it can be such a manic time of year where spending can go a little crazy. There’s a lot of pressure to have the perfect Christmas and I know all too well how easy it can be to overspend which is why I wanted to take part in the Christmas Savings Challenge with Shepherds Friendly.

Shepherd’s Friendly are a UK friendly society and one of the oldest and fastest growing mutual insurers in the world that provide Children and Adult saving plans as well as insurance products. They have set up a Christmas Savings Challenge to help us cut down on our daily spending and to focus on saving those pennies for Christmas.

There’ll be three different challenges to complete over the course of four weeks.

Here are just some examples of ways to save:

• Making the most of ‘Black Friday’ deals
• Searching for Voucher codes for Christmas shopping. (So, the saving would be what you saved on a purchase.)
• Curbing your daily coffee and save the change for a mulled wine at Christmas
• Cancel any unused subscriptions
• Stash the cash – Putting loose change in jar
• Creating your own decorations for the tree and your house
• Being resourceful with food and drink for the Christmas feast
• Making the most of Free and cheap days out and activities for all the family

I have chosen the following challenges to try and see how much money I can save over the next month. I’ll be using this handy Christmas Savings Chart which Shepherds Friendly have created to help me along the way.

1. Putting loose change in a jar

I am planning on getting the whole family on board with this one! I am terrible at leaving loose change around the house and Mr H always has change in his pockets. We’re using a jam jar to pop in our change at the end of each day and the boys will be doing the same with any coins they see lying around the house too.

2. Use voucher codes

I used to be really good at getting into the habit of scouring for any available voucher codes before purchasing online but that seems to have fallen by the wayside recently. I did, however, manage to take advantage of some of the recent Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals and purchased some Christmas presents that were reduced.

3. Making the most of Free and cheap days out and activities for all the family

It’s a lovely time of year to enjoy the festivities with days out but that doesn’t mean we have to spend a small fortune in doing so. We’re lucky to have a few National Trust places with free entry in our local area we can visit that offer Christmas activities for a nominal fee. We can also save money by having a movie night complete with homemade popcorn and treats instead of a trip to the cinema.

I will report back to you all once the challenge ends to let you know how we got on and show you how much money we managed to save too.

Why not join me and take on the Christmas Saving Challenge too?
Find out more about Shepherds Friendly and download the Christmas Savings Chart here.

This is a sponsored post, written in collaboration with Shepherds Friendly